(Next: https://redd.it/y0tc7w)
I’d only been on the police force for three weeks, not even a month, when we got a call I would never forget. I hoped that call would be the weirdest moment of my life. I never want to be involved with an event stranger than the one myself and my partner went through that night.
We were working the night shift. My partner a rough and gruff guy that went by Rusty. He was the type of person you didn’t want to mess with, and hoped would be on your side if anything went down; the perfect partner for a rookie like me just learning the ropes and bound to be making a few mistakes. His teaching method was covering my ass once or twice then expect me to smarten up. So far, I hadn’t done anything wrong because our job was so boring that we simply couldn’t. Nothing happened on patrol in our small town in the middle of the night.
Rusty wasn’t much of a talker, so I took to doing crossword puzzles while I waited for my shift to be over. We parked along the highway waiting for anyone that might be speeding or for any drunk drivers. If the cops in town needed back up, we would be called back in. When the radio cracked to life, it made me jump. It’d been so long since that happened, I had completely forgotten about it.
My partner picked it up and answered back. I heard the dispatcher say we were needed to deal with an animal on the side of the road.
“What kind of animal?” Rusty asked.
This sort of wasn’t our job but if it was a deer in the middle of the road, we should drag it off before someone got hurt.
“We don’t know. The caller just said it was large and they were too freaked out to stay.” Dispatch answered.
Rusty fell silent. A look I couldn’t read immediately came over his face.
“What do they mean by freaky?” I asked.
“Alright. We’ll deal with it.” Rusty called over the radio ignoring my question.
Rusty got the location and we were off in under a minute. He never was one to talk much, but he was eerily silent as we drove down the road. It made me feel tense. If something was going on, I trusted my partner to tell me if it was important. I just prayed I put my trust in the right person. The car passed dark trees without any other cars on the road. Rusty put on the flashing lights but not the siren. The silent view of the forest in the blue and red light made my skin crawl. I’ve never been this freaked out by an empty highway before.
The spot was easy enough to find. Rusty parked a few feet away, leaving the high beams on the dead creature. I got out to get a better look at it. It looked long and pale, with some white hair in patches. Bloody spots on the road showed where got hit first and how far it was dragged along. Long pale limbs sat on the road, about six of them, showing they didn’t all come from just one animal. The issue was, I didn’t know what the hell kind of animal this thing was.
It reminded me of one of those mystery animals that washed up on the beach. Maybe it was deformed from being hit by a few cars? My mind just couldn’t place what it looked like before it died. I found myself reaching out a leg to kick a hunk of the body when Rusty stopped me.
“Don’t touch that yet. We’ll clean up the arms first.”
“Arms?” I asked stunned.
He again gave no answers. Instead, he just shoved a pair of rubber dish gloves against my chest. I took them to put them on, glad I didn’t have to touch the limbs with my bare hands. I still didn’t understand what we were collecting.
“Just toss them into the side of the road.” Rusty said.
He bent over and easily picked up one of the pale long limbs to toss it into the ditch. A scream came to my throat and I forced it down. What he picked up had fingers. It looked a hell of a lot like a human arm, just far too long.
“Rusty, that’s…” I started, unable to finish my statement.
“Just some animal parts. Don’t get squeamish and watch for cars.” Rusty replied not looking over to the new rookie.
Somehow, I did as I was told. I had to be seeing things. Rusty was not the type of man to mess around or ignore human body parts along the road. I walked over to a limb, expecting it to look different up close. It didn’t, and I stared down at a severed long pale human arm, broken and covered in blood from being dragged down the road. Unable to help myself, I ran to the ditch and got sick. As I puked out my dinner, I heard Rusty continue with his work. Each arm making a loud sound as it landed in the tall dry grass.
I finally straightened up enough and ready to confront him.
“Rusty, these are arms! We’re dealing with a hit and run!” I yelled, tears in my eyes from getting sick.
“Boy, look at that creature over there. Is that anything natural? Something you’ve seen before? This is some weird shit and it’s best if you just listen to me and don’t think.” His voice was stern but not as harsh as I would have expected.
The words caused me to stop and think. This wasn’t the first time Rusty dealt with something strange like this. He knew what he need to do. In order to avoid someone driving by seeing all this he wanted to get it cleaned up, then he hopefully would explain things. My eyes landed on the mystery creature still on the side of the road now knowing it was something I would ever never fully understand.
I wasn’t able to touch the arms scattered down the road. But I could bring myself to drag the creature’s body off the side. I expected our task to be done, but Rusty told me to keep carrying the heavy bloody body.
“We need to bring it back into the woods for it to be reclaimed.” He told me, not elaborating.
“Really?” I said in a small tone.
I did not want to touch this thing for much longer, rubber gloves or not. The strange thing gave off an odd minty smell. That unnerved me and I may have been able to deal with a rotting smell better. Rusty gave me a look, showing that dealing with the dead creature would be better than getting him angry. With some reluctance, I followed him and started towards the woods carrying the heavy dead creature towards the trees.
We thankfully didn’t go too far into the woods. Tossing the corpse aside, we turned our backs and I started to walk away, but Rusty placed a hand on my shoulder to keep me from leaving.
“We can’t leave yet. Keep your back turned. Don’t look at it. No matter what you do, don’t look at it.”
I opened my mouth to ask questions but the look on his face made me shut it again. I thought Rusty could take down a bull with his bare hands if needed. Whatever we were dealing with frightened the man and that made me dread the reason. If Rusty couldn’t handle it, I had no chance. Swallowing hard and fear building, I nodded.
We stared at the road in complete silence with our backs turned towards the woods. My body tensed as I expected every sound to be something coming from those dark trees to take our lives. My hands trembled. It took everything to not let my legs shake. I wanted to get as far away as possible from those dark trees.
A sound came and I knew it wasn’t an animal looking for food. Twigs snapped as something walked behind us. It was large, based on the sounds of the steps and the sounds of the heavy breathing coming from behind our backs. My body shook harder. A puff of air ruffled my hair, almost making me scream. Something so close behind us that I could smell it. Scared out of my mind, the thought of reaching for my gun to shoot it was extremely tempting.
A tug came from the back of my belt. Whatever was behind us tried to get me to look at it by slightly taking a hold of my belt and clothing. Shutting my eyes tight I refused. Another tug came stronger. It pulled me back a step and I heard Rusty take an inhale of breath from worry. Planting my feet down I pulled back. Eyes still closed I kept repeating what Rusty said. Don’t look at it. That was all I needed to do. From how scared I was, it should be simple.
Then a set of hands placed themselves on my face from behind. All the tension disappeared as if felt them gently guiding my face to turn around. A warm feeling came over me as I forgot everything. I only wanted to see who belonged to such a warm set of hands. Even through my mental haze, I somehow managed to keep my eyes closed. A minty smell drifted over my face. The memory of the mangled creature came to mind causing me to swiftly pull away, my eyes opening a crack as I did so.
For half a second, I thought I saw something impossible. A tall thing covered in layers of veil like fabrics with countless arms coming out from either side. Biting the inside of my mouth so I wouldn’t scream, I faced away. The spell completely broken.
“We returned the child to the forest. Let us go back to our work and stop messing with my new partner.” Rusty spoke in a voice not like his normal one. All force behind it gone.
Fingers ran down my back causing a small scream to escape from my mouth. If this thing was messing with me, it did a damn good job. What felt like forever passed before a soft laugh came from the entity, similar to a whisper of wind. Then, I could no longer sense something behind us.
Rusty looked around showing it was safe to do so. When I fearfully glanced back, I didn’t see anything strange. Not even the body of the creature we carried over.
“What the fuck…” I asked in a hoarse voice.
“I’ll explain in the car.” Rusty said.
Fine by me. I didn’t want to stand there for much longer. We half jogged back to our patrol car, eager to leave. The blood stains were still on the road but anyone would just assume some animal got run over by a car. Rusty fumbled with finding his keys so I got to the car first. After the strangeness of the night, I shouldn’t have been taken aback at what waited for us there.
A small boy stood wearing an oversized sweater stood near out car. His wavy hair down to his shoulders, and pure white instead of blonde like I thought at first. Not seeing him as a threat, I walked right over to get down on his level to talk to him. Why the hell was a kid on the side of the highway? Did someone dump him and he walked over to a cop car for help? I placed a hand on his head trying to comfort him.
I heard Rusty make a strangled sound. I ignored my partner and kept my attention on the child.
“Hey little buddy, are you lost?” I asked trying to sound as friendly as possible.
Through his long hair, I saw the boy’s face turn beet red. His eyes met mine and I nearly pulled my hand away seeing they were red. Couldn’t people have red eyes from certain medical conditions? Didn’t albino’s have red eyes or was that only in animals?
“I’m sorry for my partner.” Rusty rushed over to grab my shoulder and pull me away from the boy. “I haven’t told him anything yet.” He explained in a frantic voice that didn’t suit him.
Clearing his throat first, the child spoke trying to sound professional.
“It is fine. I dropped by to check up on how things are going. I’ve heard you recently got a new partner and wanted to ensure that he was aware of how things are in this area.” The child said, recovering from his embarrassment.
“What are you two talking about? What is even going on?” I asked, finally snapping a little from the strangeness of the night.
They let me collect myself a little before the boy went on.
“This stretch of road, and the forest around it has more than the usual supernatural activities. Your partner is well aware of them and how to deal with it all. At least most of them. A lot of the creatures are dangerous unless you know how to deal with them. For example, you could have been dragged off into the forest to become the forced partner of a creature tonight if you had given in and opened your eyes.” The child explained in a calm voice.
I looked between the boy and my partner, utterly confused.
“Why am I only finding out about this now?” I asked.
“How would you react if I sat you down and said there are things lurking in the woods without you seeing something weird beforehand? You wouldn’t believe any of this. Plus, I’ve gone a year without seeing anything strange. I’d hoped you wouldn’t encounter things so soon…” Rusty explained.
He was right. If he went on about supernatural things, I would think he was a nut and ask for a transfer. I might still ask for a transfer after tonight. Looking down at the boy, he appeared almost normal aside from his hair and eye color. His bare feet not being dirty a bit odd though.
“I take it you’re not human?” I asked.
He shook his head. Whatever he was, he wasn’t as scary as the thing that we cleaned up off the side of the road.
“I am pretty important in the supernatural world. You’re lucky to have met me. I just so happened to be in the area and dropped in. I-”
I cut off his words by reaching out and placing a hand on his head again. I just couldn’t help it. He reminded me of my little nephews who were the cutest kids in the world. That wasn’t just the uncle in me talking. His face flushed again and with his bare foot, he swiftly kicked my shin.
“Deal with the creatures on your own! No help from me, I hope you get eaten!” He snapped but it was hard to take him seriously.
Just as the boy was about to stomp away Rusty tried to recover the situation.
“He’s new to all of this. There’s no way for him to know not to treat you like a cute kid.” He defended me.
“But he is a cute kid.” I said not knowing I was digging my own grave.
With a huff of frustration, the child turned heel and left. Rusty tried calling after him without any luck. I watching him stomp down the road wondering how far to let him walk until I went to get him to drive him home.
“I can’t believe you offended the most powerful supernatural creature just a few seconds after meeting them.” He said in disbelief.
“Huh?”
I glanced at Rusty then turned to stare at the boy to find him gone. Looking over to Rusty, I silently expected answers. On the ride back to our spot on the highway, he explained a little. There were creatures in the dark. They killed and ate humans making them extremely dangerous. Hell, killing and eating you may be the best outcome if you ever cross paths with a monster. Rusty’s dealt with them since he started working along this stretch of highway. The boy we saw earlier was some sort of King. I really still didn’t understand how important the child was. To lessen the King’s work load, he gave the officers working this area information on how to deal with the local creatures. Rusty knew most of it, but things changed over the years and newer creatures came along. Having updated information would help us stay alive.
“No one is forcing you to stay in this job.” Rusty said to me.
If I was smart, I would leave the moment I could. I felt still shaken from the encounter in the forest. I debated on my answer for a few minutes. I could easily get a transfer but would not enjoy leaving my entire life behind for a new city.
“Why do you stay?” I asked my partner.
“It’s the job I signed up for. To serve and protect. Simple as that.”
We sat, letting the silence of the night fall between us for a while. A car or two drove down the empty road, unaware of what lurked in the forest nearby.
“I’ll stay. If it gets too dangerous, I could leave. But I’m not leaving my new partner behind if I can help it.” I said confident in my answer.
Rusty gave my arm a soft punch, and it was the most affectionate action he could bring himself to make. I was going to stay on the job for at least a little bit longer. On some nights we may catch someone speeding. Or I could get some crosswords done. And I may also be eaten by a monster or worse. I felt fine with all that. It was mostly what I signed up for after all.