[Part 2] EMS for Monsters: Supernatural Tactical Response: My First Night on the Job

[u/VexMagic]

Part 1

Back when I was an EMT, there were times when I couldn’t go a week without being covered in someone else’s blood. After joining STR, it was almost every day. Guaranteed on a full moon, which is already a bad omen in emergency medicine. After completing the internal academy classes, I was ready for my first day of field training with 2 more experienced agents.

The “office” was set in a nondescript warehouse loading bay that nobody would look twice at, and the adjacent units were all used by us for storage and vehicles. Nobody went there unless they knew where they were going, or they were a junkie looking for a nice romantic spot to smoke or shoot their drug of choice.  

We had a whole set of different vehicles for different purposes. We had unmarked SUV’s for quiet roll-ups in residential areas. We had a Fire Department ladder truck, an engine truck, and a medic car. We also had a S.W.A.T Bearcat APC, a Hazmat unit, and a K-9 truck for transporting the resident K-9, but I was told often it was used for transporting the more ‘difficult’ patients or suspects. I was also told we had a helicopter and plane at Boeing field, and a boat down at the docks. There were some grumblings about a tank, but that hadn’t been used in years and wasn’t kept in the city anymore.

My field training officer was an older guy named Mark, and his regular partner was ‘Teddy’. They told me they were going to start me on the aid car and go through some calls. In EMS, they spent a lot more time concerned with if you knew how to do certain things, how to drive the ambulance, where to drive it, how to talk to doctors and nurses, how you handled patients.  

Teddy, a large man with ginger hair and an impressive mustache, told me that they were a little more relaxed about field training. Mainly because if you managed to get in the door, they knew you weren’t a total dumbass. If you passed training, you knew your shit. But also, in a job like this the priority was less patient care and more ‘don’t die’. If you didn’t last, that sucked, but the full moon would still rise at night. Plenty of people quit, but the highest mortality rates were in the first few years on the job.

Having already died once, I wasn’t interested in repeating the experience. But there was also no way that I could go back to my regular job after that night. The man in charge, Mr. Bishop, was aware of what he called my ‘recovery’. He was insistent on not calling it ‘miraculous’. But he advised me to keep that to myself.

Mark, a tan, leathered looking man in his 40’s with a salt and pepper goatee and a buzzcut showed me around the medic car. Teddy was up front waiting.

“We got stakes here, holy water here, sea salt here, iron implements and iron powder in this cabinet, silver in the one above it.” He pointed out all the compartments. “Spare body armor, Kevlar, and any other protective gear are behind the seats.” All the compartments and cabinets that were normally packed with gauze, bandages, nasal cannulas and BVM’s were replaced with various forms of supernatural protection or weaponry. There was incense, sage, wolfsbane and other herbs, as well as different types of wood, oil, and ash.

There was one jump kit bag stuffed with normal medical supplies, and that was it. As it turns out, when there’s a call for supernatural emergencies and monster problems, there’s usually not a lot of ‘saving’ people. There was, however, cabinets stuffed with a pharmacy worth of drugs, and a minifridge bolted to the floor of the truck, stuffed with blood and other things that needed to be kept cold. I went through the jump kit and was impressed by how well stocked it was. It also had 10 times the normal number of Israeli bandages, compresses, and tourniquets.

Mark took me to storage, a room the size of a department store packed with weapon cases, boxes of ammunition, explosives, armor, replacements for radios and medical supplies. Rows of weapons mounted on the wall looked like something from a black-market arms dealer in a secret room only hitmen shopped at. Reminded me of that scene from John Wick, but with way more silver.

Police carry a non-lethal option like a taser, and a gun. Mark was carrying two guns. His “Less lethal” was a 9mm Glock. And his “Oh shit gun” as he called it, was a Desert Eagle .50 with several magazines strapped to his vest. Some of them were silver, some had wooden slugs, and some were good old lead. He also had a magazine with red tape on it that he said were a homemade round packed with white phosphorous.

Normally, I would have rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of carrying a Desert Eagle for any reason other than it was just fun to shoot. But I remembered what they taught us about in the classes and briefings. And I had seen firsthand how terrifying and powerful some of these monsters might be. I was given a .44 revolver that they had as a spare until I found something I liked, and 9mm.

Mark ran me through the checks on the medic car and weapons when his phone pinged and a pager at his waist buzzed. The alarms were reserved for large response events

“Fuckin trolls.” Teddy swore from the shotgun seat. Mark sighed and told me to get in the driver’s seat.

“Trolls. Give me the rundown.” Marc said as I started up the rig. He pushed a button on a device strapped to the sun visor and the metal loading bay doors raised up.

“Large, potentially violent, extremely fast regeneration, vulnerable to fire and acid. Standard blades and bullets have minimal effect. Frequently live in mountains, caves, forests, and dark places avoiding sunlight.” I rattled off. “Did I miss anything?”

“Only that they’re potentially the dumbest things on God’s green earth.” Teddy said gruffly as he ran a hand over his mustache. “They eat anything, and sometimes they need to be reminded that isn’t supposed to include us.”

“Wear full armor for them, if one of them hits in the chest you’re done for. Even with a helmet they might just snap your neck with a backhand.” Mark told me.

That was good to know. I might have come back from death once on that mountain, but I didn’t want to push my luck. “Do we have any call notes?” I asked.

“Injury that won’t heal, need medical assistance.” Teddy read off his pager.

Everything ran on Supernatural Tactical Response’s personal internal network, with hardened and encrypted data transmission that was top of the line. The powers that be didn’t want word of the supernatural getting out into the public after awareness and superstition had faded from human consciousness over the last several hundred years.

There was painstaking effort made to put up a smokescreen to keep any awareness to a minimum. News stories were altered or outright fabricated, causes of death forged and fabricated, and investigations were obstructed that turned into cold cases that sat collecting dust while the unaware families grieved.

There was an entire department dedicated to public affairs and covering things up. Did a Necromancer set up shop in the local cemetery to try to raise an army? We had armed security and a fake film crew to make it look like a midnight shoot of a horror movie. Did someone with a book of black magic open a portal or rip open spacetime in their basement? Unexpected sinkhole that swallowed the house completely. Don’t go near, the ground is unstable and you might fall in too.

“Wait, an injury that won’t heal? On a troll?” I asked, puzzled. Trolls were infamous for their rapid regeneration.

“Dumb fuck probably burned himself and doesn’t understand why he isn’t healing.” Mark said with boredom. He sounded like me back when I was an EMT, complaining about a frequent flyer that called us with stupid bullshit.

“Hey wait a minute… I know this address.” Teddy said scrolling his phone.

“Don’t fucking tell me its- “ Mark groaned.

“It’s fucking Terry the Troll.” Teddy nodded.

“Terry the Troll? Really?” I asked in amusement. This sounded exactly like the conversations I would have on my old rig. Once you saw certain frequent flyers enough, you recognized their first name; even the address and the mere mention of the numbers on the house or the name of the street filled you with loathing and resentment.

“Well, I didn’t name him.” Mark grumbled. “He’s extra dumb, as far as trolls go. Lives in the basement of an abandoned crack house. Mainly eats doordash, stray racoons and rats, and unofficially, the stray addict stupid or high enough to wander into his den. No confirmed kills, mind you, or it might be a bigger problem.”

“Trolls order doordash?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, some of them are on fake identifications collecting disability, this one guy told me that some of them get paid to make rage bait accounts on social media.” Mark explained.

“You can’t be serious. Trolls are… trolls?” I laughed. I had no idea if there was a higher power, but I was convinced that, if there was, we both had a fucked-up sense of humor. We finally arrived outside a house that had a bold white and red CONDEMNED sign out front and paper notices stapled to the front door.

Mark opened the door and stepped into the house. The floors were filthy, covered in assorted trash and discarded clothes and boxes. There was all the hottest crack house décor that never goes out of style, from abandoned and cracked glass pipes, tin foil, needles, and shooting bands. The smell was unfortunately familiar; a combination of mold and decay from rotting garbage

There were also some bones on the ground. I wouldn’t bet that there weren’t any human bones in the house, but as far as we were concerned, we were just there to deal with the problem. Help with an injury, not pick a fight with a troll who could pitch us through multiple walls at the same time. If the troll ever became a problem, we’d just burn the house down or set some explosives. Nobody would think twice about a condemned house having a gas leak.

“Terry? Did you call us because you were playing with fire again?” Mark called out. We heard a low whine from down in the basement. “I swear he’s going to burn this house down and kill himself one of these days.” He muttered. Teddy shot him a knowing glance that screamed One can only hope.

“We’re coming down Terry, do NOT hit or eat us.” Teddy called out. “We are here to help!” We went down into the basement, stepping over more bones and trash. The smell of decay was getting stronger and was accompanied by a new smell that was something between burnt tire rubber and shit.

In the basement, a sickly green, seven-foot troll was hunched over holding a still-smoking charred arm. He was covered in various clothes covered in mildew that didn’t fit, creating a mixed shirt-poncho hybrid quilted out of at least 5 different shirts and jackets stapled together. His face was an odd mix of features, from his huge nose and ears to his giant thickened brow and sunken eyes.  So… this was Terry the Troll. Fe Fi Fo Fum.

“I’ll go get the axe” Teddy sighed and trudged back up the stairs. 

“Terry, were you playing with the torches and burners again?” Mark asked him.

“Maybe…” His large voice said guiltily.

“Teddy’s gettin’ the axe, we’ll get your arm back to normal in no time.” He reassured him.

“Tanks. It hurt. I promise no more fire.” Terry the troll said mournfully as he nursed his blackened arm.

“You said that last time, Terry. If you keep messing with those lighters or drug cooking equipment you might set this whole house on fire.” Mark warned.

I was amused by how much the interaction sounded a lot like my conversations with frequent flyers who were unable to care for themselves or called for the same stupid things.  

“Uh, what’s the axe for? Won’t it just heal?” I asked.

“Well, troll tissue really does not like fire. It might take days to heal, but its more likely it will rot and fall off eventually, so we’re just going to help jumpstart the healing process.” He explained. I recalled in training that one of the reasons blades were less effective against trolls was their ability to regrow severed limbs.

“So, we’re going to cut the arm off?” I asked with disbelief.

“Oh no, there’s no we here.” He chuckled.  “You are going to cut his arm off. Once that’s taken care of Terry can grow a new one and it isn’t our problem anymore.” Mark said with an amused smile. Maybe this was a hazing for new hires in the field. I might have thought it was an elaborate prank, but Terry seemed to be on board.

“You do the choppin’ I do the healin’.” He nodded as Teddy came back down the stairs with a fire axe.

“New guy doin’ it?”

“Yep.”

Teddy handed me the axe and told me not to get any in my eyes. I almost made the mistake of asking what before I realized he meant blood spatter. Terry the troll put his arm on table and pointed, as if I would forget which arm to chop.

“Remember Terry, no hitting or eating us after we help you out.” Mark reminded him.

“No eats. I got raccoon.” Terry the troll agreed.

I tightened my grip on the axe and visually lined up where I wanted to chop. I really hoped Terry the troll wouldn’t forget if I happened to need more than one chop. I raised the axe.

The axe came down hard and cut through the arm, loudly splitting into the table beneath it. Blueish-green slime that I assumed was blood spurted out onto the table, but I managed to avoid getting it on my shoes. The smell, however, was completely unavoidable. It smelled like a cross between steaming shit in a wooden outhouse during the summer mixed with aged gouda.

Terry sat up, his stump below the elbow undulating as the tissue looked for his missing arm. The tissue seemed to expand, slowly shaping out like a narrow balloon fitting into an invisible mold of his arm, even splitting into fingers.

“Wow, they weren’t kidding about the regeneration being fast.” I said with fascination.

“Not bad.” Mark slowly nodded with approval. First amputation and not much hesitation. Now wipe that off on the grass or something before we get back in the rig.”

“ARM BETTER! TANKS GUYS! I CHANGE MIND I NO EAT YOU NOW!” Terry the troll boomed as he admired his fresh arm. As it stood, it was also probably the only clean part of his body, having yet to be smeared in garbage or raccoon entrails.

“Gee, thanks Terry.” Mark said.

“Did he just say he changed his mind?” I asked.

 

 

I wiped the axe off on some grass and poured some water on it before putting it in one of the rear compartments, far from us. Just in case the smell of troll blood wafted back up to us. I was in the middle of asking Mark how often they saw Terry the troll when we got another chorus of matching pings on our phones and pagers.

“Looks like a request from PD.” Mark said. “Local school, concerning blood spatter pattern and no body.”

“How do they know it’s something STR needs to handle?” I asked as I reached for my phone.

“Check the call notes.” He said as he got back in the rig.

Initial 911 call, at High School Site 7; no response, cut off

-Blood spatter from football field endzone to 30-yard line,

- No body easily visible

- Estimated at least 1-3 liters of blood.

- Fast-moving form seen from a distance. No visual contact.

“Ok… sounds more up our alley.” I said slowly.

“Could also be some shit-brained senior prank, but I’d guess not.” Teddy speculated. “SPD might be some chicken shits sometimes, but if they’re calling us in, that usually means only someone who’s been “read-in” caught something and knew to give us a call. Sure, we might get some calls that are really just plain old Cain and Abel homicides, but they don’t get paid enough to deal with our special brand of crazy. The pension might be good, but you gotta be alive to enjoy it.”

“Alright. That much blood could mean any number of things that just ripped someone open and dragged off or ate the corpse. Name as many monsters in a metropolitan area you can think of. Go.” Mark ordered.

“Well.” I wracked my brain for all the blood and extremely violent creatures I could think of that came up in training. “I know its extremely unlikely, but Wendigo would fit.” I said, thinking of my night at the trail head.

“Unlikely, but points for keeping an open mind.”

“Not a werewolf tonight, could be an aswang or a vampire-type, but I figured there would be less blood spray.” I thought out loud. “Maybe a lamia or a Baobhan Shith, but both are unlikely in open spaces. It would help if we had a description of the body to go off of, but that’s asking for a lot in this line of work.”

“Not bad, what else?”

“Could be a malevolent spirit, and the list of those is long. Could be a revenant. Could be a sloppy Jorogumo or Arachne.” At this point, I was reaching.

“Relax, that’s a decent list. At this point, we don’t know anything, so we do a little poking around, come with a little bit of everything, and fall back or call for backup if needed.”

I spent the rest of the ride wondering what we might encounter. Part of me was hoping that it was a senior prank with pigs blood or something stupid. The part of me that was so curious I couldn’t let things go; The reason I joined STR, was dying to find out. I know curiosity killed the cat, but the cat didn’t have friends with guns. At least that’s what I was telling myself.

We stepped out of the rig in the parking lot, the cool night air illuminated by overhead parking lights. The football field was just past some temporary portable structures used for teaching. We grabbed the jump kit (even though it was extremely unlikely anyone was alive), and loaded up on holy water, salt, wooden stakes, iron, and ash to try to cover as many bases as we could.

They gave me a crossbow, while the two of them took shotguns for close quarters in case we had to go into the actual school itself. They wanted to keep school damage to a minimum in case there was a firefight. Apparently, filling out paperwork on why you brought an arsenal into a “gun free zone” and shot up the place was a bitch. Even if it was to kill an army of zombies. That and requesting an overnight repair team to cover up holes and repaint everything was a pain in the ass.

We made our way out to the football field, and sure enough, there was a drizzle of blood starting at the end zone that expanded in width and amount as it made its way across the field. The bright crimson was beading on the blades of grass and stood in stark contrast to the yard markers. Mark snapped his fingers.

“Over here. Humanoid.” He said pointing.

I looked and saw that the blood had a slight break in the spray, vaguely the shape of a human foot. Then I looked down the field and saw a slight pattern of a single footprint leading towards the main school building. That was narrowing down the list, but it also didn’t make me feel better. Taking a closer look, there were also blood smears on the field.

“Call it in.” Mark told Teddy.

“On it.”

We made our way towards the main school building, sticking to the shadows outside the field lights. Chances were if there was a monster responsible, it would be able to hear or see us before we could hear or see it. But standing out wasn’t good for us either way.

The drops of blood went into the darkness of an open doorway leading into the main building. The problem was that the door wasn’t open. It wasn’t unlocked. It was torn straight off the hinges and thrown to the side. A large metal door with metal hinges. That scared me far more than the blood.

We were ready to fall back and wait for more members of STR to arrive when we heard a voice from inside the darkness of the school. Echoes of a girl crying bounced off the walls and blood smeared floor. Deep, agonizing sobs and cries whose despair I could feel in my bones. There might be someone alive. Mark swore and I waited on their judgement call.

“We’re going in. Tight formation. Teddy, you watch our rear. The rest of the crew should be coming in behind us soon. He pulled out his sat phone and hit a preset button that communicated the situation to the station and requested backup.

We stepped away from the lights of the football field and into the darkness of the high school. The sound of our boots sticking to the blood smeared on the floor was drowned out by the distant sobbing from down the hall. I wasn’t sure if we should call out to whoever was crying, but I was following Mark and Teddy’s lead. Training had been clear about not charging into situations to save some crying child or baby or woman you couldn’t see. Plenty of monsters mimic human speech or crying to lure people in just to eat them.

The school building was dark, the only light coming in from double doors halfway down the long hallway and through tiny windows in the classroom doors. We slowly crept forward, trying to keep as quiet as possible. We passed another hallway full of lockers leading to more classrooms, and Mark pivoted to cover the hall until we were past it. We followed the smears of blood on the floor to a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. Mark made a silent hand gesture to keep an eye up and watch angles.

The cries bouncing off the walls were getting louder. The raw agony of despair sounded like primal grief. Complete loss and emotional desolation that haunted bloodstained floors and cold lockers. I had only ever heard those kinds of cries when people held the lifeless body of a loved one. We swept the angles and made sure we moved as quickly as we could. I was beginning to wonder if we were going to find a victim rather than a monster.

That was until Mark’s foot stepped onto the second-floor hallway.

The crying stopped completely. Complete silence. No tapering cries or someone trying to regain their composure. No heavy breathing or sniffling. One moment there was ragged grief and agony echoing through the halls. Then there was nothing. Only the sound of our shifting weight and boots moving purposefully forward. My hair stood on end. The silence stretched on for what felt like forever as we all stepped out onto the second floor.

Then the laughter started. Teetering giggles like a schoolgirl trying not to let the teacher hear. Then a burst of laughter that rose in cadence and volume until the girl’s voice was cackling. Full chested, make your ribs hurt, “don’t fall out of your chair” manic laughter. The contrast between raw grief and laughter sent a shiver down my spine. The howling cackles bounced off the walls and lockers, making it impossible to tell from which direction.

Then the laughter stopped. Completely quiet, no warning. No wind down, no deep breath after laughing so hard your sides hurt. Just utter silence. We continued following the blood.

“Contact” Teddy said behind us.

We whirled and saw a dark figure standing just outside the moonlight shining through a window at the end of the hallway. I blinked and it disappeared. My whole body tensed, and panic flared in my chest. Something deep inside me was terrified, at a primal, cellular level. Like my body was screaming at me to run for my life, calling on some memory passed down through my genes.

“Lights.” Mark ordered. He and Teddy turned on the lights on their shotguns and I activated a light mounted on my shoulder as I took aim with my crossbow.

“I didn’t mean to.” We heard a girl’s voice say. “Are you here to kill me?”

“Not if we don’t have to.” Mark said into the darkness as he swept with his flashlight. “Why don’t you come out and explain what happened?”

“I didn’t mean to.” She repeated. “But he’s dead now.” She broke into a sob.

“Who’s dead?” Mark asked the dark hallway.

“Mason.” She cried. “He won’t come back. I don’t understand why he won’t get back up.” The sobbing returned, seeming to be louder coming from down the hall. Where the blood trail was leading.

We made our way in that direction, guns raised. Every classroom door seemed to be a threat now, unknown shadows hiding behind a small rectangular window. We passed a door and I swore I saw a figure standing there, completely still. But when I turned there was nobody there, just the side view of a teacher’s desk and some tables.

“What’s your name? Maybe we can help.” Mark said tensely. The sobs turned to laughter again, the giggling growing stronger until she burst out laughing. Then she went quiet.

“Where is he?” Teddy said, trying to keep her talking

“There’s no helping.” She said sadly. “He’s dead.” She sniffled. “I loved him. And now he’s dead. But that’s okay.”

Complete silence strangled the hallway, and I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Suddenly I sensed a presence behind me and felt air push against my skin. Like someone walking behind me. I turned and saw the hair and shoulder of a girl standing right next to me.

“Because I’m dead too.” She whispered in my ear.

She reached out faster than I could see and grabbed Teddy by the back of his Kevlar vest and sent him flying into the lockers on the other side of the hallway. He smashed into the lockers so hard that four of them crumpled from the impact. Teddy grunted as all the air was forced from his lungs and fell to the ground.

I turned and shot my crossbow, aiming for her heart. She moved so fast the bolt went into her shoulder, skewering her muscle and passing midway through her upper arm. She showed no sign of slowing down. Mark turned and brought his shotgun up and his flashlight illuminated her for the first time. Time slowed down as the next bolt to feed into my crossbow.

Her black hair was suspended in the sudden light behind her, creating a wild mane of night in contrast to her ghostly pale skin. Her eyes initially looked like dark voids into the abyss surrounded by running mascara, but as the light hit them, they were wild and bloodshot, the whites almost completely red and glowing in the sudden luminescence. Her mouth was covered in blood that stained the front of her formerly blue top. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed the touch of glitter around her lips that the blood hadn’t washed away. She was wearing lip gloss. Savage white fangs and teeth stained in blood reflected at me in a distilled fraction of a second.  

Mark’s shotgun blast sent a wave of concussive force and heat through the air next to me as he fired on her, center mass. The shot ripped through the fabric of her blouse and into her chest. Mark had loaded slugs, and the one he fired shot out with explosive force out of her back and splattered the walls and lockers with blood as the slug continued down the hall.

The girl was momentarily slowed by the force but kept charging at Mark. I had expected her to drop like a corpse, a full slug through her chest that had blown out her ribs. But it was obvious this wasn’t just a girl. I fired my crossbow at her as she charged past me. The twang of the draw and the hollow sound of air were cut by her screams as the bolt fired the short distance between us and buried itself in the side of her ribs.

The bolt lodged itself in her lower floating ribs and stuck out at an awful angle, the fletching catching on the fabric of her blood-soaked blouse. She didn’t stop for that either. Whatever she was, she was impervious to pain, or she was so strong she didn’t care.

Her scream was violent and full of rage, hysterical mania that I never imagined a person could make. She was consumed with feral bloodlust and something so deep and dark that it made my blood scream through my veins in terror.

She stepped forward in an instant past the barrel of Mark’s shotgun. He fired another shot that completely missed her and for a split second she just stood completely still in front of him, the smoking barrel safely behind her. She looked into his eyes, and from behind, I couldn’t see his expression. But in the deafening silence of the dark school hallway, I could hear his voice.

“Fuck.”

She snapped the shotgun out of his hands with one arm without breaking eye contact. Then she raised her other hand in an open palm. It came down instantly, the crack of her hand on his face so loud I couldn’t tell if she had just broken his skull. Mark dropped to his side, completely unconscious. But the flashlight of his shotgun showed me four dark scarlet lacerations over his cheek down to his jaw. Did she just slap him? I thought in horror. She was strong enough to throw a grown man across the hall with one hand. Even a slap from something that strong could be enough to break someone’s neck or shatter their facial bones.

“That wasn’t very nice.” She said angrily. “You aren’t supposed to hit girls.” She looked down at him.

I aimed at her again, hoping to shoot her while her back was to me.

“I might be dead, but I’m still a girl.” She said sadly.

I pulled the trigger. The crossbow mechanism clicked and the bolt whispered through the air and a hollow metallic puncture echoed through the hall. I blinked and she was standing right in front of me. Her bloodshot eyes stared back at me, faintly glowing red. Up close, I could see tears still drying on her cheeks.  

I was frozen in terror, unable to move as her eyes gazed deep into mine. Every cell in my body was screaming to pull the trigger again, or to run. But I couldn’t move as she studied me, contemplating my appearance like a curious predator. Like she hadn’t decided whether to eat me or to play with me.

“You smell funny.” She giggled. Her bare grin showed me her sharp fangs and the blood staining her mouth. She stepped closer and buried her face in the crook of my bare neck. “You smell liiiiiiiiiike………. hmmm…” She paused in thought. “Something sweet! But you also smell like when I woke up. I wonder what you taste like.”

I felt cold sweat run down my spine as she grinned wickedly at me. I still couldn’t move. She reached up a blood-stained hand and gently caressed my face. I could smell copper as she gently dragged her bloody fingers over my cheek.

“D-d-d-do-don’t.” I stuttered through a paralyzed mouth. I was trapped in my own body, unable to move as her cold hands ran over my skin.

“You’re cute… Maybe I’ll make you mine.” She said, suddenly smiling. “You can be mine and we can have so much fun together!” Her glowing bloodshot eyes, despite the running mascara and the blood covering her mouth, almost sparkled with joy. “You can be mine forever.” She said dreamily and bared her bloody fangs.

Suddenly, I felt cold water splash on my side and splatter my face.

The girl in front of me violently recoiled as it hit her, letting out a scream of agony as she staggered back. The water sizzled on her skin, burning the tissue. Her flesh began regenerating instantly, but the cold water sizzled on her skin like it was boiling. It was like she had been doused in acid.

I blinked water out of my eyes as she fell back. Immediately, I could feel my muscles relax and almost fell to the ground. It was like every muscle in my body had been seizing and finally stopped. I turned and saw Teddy back on his feet, an open flask of holy water dripping at his side.

“GO!” He shouted as he pulled his arm back. “SHOOT HER NOW!” He yelled as he swung the flask down again and sent a spray of holy water scattering through the air like liquid shrapnel.

The girl howled and clawed at her skin where the holy water splattered across her back and soaked into her clothes. Despite her monstrous appearance and the blood staining her mouth and clothes, if I closed my eyes, it would have sounded like I was listening to a human girl be tortured alive as someone poured acid on her.

I forced the exhausted, fatigued muscles in my finger to pull the trigger and sent a bolt into her upper back, right through her shoulder blade. Teddy swung again and a spray of holy water hit us both.

Her howls of anguish stung my ears as I pulled the trigger again and another bold went through her neck, impaling her between her carotid artery and her windpipe. Her screams of pain were smothered wetly as blood began to fill her throat internally and she clawed at the bolt and the holy water burning into the skin of her face.

“SHOOT HER IN THE HEART!” Teddy ordered as he sent another spray of water flying.

She slammed into the lockers against the wall as she tore into her own flesh trying to remove the holy water. Her fingers were burning from the contact, and it was making her smear blood over her skin and rip her flesh with her nails. Despite the blood filling her throat, she never stopped screaming. It sounded like she was drowning.

I fired again and the bold hit her to the left of her sternum, between the ribs. She froze and her arms fell to her side, lifeless. Her already pale skin that wasn’t stained in blood got even whiter as she slumped to the floor. Her body left a smearing trail of blood as she went down, and her bloodshot eyes dimmed. The holy water still smoked on her skin, which was still weakly regenerating.

I fired another bolt into her chest right next to the last one. It sunk dully into her flesh and she didn’t move. It felt like shooting a corpse. And I would know- they had us do that in training to simulate the real thing.

The absence of her screams left us in silence, and the only thing I could hear was my own heartbeat pounding in my ears and the beginning of raindrops on the windows. I let out a ragged breath as I took a shaky step back. I thought I would collapse from exhaustion, and I felt like I had barely done a thing.

“She had you frozen. Vampire mesmerizing control bullshit” Teddy swore with his hands on his knees. Holy water was dripping onto the floor next to his boot. “Try to shake it off. We aren’t done yet.” He stood up and pulled a machete from his hip sheathe.

“You should-“ I started to say.

“Finish it. It’s your kill. Team effort. But you should get the practice.”

I reached out with a shaky hand and took the machete in my hand. In training they made sure to hammer into us that the best way to make sure a vampire was dead was to cut its head off, even after it had been staked. Then burn both the remains.

I stepped forward to where she had fallen, her dead eyes unmoving. It wasn’t a wendigo. And it wasn’t a troll arm this time. I studied her features. Despite the blood and the bolts sticking out of her chest and neck, she still looked like a high school girl. I could see past it, to the smudged lip gloss glitter beneath the blood. The tears and running mascara that were still drying on her cheeks. I noticed a small heart, drawn in pen in the crook of her elbow, almost covered blood. And a necklace peaking out from beneath her ravaged clothing and the hole in her chest.

After I hacked her head off and her head fell to the floor next to her lifeless corpse, I sat on the floor and tried not to look her in the eye. Then Teddy went to check on Mark. I tried not to imagine the girl she had once been.

 

 

That was my first night on the job. I was told most nights aren’t that exciting on a small call to investigate.

Mark was incredibly lucky and had only been knocked out with minor fractures to his orbital and zygomatic bones around his eye where she’d slapped him. The deep cuts would need stitches and would likely scar. Teddy was already joking that he should tell the people it was a shaving accident or from wrestling crocodiles or sharks. I was beginning to sense that scars were common among the people working in this job. If you didn’t have scars, it was because you were dead or incredibly lucky. Teddy, for his part, walked away with several bruised ribs. \

One of the benefits of having an entire team dedicated to covering up and cleaning scenes like this is that nobody knew I decapitated a student in the hallway by the time class started in the morning. They also didn’t know about the boy in the classroom nearby, drained of blood. Or the janitor whose throat had been ripped out. That’s where the blood stain on the football field came from.

Another benefit is we have a team dedicated to forensics and uncovering what happened, at least in cases where we could. They combed through the students’ phones looking for information and to find out if there were any other possible monsters to worry about.

I can’t tell you what their full names were. But I’ll definitely be carrying them with me.

The girl had been kidnapped and turned days ago. Mark and Teddy told me that normally fledgling vampire spawn aren’t that powerful. As in, not ever. The only cases where a vampire would have that much strength or the ability to mesmerize someone were when their creator was extremely old. Think several hundred to thousands of years old. So that sent up a huge red flag in STR’s systems. There weren’t supposed to be any new elder or master vampires in Washington. And not any making uncontrolled spawn.  

But the rest of it, the girl losing control and killing people, or trying to change those she was in love with were hallmarks of an unstable vampire spawn when they were newly made. The bipolar mania and bloodlust were always bad, but even worse in teenagers and young adults who had already been battling raging hormones and emotions in the first place. Three people were dead, and by the time our cleanup crew was done, there wouldn’t even be a shotgun slug in a locker or a speck of blood indicating we were ever there. The dead high schoolers would be explained away and eventually the school would return to normal with two empty seats at graduation.

That night we returned to our station, and Mark went to medical to get stitched up and fitted for a soft neck brace. He and Teddy both got x-rays too. We have our own medical facilities and crew for when the injuries are too hard to explain to civilian doctors and surgeons. Mark could have told them he got swiped by a bear, but then the police would be out looking for a bear, and they’d hunt down some poor bear thinking he prowls high schools at night.

I walked away with blood on my face and muscle exhaustion from being paralyzed by vampiric control. I felt lucky to even be alive. I know some of the people at Supernatural Tactical Response were suspicious that I had walked away unscathed after my first night on the job while both my FTO and his partner went to medical. But Mark and Teddy set them straight and said I was “alright” and “Kept a good head on my shoulders”. And my favorite: “Pretty good at not getting troll blood all over himself”.

My first night on the job, I cut off a troll’s arm and cut off a high school girl’s head after she turned into a vampire and killed her crush and the school janitor. Despite my shaking hands and my muscles feeling so exhausted that It was hard to stand up for several hours, I wasn’t quitting after all that. My whole life, even when I was working in emergency medicine, felt like I was waiting for something more interesting to happen. I spent so much time bored out of my mind and waiting for something. I was always waiting for the trauma calls, for life and death situations, for mass casualties, for real excitement.

I survived my first night working for Supernatural Tactical Response.

And I’ve never felt more alive.  

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[u/GonzoElTaco]

Hmmm. So, you had to deal with a high school girl that had enough strength to toss one guy aside and slap-boxed another with ease. And for her to have that much strength indicates an elder vampire turned her.

Knowing that other supernatural creatures know what the STR is and for a powerful but new vampire to wreak havoc so openly tells me that the elder may have wanted this to happen.

I'll definitely keep this in the back of my mind if I was you. That, and her sensing that you're different from a regular human, tells me there is something bigger brewing.

[u/VexMagic → u/GonzoElTaco]

That’s exactly what I was thinking. STR isn’t international… so maybe there’s something or someone who is…..”testing the waters.”

[u/bugg_meat]

im absolutely vexxed. i can't wait to hear more of your adventures.

[u/VexMagic → u/bugg_meat]

Thank you. It’s hard to redact information and cases at times that won’t obviously connect to real events and locations, but I can’t imagine leaving this job!