World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Born of Two Mothers

[SalmonMax]

This story is true.

It was the Tuesday after my first day as detective that I went crazy.

There were foreshadows. I see that now. Little things like that funny smell at the party on Friday. The dog on the corner. And then later in the kennel. Preshocks that came before The Big One. That big one was, of course, me. Going crazy.

Monday was a great day. Weird and strange and awkward, but great. I'd been a patrol officer for three years. Did two years in the gang unit, then got a transfer to West LA on the school beat. I'm one of the youngest female cops on the force, and I think the youngest female detective currently serving. Not the youngest ever, but hey...I'll take what I can get. Anyway, I remember it felt really weird going in without getting into my uniform. That thing's been like a second skin when I'm on duty. I felt naked...embarrassed, but liberated. I went and saw the division chief, my new boss. Name's David Polo. People call him Narco Polo. Heh. Narcotics. Anyway.

Spent the day in the office, meeting people, learning the stuff they don't teach in the procedure manual. Where the files are, what kind of coffee's in the breakroom, and all that. Police detectives spend a lot of time on the phone and at their desk, even though it's not a 'desk job.' They also have a pretty free hand, and that took getting used to.

So yeah. Good day. I didn't even miss the locker room gals, or my old patrol partner yet. Too excited.

The next morning I got up and went into the bathroom. Took a shower, started to brush my teeth. I wiped the mirror off to comb my hair...and my face was missing. Just...bloody meat staring back at me.

I jumped back, screamed, grabbed my face. Obviously it's fine. I look back in the mirror...yep, everything's fine, right down to the freckles. Then someone must have turned the shower on upstairs, because the pipes shake and moan, and give me another heart attack before I realize what's going on. So I finish getting ready, now I'm all flying on adrenalin, and I head to work.

They don't hold your hand in LAPD. Monday was orientation. Tuesday they put me out there. It was a pretty 'standard' crack addict apartment. Landlord gained entry after repeated efforts to get in touch with him about the rent failed. If you've ever see how a really morbid addict keeps house, you'll understand his reaction...which was to lurch back out and toss his lunch onto the courtyard bricks. Oh, it was nasty. Floor was totally obscured by clothes and trash. Breakfast bar was covered with old pots and pans and drug paraphenalia. He was down to soda cans by this point too. The kitchen was just unspeakable and for the purposes of this, we're going to pretend there wasn't a bathroom in the apartment. Fortunately, my job was pretty straightforward. I checked out the paraphenalia, checked around for clues where he might have gone...all that good stuff. Of course, it was a little harder with the rubberized oversuit they had me wear so I didn't get botulism or step on a needle or razor or otherwise kill myself on my first real day.

Anyway, the uniforms (used to be me!) were there making sure the scene was clear when I got there. Got my PJs on, went in. Just me, the mess, and my camera and flashlight. But there were other things in there. I heard them. Rustling in the trash. I'd turn around, and see some papers falling, or a plastic bag finish falling over. I figured it had to be a rat. Rats don't bother me. I've seen 'em up close, even the big nasty ones that aren't afraid of people. So I turned away from it, figuring a rat would keep it's distance and wasn't really relevant to my investigation.

And there was a guy in front of me. Tall and skinny, and he looked dead, with grey skin with holes in it, and things moving under it. His eyes were just squirmy sockets. But the zombie effect wasn't what freaked me out at first. That took a second to sink in. What freaked me out was that I'd only looked away for maybe...ten seconds. And there was no way someone could walk that close to me, that fast, on that ankle-deep-in-garbage floor and be quiet enough to surprise me. My hand went to my gun, but I knew it was too late. At that range, a person can close with you long before you can get a good shot aimed. Then I realized he was dead.

So I'm tripping over myself, trying to get away, to the door, out into the light. I keep expecting him not to be there, but he IS there. There's something on his forehead. Black lines, like someone had cut letters into his skin and the blood had dried. It was his name, but I didn't know that at the time. The uniforms see me practically falling down as I scramble out, screaming swears into my mask. They look in, then look back at me. And he was standing right there. Right the entrance to the hall out of the living room. They looked right at him.

I had to say that a rat startled me. That cost me face points real bad. But after I told them that I looked back in...and lo and behold. Gone.

So...now I'm pissed off at myself, but also scared that something's wrong with me. I go in, do the walk through, get the statement. Take some pictures. Get it over with.

All day long I felt off...paranoid. Nothing really out of the ordinary happened though. That night, as I got out of my car in the parking lot of my apartment building, this big fucking wolfhoud comes out of the bushes, gives my leg a bite, and run away again.

Usually when a dog bites a person, they bite the clothes. They're conditioned as puppies never to do more than that. So when a dog bites, that's usually because it was either trained to bite, or didn't spend puppyhood around people. It -hurt-. I yell and go do one knee. I'm holding my leg, and all I can think is...that I just spent an hour in a hazmat suit to keep from getting something deadly...and now I have rabies.

I didn't know then how right I was.

[SalmonMax]

Wednesday. Wednesday was just messed up.

When I got to the station, some of the research staff had a file on my desk about the guy from the apartment. Roy Carter. Tall guy, kinda strung out looking white trash sort. He looked just like the flash I'd seen in there. The thing. Okay, the ghost. Only, you know, alive.

There was a forensics report that basically summed up to him having abandoned the place probably two to three weeks ago. There was another set of prints on the drug shit, but no ID on them. No body in the place, no evidence of human remains.

It's about this time, as I'm thinking this other set of prints is the key to whoever killed Roy, that I realize I'm already fucking myself over here. Okay, so I saw some weird vision of the owner. That's not evidence. That's not real. Only...as much as I reminded myself, I kept coming back to it. Roy's dead. I know that...bone deep. I can't DO anything about it, because right now, to everyone else, this looks like a pretty open and shut thing. I have to go through the motions getting an arrest warrant for a guy's who I know is dead. I have to put out a bulletin with his face and description to patrol officers...for a dead guy. Dead...and I realize...buried, because of the worms in him.

The dissonance between what I know and how I know it, is giving me this huge-ass headache...so I head to the breakroom to sit down and try to relax for a second. But there's these other two guys in there and they're jabbering...so, I decide to take a quick walk outside.

It's a homicide case now, not narcotics. No, you don't know that, Ari. Goddamnit, yes I do.

Then a lady jumps out of a third floor window across the street from me, screaming and on fire.

If it's never happened to you, let me tell you, nothing will interrupt a train of thought like someone screaming and on fire. It sounds funny now, but there's nothing funny about it when it happens.

So I go running over there, already telling people to back away. Thank god there aren't that many people around in the first place. I'm just about to yell for the fire department, and I'm thinking what the hell is wrong with these guys? Because they're just standing where they are, looking at me with these vapid expressions.

So I look down, and the lady's gone. I look up, the window's boarded over. So I make something up about seeing a crack up there, and I thought the wall was going to break...which makes me look stupid, but not crazy, I hope. I look at the building's front door and hey, it's condemned.

Not so restful. Especially when I look back on my way into the station again, and I see here there, in the window on the third floor, looking right at me as I go.

I have to check this out. I look up the address, and yep, look at that. The place was gutted by a fire. Renovation painted over the scorches, but there was some company talking to the council about restoring it...talks on that musta fell through or something. So the building wasn't demolished, but no one ever fixed it; just painted it over so no one complained.

Alright, so at this point I'm kind of Bruce Willising out a bit, only people can see and hear me so I'm guessing I'm not dead. I go back to my desk, and that's when I see Cody Armani...yes, that's his real name...walking by. He's narcotics too, and is looking into this new street drug Crimson. Part of a task force Polo's putting together. He's gorgeous and Italian but that's not why I stare at him as he goes by.

He's got...things on him.

Little...gargoyley looking things, on his shoulder like pigeons on a statue. Three of them. They sort of jostle each other and scramble over each other, and they're talking turns whispering into his ear, and looking around. One of the lookouts sees me seeing it, I guess, because it makes this high pitched noise and they all scuttle into Armani's coat.

Cody turns around then and sees me. He frowns and asks me if I'm all right. Says I look pale. At this point I wouldn't be shocked if my HAIR was pale. I tell him I'm feeling a little bad. Maybe some bad food at breakfast. I don't even remember what he said to that. Something banal...and then he was walking off again.

I had to hold onto my desk. I literally felt like I was spinning. Like if I let go, I'd go flying off. The Earth was spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and I was losing whatever it was that synched me up with it. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I didn't dare move.

I remember thinking, maybe the PJ's weren't enough. Maybe being in that apartment exposed me to something. Hallucination. Vertigo. Nausea. Could be a drug, right?

So I manage to pry myself off my desk and I go tell Polo I'm going to see the doctor. He looks pretty concerned...I guess I look like hell at this point...and actually calls to get me an appointment right away. As he's doing that, the dizziness lets up a bit, so I tell him I can drive there. He says to give him a call when I know what's up.

Going to summarize this a bit. Doctor tells me I'm stressed out. I tell him he should ask for his tuition back, because he didn't need to pay fifty grand in med school bills to tell me that. I'm on edge here...not dizzy now, but just like...jumping at shadows and snapping at people. He takes it okay and tells me to go home and rest.

Naturally, I tell him this is only my second day on the job, and it's not possible I'm just stressing. So he takes blood tests, but won't have results until tomorrow on the full screening. Great.

So I go home. I give Polo a call, let him know, but I don't tell him why. Thank Christ for HIPAA. When I get to my building I spend ten minutes in my car crying like I haven't since I was a little girl. Sobbing my eyes out. I was just sure I was going to get fired, I was going to die alone, I was going to be a bag lady. I mean, just...off my rocker. When I snapped out of it, I was laughing on my way to my apartment, because it seemed so funny that I'd been so scared and sad before.

I took my temperature, and I was running one. Not too bad, but it was there. It was funny, because at the doctor's office I hadn't been. So I get some water and I sit down on my couch to watch some TV. I guess I must have fallen asleep.

And that was Wednesday.