Part 4: It’s About Time We Tell You

May 8th, 2012 5:22pm

The newly formed trio of self-proclaimed “monster see-ers” headed off to their second crime scene of the evening.

They figured they’d run into something nasty, but they had no idea what it was until they arrived.

At the train tracks, they found 4 police vehicles surrounded by officers in a stand off position. There were two people on the other side of the tracks facing their guns.

The officers at the scene looked confused and nervous.

One of the women they were pointing guns at looked equally as confused, while the other laid on the ground motionless.

It only took the group a second to put together what happened prior to their arrival. 

“Looks like our secret was short-lived” Jenny said.

Station House 36

Officer Nguyen was a new recruit to the Souleville police department. Tragically, this was the first case he was assigned to.

“Hello ma’am. My name is officer Nguyen. I’m here to talk with you about this evening.” He offered her a bottle of water. “We know this has been a hard day for you, and we aren’t trying to cause you any more distress, but we need your help. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.” She accepted the water bottle and nodded her head.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Destiny Rodriguez.”

“Where are you from?”

“I was born here in Soulville.”

“How do you know Ms..Johnson?”

“Nina Johnson is my fiance.”

“Thank you, Ms. Rodriguez. Now, is there any background information you can give us on your relationship with Ms. Johnson before we get into what happened?” 

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Nguyen. What do you need to know?”

“This isn’t protocol, so it’s hard to know exactly what we need to hear. We’re wondering if she displayed any strange behavior before the incident. Were outbursts normal for her? Did she get upset easily? Was she a part of any strange activities?” He looked at her with defeat in his eyes “Is there any way we can explain the incident without relying on paranormal activity?”

Destiny sighed, “She’s never turned into that before, whatever it was, if that’s what you’re asking. Sure, sometimes she gets angry, but not anymore than anyone else would. Her folks were much harsher than she ever was. And the only things she does are play hockey and take care of her plants. She also works a lot, but nothing she does is out of the ordinary.”

“What about her folks? Does she spend a lot of time with them?”

“Not much anymore. They had a huge falling out a few months ago. Nina was pretty hurt by the whole thing, but she never got visually angry about it. She was quiet for a few weeks, but eventually that wore off. After everything she was irritable for a bit, but tonight was just as shocking to me as it was to you.” Her eyes drifted away from him as she finished speaking.

“Are you alright, Ms. Rodriquez?” He noticed how exhausted she looked.

“It has been a long day. Can we pick this up tomorrow?”

He looked at the mirror on the other side of the interrogation room, it was actually a one way window. 

Officer Harling walked into the room a moment later.

“Yes ma’am. You may leave for today. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Thank you ma’am.” Officer Nguyen said in agreement as he walked towards the door to let her go.

Ms. Rodriguez didn’t move with him. Instead she sat still and stared at the wall, looking scared again for the first time since they took her away from Nina. After a brief moment she spoke.

“Where is Nina? I know what happened tonight was… unexpected, but still, she’s my fiance. Can I see her?”

“I’m really sorry ma’am. We know you care for her, but we can’t let you see her until we know it’s safe. I assure you she’s safe here with us in the meantime. We have her in a room here at the station. She’ll be staying until we figure out what’s going on. We know she’s not bad. She has no criminal record and she’s still calmly asleep right now, but we need to find out what’s going on so we can help her.” Harling said.

“What’s going to happen to her?”

“I’m not sure, Ms. Rodriquez, but we’ll update you as soon as we know. Is there anyone you can stay with tonight? A close friend you can talk to or a trusted authority figure you can get support from?”

“I’ll see if I can stay with a friend.” She stood up and walked toward the door. “What time should I come back tomorrow?”

“We’ll be open at 7am.” Nguyen said. “Would you like an escort to take you to your car?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Nguyen and Destiny walked out the room together. Harling sat down to take a deep breath. The double attempted murders that happened only an hour earlier had sobered him up significantly, but they also left a growing migraine behind.

“Harling.” Jenny said as she and Blake walked into the room. “She’s awake.”

“Great timing.” Harling said through a groan. “Anyone have Tylenol?”

Nina and Harling

The world spinned underneath Harling as he walked toward room 157, the nastiest room in the station. It was cleaned once a quarter to make it as realistically gross as possible. 

This room was only used to interrogate people that the station knew were 110% at fault for their crimes. Crimes like this almost never took place in soulville, but nearby towns used the room as well. Soulville was surrounded by large crime ridden cities. 

As old school and unethical as the practice sounds, it gave peace to the officers who had to give their time of day to murderers and rapists. 

Except for Harling, who always believed the practice was outdated and misunderstood. He only kept his mouth shut about it because he knew from experience that speaking up only got him lectures and dirty looks.

Today, Harling didn’t even care about how dirty the room was. All he cared about was the throbbing pain in his head and the fact that he still had to face the potentially career ending conversation about how he knew the monster’s were in town way before everyone else, but chose to keep the matter to himself. He was also worried he’d be drug tested since his colleagues seemed to know exactly where his headache came from.

The comedown is always the worst part.

Still, Harling has a job to do tonight, and he might be able to keep his whole career safe if he can get the right information out of Nina.

He thought about all of this in a fuzzy haze as he neared the room’s entrance. Right as he approached the door knob he was abruptly cut off by Officer Nguyen.

“Are you alright Harling? Looked like you were struggling to get over here.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He said through a groan. “Just a little headache. Has anyone spoken to Nina yet?”

“No sir. We were waiting for you. Following the orders we were given.”

“Good.”

Without another word Nguyen opened the door to let Harling in.

As Harling walked into the dusty spider web covered room, the first thing he noticed was the sound of silent weeping. He expected nothing less. From what he’d seen in his two past experiences with this freaky monster shit, those affected were entirely unaware of its presence until it got them into some serious trouble.

The woman was handcuffed to a small wooden chair that had one leg shorter than the other. She rocked gently, causing a light thumping sound to echo in the room. 

Thud, thud, thud.

Harling sat in the chair across from hers. They were separated by a four foot long table full of scratches and dirt markups from previous interrogations. He looked up at the one way window, similar to the previous room, and loudly said “Officer Nguyen, get in here.”

Nguyen entered the room a moment later.

“Unlock her handcuffs and go get her a water bottle.”

“Are you sure, sir?” Nguyen looked nervous as he stared at Harling for approval.

“Yes.”

He did as he was told and left the room, only to come back a moment later with a bottle of water in hand. “Is that all sir?”

“Yes. Thank you officer Nguyen.”

As he left the room, Nina’s sobbs began to soften. Soon they ended all together.

“Hi Nina. I’m Officer Harling, the head of this department. I’m overseeing your case. How are you today?”

She looked at him with fear in her eyes. Not knowing if he was trying to give her a false sense of security, or if he was truly a kind man.

“I don’t want any trouble Nina.” Harling said, “I’m not messing with you either. I talked to your girlfriend and she let me know you’re not a threat, so I’m not going to treat you like one. Do you believe me?”

She had no reason to believe him. She didn’t know if he actually talked to Destiny but, for some reason, she believed him. She lightened up.

“I’m having a horrible day, Officer.”

“I bet.” They both shared an unlikely smile with each other, but only for a moment.

Harling sat tall in his seat before speaking again.

“Before I ask you any more questions, I want you to tell me what happened.”

Nina mimicked his movement and stood as tall as she could.

“As far as I know, I was going to the movies with my girlfriend when suddenly I was surrounded by cops. It was as if I blinked and accidentally teleported from the theatre to gun point. I remember seeing them for only a moment before passing out. Then I woke up in this room and I was told to remain calm, that someone would come and talk to me soon.”

Harling looked closely at Nina, trying to figure out why it was that he believed these women so quickly. He’s not gullible or stupid, but given what he knows on the subject, it seems like everything they were saying was entirely possible.

That’s the only reason he’d break protocol and say something so stupid.

“You don’t remember looking like the ghost of a King Cobra in the face?”

Her look answered him before she did, but still, he needed a verbal response from her. If this interrogation didn’t end well, he’d definitely lose his job.

“Do you remember the transformation of your face, Nina?”

“Are you fucking with me?” She said as her hand balled into a fist.

Harling looked at the window to signal backup, just in case this next move went poorly.

“The way I remember it, one second you were a raging hot angry woman, and the next you had a freaky monster face. You tried to kill half my staff. Do you remember that?”

Nina calmed for a brief moment and said “No.” Then she laughed a little and said, “You’re messing with me.”

Harling didn’t laugh back.

“You could’ve killed a lot of people, and you don’t even remember the incident?” He raised his voice for the first time. “NGUYEN!” He shouted. “GET ME THE COMPUTER.”

Once Nguyen came back inside and handed him the computer, he instructed the officer to handcuff Nina and stay in the room.

“This” he said while playing a video on the computer “is what you’re forgetting.”

He pulled up a video clip from Facebook and pressed play. On the screen was a view of a roadway barely visible in the night. It was moving quickly, making it clear that the person recording was running.

“GET DOWN, EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” The filming man screamed.

Thirty more seconds of floor played, before the camera lens quickly pointed toward the sky. The man on the ground was frantically trying to point his camera at what he was screaming about. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!”

His camera shaked for another few seconds before locking in on Nina, or whatever Nina was at the moment. 

She looked almost exactly like a snake from the neck up, a King Cobra to be exact. A wispy gas like substance made up her face, much like the two monsters Harling saw before her. It looked like a black ghost snake head.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

Nina, or the horrifying snake version of Nina, shrieked so loudly the screen on the camera cracked and went black within seconds.

Harling shut the laptop and said “You don’t remember that?”

Nina didn’t answer. Instead her face went red. She looked as if she was about to faint.

“Nina! I need an answer.” Harling was getting aggressive again.

“No. I don’t.”

Harling nodded his head at Nguyen. “Were you there, Nguyen?”

“Yes.” He replied.

“Can you verify that moments after this video, Nina was tranquilized and returned to her normal face following the event?”

“I can verify that, yes.”

Harling nodded.

“Nina. Can you verify that that was you in the video?”

Nina’s face flushed and she paused before speaking, unsure how to phrase her reply. “Yes, it seems like it happened to me” she hesitated and looked around “but that face wasn’t me. I’m not in control of whatever that thing was.”

“So you’re saying it’s you?”

“No. It’s something else that’s using me. I don’t know how, or where it’s from, but that sure as hell isn’t me.” She went from looking scared to full on defensive. “I didn’t remember anything, because it didn’t want me to.”

“Okay. Fine. You say it isn’t you. Where do you think it came from?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” She quickly changed to rage. “IT’S NOT ME! AND I ALREADY SAID I DON’T KNOW WHERE ITS FROM!”

“If you can’t provide me with any evidence against this video that shows you committing the crime, I’m going to have to charge you with the crime.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS THE CRIME?! I DIDN’T HURT ANYONE!”

“Destruction of public property, 4 counts of assault with intent to murder, and disturbing the peace. Just to name a few. You may not remember everything that happened, but eyewitnesses saw more than what that man’s video shows.”

Her face got red hot, and something Harling had been expecting and instigating took place in under a second. Nina turned into the thing in the video.

Nguyen’s eyes opened wide and he stared at Harling in terror, afraid to move. It happened so fast he had no time to process Harling’s plan or intention.

“It’s okay. She won’t hurt us. They only get aggressive around the people they’re close to.”

“How do you know that?” Nguyen asked, his eyes now glued to the beast in front of him.

“I’ve seen two before. It’s just a trend I noticed.”

They both stared at the thing in front of them, the thing taking over Nina’s head. It stared at Harling with an amused look on its face.

“You’re not afraid, Harling?” It said.

“Why would I be? You aren’t going to do anything to me.”

“You assume that.” It said with a smile on it’s snake lips. “I can, if I want to. Did you know I could do that? Did you know that I could speak too?”

“I’m sure you can. And no, I wasn’t sure you could speak until now. I was hoping for it though.”

“As expected. Now go ahead, ask me some questions. I know you want to.”

“Where are you from?”

“Nina. She’s my homebody. Without her, I wouldn’t be alive.” It said through a hiss.

“Where were you before Nina?”

“I wasn’t. I just said that.”

“Were you born inside her then? Is that what you’re implying?”

“Sure, if that makes it easier for you to understand. I was born in Nina.” He laughed. “I know you think you can get me if you talk to me, but I’m not afraid to tell you anything. You can’t stop me or any of us with this information, but it’ll be funny watching you try.” 

“Then keep telling me.” Harling said through his expressionless face.

He pulled his head further out and got closer to Harlings face to say “It’s not like human birth, but I do have parents. Once Nina got into contact with them I started forming, so to speak. It takes a while for us to get this strong though. I’ve been with Nina for 12 years, but I couldn’t come out before today.”

“Where are your parents?”

It smiled. “Where do you think?”

“In Nina’s parents?”

“Precisely. Those two have been around for so long.I believe they came from a great aunt and a father of their owners.”

“Let me ask you something I care about. How do I kill you?”

As the Nina monster began to reply, Harling gently raised his left hand, a signal to the people behind the one way window.

“You can’t hurt me. Go ahead and try. I don’t just look like smoke, I am like smoke. See for yourself. Shoot me.”

“I don’t want to shoot you yet. Why are you here? What do you want with Nina?”

“I want what everyone wants. I want to live.” It dropped it’s smile for a moment. “My parents want to live. We need a human host, so I need Nina to keep me alive.” It made an expression that looked like remembrance. “And I’m here to make my own children. We’re capable of asexual reproduction. Reproduction happens whether we like it or not, once we’re strong enough to take over our host.”

“Okay. So are you going to leave Nina voluntarily, or should we hold her here until you both die?”

It laughed with arrogance. “Try me.”

Before it could stop laughing it abruptly hit the table monster-head first.

“Perfect timing.” Harling said to Jenny. She had opened the hidden latch in the wall and shot the creature with a tranquilizer seconds before entering the room.

“Good thing those bullets work on supernatural body-hijacking monsters.”

Everyone in the room smiled for a brief moment before returning to the serious and eerie vibes that lingered in the station tonight.

“Harling?” Nguyen said.

“What?”

“What did you learn from that? Was anything useful? Are we any closer to capturing this thing without having to lock up an innocent woman forever?” He looked at Harling the way a six year old looks at their parents when they’re afraid of the storm raging outside.

“Yes, it was useful. Now we know where these things come from and what their goals are. Most importantly, we know their greatest weakness. As soon as we figure out how to exploit that weakness, we win.”

“What’s their weakness, sir?” Jenny asked.

“They can’t live without a human host, right? All we have to do is figure out how to remove them from their hosts.” Harling said.

“And how do you suppose we figure that out?”

“We need to visit Nina’s parents.” Harling said. “They’ve got some monsters inside too.”

Part 5 will be released soon.

Monsters Inside, by Leeann Diaz