Lexington And Fifth

Chapter 33: Warning

Cold winter air nipped at the detective's heels as she made her way towards her car in the police station parking lot. Detective Ridley walked towards her unmarked car, rubbing her temples and trying to make the headache that she'd developed since this awful mess of an investigation had begun go away. Her head felt like a frozen plate of glass, slowly splitting apart and threatening to shatter her mind.

Questions swirled through her mind as her night headed towards an end. She'd spent her whole life as a person who dealt in fact rather than fiction. She'd became a police officer because she wanted to bring light to the truth that often tried to remain hidden, and she hoped to use her passion for investigations to stop criminals who preferred to hide in the shadows.

This investigation was testing her in ways she'd never been tested before. She'd come face to face with something that defied human reasoning. After being attacked by whatever that hulking beast was, she'd found her main suspect had the perfect alibi, with witnesses placing him miles away from the crime. She had no physical evidence to tie the creature to the murders, and no witnesses had come forward with information on the monster or the attacks themselves. She was faced with a mystery that seemingly had no rational explanation whatsoever.

All these thoughts were racing through her mind when she reached her car. So lost was she in her own mind that she never heard the massive footsteps racing up behind her. By the time she realized she wasn't alone, strong hands gripped her shoulders and threw her to the ground. She landed with a thud, cracking her head against the pavement. She felt a trickle of warm blood dripping down her face, and before she could reach for her gun, the strong hands lifted her up into the air by her throat, and she found herself starring into the monster's face once more.

"Stop..." the creature hissed, a rancid smell escaping its mouth with every syllable it uttered.

"What?" she croaked, clawing at the iron-clad hands around her throat. The creature growled and pinned her against her car, color changing eyes glaring at her with a fiery heat she thought she recognized.

"Stop the investigation, or next time I don't stop squeezing the life out of you!" the creature screamed into her face. It raised one hand from her throat and smashed it into the trunk of her car, the sound of the punch making the detective think of a slab of concrete scraping against sheet metal.

"Heed my words, detective, or I will be back..." the words trailed out of the creature as if they came from an outside source, and as it let her go and sent her to the ground gasping for breath, she thought he recognized the voice. When she got control of her breath back, she turned and saw the creature was nowhere in sight, and she was alone once more. She pulled herself up off the ground, and as she pulled out her gun and scanned the parking lot for her enemy, she realized that she knew the source of that horrid voice. Fear crept into her veins, but so did anger, and right now she allowed her anger to grow more than she would allow the fear to fester.

"Fuck you, you son of a bitch," she spat, holstering her gun and glaring into the dark of night. "I'm coming for you, and I will stop you."