No Rest For The Wicked

'This is interesting,' thought Levi, prodding the head that snapped at his finger. The impossibility was not lost on him, but it took more than a sentient decapitated head to rattle him; though it wasn't far off.

He heard a startled voice and turned to see the officer he'd saved. As far as near-death encounters went, he looked in fine spirits. At least if you ignored the shell-shocked expression and worrying pallor. 

"How?" he asked, agape at the feisty head Levi held. 

"Sure, let me check my dictionary for, 'shit that makes absolutely no fuckin' sense.' Ah! Would you look at that? I have no fuckin' clue," he snorted out in a deep southern drawl while he let the head drop to the floor, a wet squelch as his boot crunched it underfoot. A sloppy soup of flesh and cranial fluids squirted onto his boots and trouser bottoms, a momentary regret filling him; especially when he heard the officer retch and the sound of puking ensued.

"Did you have to do that?" the officer asked a few minutes later, his voice hoarse. 

"Nah. Just wanted to," Levi replied, with an amused smirk, and gave him a slap on the shoulder. "Brighten up, at least you're still alive to throw up. More than I can say about some of these fuckers," his foot kicking a decapitated body on the floor.

"What about Jack? Is he alive?" the officer asked, Levi's gaze wandering to the still body of the other deputy. 

The man's face fell when his eyes also settled on his partner. His hands slipped in his own vomit as he scrambled to his feet and ran over while muttering to himself. 

Levi followed, flicking the blood off his sword and using his shirt to clean the remnants from the blade. He scrutinised it for any nicks, and with a self-assured smile found nothing, deftly sliding it back into its sheath. 

He observed the officer sobbing over his companion covered in blood. "He's not dead if that's what you think. Besides that sprained ankle and a concussion, I'd say he's fine. All that blood's from when he knocked himself out."

"Really?" he asked, his voice anxious.

"Saw it happen myself," Levi replied, his eyes absently watching the crowd of curious drivers gather now that things had settled down. They looked at him and the bodies with fear, and he looked at his blood-spattered clothes. 'Typical reaction, I suppose.'

Not long after the first few patrol cars pulled up, they began to try and get things under control. Covering bodies, treating the wounded, getting people back in their cars and on the move away from the crime scene. But with the return of order came its own set of problems. 

People demanded answers. For one, why somebody was walking around with a deadly weapon. And two, how to handle said citizen decapitating two people in the middle of Longfellow Bridge.

When the first voices calling him out, he knew he should have made himself scarce. But knowing he'd saved two people and that they'd probably only end up coming to his apartment if he left kept him there. The two officers he'd actually saved seemed to try and vouch for him, but with the wary looks he was getting from the others they soon took his sword, slapped him in cuffs and put him in the back of a police cruiser.

—

"I heard what you did back there for Rudy and Jack. Rudy told us everything," said the officer, driving, looking up at the rear-view mirror. "I just wanna say I appreciate what you did." 

Levi gave a half nod of acknowledgment, really wanting to ignore him. Already annoyed at having been arrested, now the officer was trying to make small talk. "Told us you saved 'em both. Said they'd be goners if it weren't for your. Well… Well, I'm not really sure what it is you did," he looked away, shifting in his seat. "But I saw what was left."

Levi wasn't going to respond, but looking out at the city, his mind couldn't help but ask, 'why are there so many fires?' Associations being made that he wasn't comfortable with. "I don't care," he retorted without care. "But if you're grateful, can you answer something for me? "

The officer's eyes narrowed; "depends what the question is."

"What do you know about all these fires going on across the city?"

"The fires?" he blinked, before he paid attention outside and noticed dozens of smoke plumes in the air. "What the hell…"

Levi heard his words and knew he was just as clueless. "Anything weird been happening in the last few days?" Levi asked.

"Yeah, there were a couple thing..s.." the officer began, before his eyes widened and he began to go pale. 

'Ah. That's not a comforting reaction,' thought Levi, rubbing his head in annoyance. He'd had his suspicions, but this all but confirmed it. 

The drive after that had been quiet, a shallow victory in Levi's opinion. The driver now seemed far more occupied with his own thoughts and dropped off Levi as soon as he could at the station before rushing off. It wasn't a long process; he was booked, searched, and shooed off into a cell with zero trouble; which all things considered was better than he'd expected.

'What happened at the bridge wasn't a one-off,' that was a sobering thought, and going by the scale of the fires, he'd find them all over the city. He'd thought the reaction of the officers when they arrived had been odd. Although they looked shaken, it was more than the brutality. It was something more existential, like spotting something familiar you didn't want to see again.

But for how far it went, he didn't know. Though he had his own guesses. It was hard not to when people got killed and five minutes later got back up transformed into raving lunatics.

In the car, he considered catching up on some sleep in the cell until they brought him in for questioning. That idea went out the window the moment he walked in. The whole building was alive with frantic energy. The dispatchers kept answering calls, while officers ran in and out of the building responding to calls. The prisoners picked up on it and hollered for answers from those who walked past. 

While it only affirmed his guess that something was happening and the police were scrambling, it also killed any hope of getting sleep. Ideas circulated, but within the cell confines, there wasn't much he could do. So instead, he leaned against a wall and closed his eyes, resigned to bide his time until they released him.

Hours passed, and with only the artificial cell lighting, it was hard to tell how much time had gone by. There wasn't much to break the monotony besides the yammering of the prisoners and the occasional new arrivals. 

He'd got two himself. They weren't great company. One was a thin and gangly man called Eric, with a sallow face, mournful eyes and a mop of scruffy brown hair. He hid in the corner trembling ever since he'd come in. The other was a tattooed brute, whose name he neither got nor wanted. Levi had found him less agreeable. He entered, proceeded to give Levi the stink eye, got in his face and in short order had got knocked out.

Officers didn't burst through the door and restrain him like he'd half expected, and instead, the man had lain out cold on the floor for some hour or two now. It seemed those cameras flashing in the corner were more for show. That or they had bigger fish to fry. And as it turned out, it appeared to be the latter.

Levi didn't know when the first distant screams or gunshots had started, but by the time the first gunshots sounded outside his cell, he'd long been on the ground behind his unconscious cellmate's body. Shouts and screams abounded, the officers shooting unceasingly at a foe unseen behind the cell walls. 

Twice he felt his body shield, in front, shudder, Eric letting out sharp breaths behind each time. The whole time muttering about someone called 'Rose' and promising to high hell he'd give it all up if he survived. 

It was several minutes before the sounds got further away, and several more before Levi finally felt safe enough to get to his feet. 

No surprise the man he'd used for cover was dead. One shot to the liver and another to the lung. He doubted anyone would miss him; he certainly wouldn't lose any sleep, but still gave a silent thanks for tanking two bullets that might have killed him. 

Eric was fine, physically at least. His eyes though, now reminded him of the local evangelicals that used to go door to door in his town as a kid, proselytising the joys of the 'good book'. A newfound purpose burned within those eyes. Near-death experiences were always a great motivator.

Peering out of the small hole in the cell door, the floor was slick with red and he could see a few corpses sat in pools of their own blood. Hunched over a few were several figures who ate at the remains. As much as he loved being proved right, this was one of those times where he wished he wasn't. Because the implications did not bode well for him. Not one bit.

"Hey, open the cells," Levi heard someone call out to his left, making him step away from the door. The agitated snarls followed moments later, then a scream, before consecutive thuds sounded against the metal.

Levi looked back out and saw the figures had moved and, guessing by the ruckus, were harassing another cell. He contemplated for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he looked down at the dead body on the floor and nodded. 'It's doable.'

Under the confused gaze of Eric, he walked over to his dead cellmate and pulled his leg straight, pressing his boot on his shin. Snap! One clean jolt and he'd snapped the shin bone, the jagged edges perforating through the skin. The sound invited a couple of guests who soon appeared in front of the cell door and slammed against it.

"Oh fuck," he heard Eric groan but ignored him and applied more pressure, manoeuvring the bone until finally, he managed to get one jagged shin bone free. He didn't stop there and kept his bloody task going until he freed another jagged bone and let out a breath.

He wiped his slippery hands clean on the dead man's shirt before doing the same with the bones. After he held the two bones and tossed the smaller one to Eric, who horrified dropped it to the floor. "Pick it up, or don't. I'm not the one who'll get ripped apart if they get caught," he said, then threw the remaining bone towards the door before tearing the shirt of the dead prisoner and getting some torn fabric.

He doused the fabric in blood, making sure it was fully soaked before he walked over to the door and used the bone to hold the fabric and smeared it around the latch opening. Soon enough, he could see the heads of the creatures trying to lap up the blood. 

They were ugly fuckers. Pale skin, painted in networks of blackish-blue veins, and had hazy yellowing eyes that looked a weird mix of blindness and jaundice. Patchwork scratches and wounds covered their bodies and oozed brackish blood, looking infected.

He thrust the bone forward at a head licking at the blood; the bone slipped in and out of its eye socket. It sagged to the floor, and Levi repeated it two more times until he could no longer hear any more.

"For those that can hear. Things aren't looking good for us. Unless these doors open, we're trapped," shouted Levi, his voice carrying over the pin-drop corridor. "So I'm asking for something. It might seem stupid, but it could be the only thing that might give us a fighting chance." 

"I need you to make as much noise as possible," he finished, letting his voice linger for a moment. "We're trapped, and whatever's outside can't get us. So we draw them in, everyone goes quiet and I'll take them out one by one," the sound of footsteps now faint in the distance.

"Did you kill the ones here a minute ago?" he heard a baritone voice shout. A smile formed on Levi's lips.

"That's right," Levi replied. "The way I see it, the more we attract and thin them out, the more chance there is for someone to open the cells," the animalistic growls closer now.

"Here! Come and get it! I'm here, you sons of bitches!" the same baritone voice thundered, soon a melody of other shouts joining in. The previously quiet corridor now alive with sounds of both the living and the dead.

---

Discord: https://discord.gg/yaY4fpUTNv

P*treon: https://www.p*treon.com/ForeignSeeker (10 Chapters ahead)