Chapter 2: The Bitch Bit Me!

"C'mon Pete, down the hatch." Lonny's desperate attempt at drowning out the day's bullshit always tends to cheer me up. Phil's Pub was the norm after a long day's work. We joke about encounters we have during the job, difficulties with women, and the occasional racist stereotype. I usually can keep up with Lonny's pace, but this night in particular just feels...different. "What's goin on Pete?" He asks. I look at him then turn back to my triple as my mind begins to settle on the heavenly liquid, "What do you mean?" I answer back, trying to avoid the question. "Well, you have either one of two faces on. Your either thinking really hard about something or... your takin' a shit. Now I hope to god, for mine AND Phil's sake, that it's the first." He and Phil the bartender laugh at what would usually crack me up, but I remain disturbed. "...It's about that girl...you should have seen her, Lon...she looked liked she was...chewed on...god dammit, I can't get it out of my head, man." I try to forget it. I want to just wipe the image from my memory so that I can enjoy the night, but her face...it's just stained into my conscience like a scar that appears overnight. Lonny, still just taking one swig after another, "Hey, Phil, turn the T on will ya?" Phil turns the t.v. on and flips through the channel's. Suddenly, I spot something that catches my eye. "Wait, go back a few." I tell him to leave it on a channel that has a local independent news team covering a story on what seems to be about the red-headed girl I had "discovered" earlier.

"...and this is where police officer Pete Vang had found her. Sources claim that victim, twenty-six-year-old Laurie Wallace, was on her way to visit a friend when she was assaulted and killed in this alleyway along Bradley and Co Pine st. Authorities state that her death had been due to massive blood loss as the result of numerous bite wounds. Disturbing enough, the fatal teeth marks were, get this folks, identified to be of human origins." I overhear a faint whisper, someone behind me becoming unsettled by the tidbit "What the fuck?..." The crew carries on, "No suspects have been apprehended as of late but...AHHHHGH!" All of the five or so startled heads in that bar turned at once at break-neck speeds towards the t.v. screen. A scream had rung out of the crowd as one of the police officers stumbled towards his cruiser, he was dazed and leaning on the hood, with one of his arms cradling the other. "The bitch bit me!!!" The news crew kept rolling. I recognized Lieutenant Burt Goree's voice out of the ruckus. "What the hell happened?!...and where's the damn body?!" The wounded policeman responds, "She bit me sir!...(ugh)...I was just kneeling near her when she popped up and bit me!" Lieutenant Goree with a puzzled look, "...The dead girl bit you?" He pauses then turns to one of his sergeants "Call a stretcher...have them tell me when he's out of shock." He turns back to the wounded officer. "It's alright, son, just sit down, take it easy. The paramedics are gonna get you standing in no time." Had I known that this was all the beginning of something far more worse yet to come, I would have prepared better. Had I just known...