It’s not often we get calls from the trailerpark at the station. When there are reports, it’s usually ábout them, and not the other way around. They don’t trust us very much, which I understand, we don’t trust them either. In fact, it’s well known some of the inhabitants of the park engage in several criminal activities. However, as a policeman, I always try to view people as people, even the outcasts. Especially the outcasts. So, when one of them rang us on a payphone about three newborn infants going missing in the past three days, I volunteered to check it out along with some other officers.
Kids in this place are what you could call ‘raised by the community’, which means everyone looks out for eachother and the parents trust their neighbours with watching their kids when it is necessary. Really quite communal and friendly when compared to the individualistic society most others call home in the big city. Here it did not work in their favour however, all infants went missing during a lapse in attention by a parent of other supervisor. My colleagues continued to investigate the camp itself, while I took the police vehicle and drove slowly with an open window to scour the surroundings.
The camp was situated close to a dike next to a broad river, where huge freighters went from the mainland towards the harbours at the rivermouth. About a mile or two from the camp was a high overpass, above which cars raced towards the city centre. During rush hour, you could hear the horns and smell the exhaust fumes all the way below. Beyond the overpass the road continued along the dike, and on the left side a thick patch of green reeds grew. This spot would flood a little during the rainier parts of the year. It is a great place for getting lost, or hiding. It’s there that I heard the crying.
Clear as day, the small wails of an infant echoed through the reeds, as if the stalks themselves where being lashed by the wind. I exited the vehicle and slowly made my way through the reeds, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. The child was clearly close to the ground, so determining the exact direction was difficult, especially between the rustling. After a while I noticed another soft sound, a very suble crunching. It was nearly indistinguishable from the reeds, but as I got close it became more clear. Soon, that all ceased mattering.
‘Hey! You!’ Someone shouted suddnely. ‘This, is Poopsablood!’Suddenly from my right, a huge figure emerged from the reeds. That figure is permanently burned on the inside of my eyelids. It was human, clearly human, but what a terrible specimen. She was fat, so much so that she seemed just on the edge of being able to walk. She had short straw coloured hair, and her voice sounded like a man’s, probably due to years of smoking and other substance abuse. Her skin was full of scabs, and her teeth were sharpened from decay and gnawing hard foods. Her mouth was covered with dried blood, mixed with either dirt, dung or both. To my absolute horror, I saw that in her hand she held the body of one of the newborns. The bottom half she had already devoured, and the upper torso she flailed around horribly while she screamed at me.
‘This is Poopsablood! It was made from above! For you! Not me!’ She stared intently at me as she screamed this, and she walked towards me in a surprisingly quick pace for her size. I guess the reeds are no longer an issue when you’re that heavy. It was at this point i noticed I had left my service weapon in the car. I cursed under my breath while slowly walking backwards, trying to maintain eye contact. I was not going to be able to arrest this person on my own, I needed backup, and she walked too fast for my liking. In the background the quiet wailing affirmed at least one of the infants was still alive.
‘Say it with me!’, she screamed hoarsely. ‘This is Poopsablood! It was made from above, for you! Not me!’
I obliged, hoping that it would calm her down. ‘This is Poopsablood’ i shouted along with her.’Made from above!’‘made from above’
‘For You!’‘for me’
‘Not me!’‘not you’
Seeing the corpse flabbing with every syllable made me absolutely sick, but I stuck to this tactic untill I was close enough to reach for the door handle of the police vehicle. The moment i turned to open the door, I fell to the ground hard. In a split second she had caught up the 10 feet distance, and with her free arm she pulled my right leg from under me. I managed turn around quickly enough to watch her sink her disgusting rotted teeth into my shoulder.
Blast that hurts! No time to think. I punched her on the nose. Hard.’Ow! Fuck you!’, she shouted while she recoiled. This was just enough time for me to kick free, get in the car and grab my weapon and radio. I thought I was good, but with some unnatural brute strength she tore the door straight off the vehicle and dragged me out. I gasped as I peered into her gaping black mouth, now pried open to inhuman dimensions like a chasm. Then, I shot her…
What happened after I only remember vaguely. Perhaps due to blood loss, perhaps because I wish I could erase these memories from my brain. After radioing for backup, and an ambulance, I passed out. I woke up in the hospital, my veins flooded with fresh blood and antibiotics. The woman was dead, and her stomach contents revealed the remains of two infants. The third was apparently rescued alive from the reeds, and returned to a gratefull mother and father. How that woman became this way nobody knows for certain, nor where she came from. There were no drugs found in her body, only traces of past substance abuse. Perhaps it was a sort of rabies, or mad cow disease. The teeth marks on my shoulder did not correspond to the dimensions of the human jaw, the doctors said it looked more like that of a wild ape. The only reason i’m alive is because not one but two ambulances came along after my call, one for the child and one for me. I dare not image the terrible infections I would otherwise have suffered.
I’m getting a desk job, soon as i’m able to sleep again.