"URBAN SANGUIVORES" - Redwood Bureau Phenomenon #0155

Summary

Redwood Bureau – "URBAN SANGUIVORES" (Redwood Bureau Phenomenon #0155)

Host: Josh Tomar as Agent Conroy
Podcast: Redwood Bureau / Eeriecast Network
Date: January 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode of Redwood Bureau explores the Bureau's investigations into "urban sanguivores"—supernatural, vampiric entities hiding in modern cities' shadows. Through first-person narrative, incident reports, and chilling field accounts, Agent Conroy exposes the terrifying reality behind urban legends of vampirism: outbreaks of infection that transform ordinary people into predatory creatures. The episode blends horror, procedural drama, and philosophical reflection on the cost of secrecy and containment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing Vampires for the Modern World

• Agent Conroy narrates the shift from old-world vampire myths to their adaptation for the 21st century.
  • Quote: "If you wanted something that feeds on people and hates the sun to survive in the 21st century, you wouldn't put it in a castle. You'd put it under a city." (03:58)
• Urban legends about subway attacks, “junkies” or “homeless” biting people are framed as dismissals of real supernatural threats.
• The Bureau’s containment: These incidents are sanitized in official reports, downplayed as everyday violence.

2. Incident Report: Kayla and Eli’s Ordeal

A detailed first-person account from Eli, whose sister Kayla is bitten by a creature in a subway station, leading to devastating consequences.

• Setting: Run-down city apartment; two siblings struggling to get by (06:17).
• Attack: Kayla is bitten by a pale, naked man in the subway; insists on going to the hospital, not calling the police due to cost and bureaucracy (07:42–09:10).
• Decline: Kayla’s symptoms escalate—fever, headaches, photophobia, hair loss, extreme sensitivity to smell. She becomes increasingly unwell, refusing to return to the hospital (16:46–21:38).
• Transformation: Eli returns home to find chaos; Kayla has massacred a neighbor and is inhumanly altered—pale skin, wrong joints, predatory behavior. Eli is viciously attacked and bitten (27:56–33:48).
• 911 Call: Eli barricades himself and calls for help as his transformation begins (34:44).

Memorable Moment:
Eli’s realization about his sister’s transformation:

"Her jaw jutted forward, the muscles branched along the cheeks like cables. Her mouth—I don't know how to describe it. The teeth were flattened and chipped, gums pulled back. There was blood on everything." (28:41)

3. Bureau Intervention & Quarantine

• Immediate, brutal containment by the Redwood Bureau:
  • The building is locked down, floors purged, survivors sedated and memory-fogged.
  • "Full vector saturation" is their euphemism for wiping out all infected and potentially infected individuals (62:29–63:30).

Notable Statement:
"Any stage of infection in a closed box is just a future nest. The only solution available is termination and disposal." (62:44)

4. Field Operation: Clearing the Nest

Agent Conroy joins a Bureau team into a subway tunnel to root out an infestation.

• Team Setup: Military tactics; extreme caution—exposure is deadly (36:06–40:25).
• Descent: The team discovers a nest filled with scavenged belongings, bones, and dormant creatures—described in chilling, monstrous detail (42:02–44:04).
• Attack: The creatures are fast, spiderlike, and relentless; bullets are only somewhat effective (44:09–46:43).
• Escalation: Surrounded and outnumbered, the team deploys a "torch" device—burns the nest with targeted radiation/chemical fire, eradicating most of the creatures (55:38–57:19).

Memorable Action Sequence:
"No order was given. We didn't need words to understand what this situation had developed into. The room exploded into flashes of fire and deafening thunder... The infestation was like a hydra. Every time one dropped, two more took its place." (50:41–55:38)

5. Aftermath & The Bureau’s Cost

• Survivors undergo harsh decontamination: seven days in isolation, severe illness, mental manipulation, and ongoing coercion.
• Agent Conroy details the emotional and moral toll—he participates, but the price is the safety of his family, held hostage by the Bureau.
• Reflections: The Bureau doesn’t secure or cure the threat; it barely maintains control, acting out of self-interest.
• Warning: Infection is terrifyingly close. The myth is real, and “urban sanguivores” are an ever-present danger below the surface.

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “If you wanted something that feeds on people and hates the sun to survive in the 21st century, you wouldn't put it in a castle. You'd put it under a city.” (03:58) — Agent Conroy's opening monologue reframing urban vampirism.
• Eli on the broken hospital system:
  • “We can't afford the ambulance bill.” (08:29) — socioeconomic struggles are part of the vulnerability.
• Transformation details:
  • “Her pupils were huge, almost eating the brown. The whites weren't white anymore. Veins shot red. Your hair is falling out, I said.” (20:22)
• Confrontation in the neighbor's apartment:
  • “Her jaw jutted forward, the muscles branched along the cheeks like cables. Her mouth... I don't know how to describe it.” (28:41)
• Bureau policy on outbreaks:
  • “Any stage of infection in a closed box is just a future nest. The only solution available is termination and disposal.” (62:44)
• On the psychological cost:
  • “They promised me my family was safe if I kept doing this. New names, new town, clean id. All handled... The threat is clear enough.” (60:26)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:04–03:08 – Introduction: What are “urban sanguivores” and Bureau secrecy
• 06:17–21:38 – Incident report: Kayla’s attack and illness, Eli’s growing fear
• 27:56–33:48 – Kayla’s transformation, violence, and Eli’s infection
• 36:06–41:22 – Bureau team gears up for tunnel operation
• 42:02–44:04 – Discovery of the nest: detailed description of creatures
• 44:09–57:19 – Battle with the nest; use of torches; survival
• 61:58–66:02 – Bureau clean-up, memory manipulation; Conroy’s final thoughts and warnings

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains a bleak, urgent, and unsparing tone. Dialogue is raw and honest, reflecting working-class anxieties, bureaucratic indifference, and existential terror. The horror is both physical and emotional—infectious violence mirrored by institutional ruthlessness. Agent Conroy’s narration is forthright, laced with cynicism and compassion, committed to exposing truth regardless of the cost.

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Conclusion

"URBAN SANGUIVORES" masterfully intertwines urban horror, class commentary, and bureaucratic critique, warning listeners that real monsters hide not in remote castles, but beneath the cities we inhabit—and that suppression, not solution, is the Bureau’s guiding principle. The take-home: If you hear footsteps behind you in the subway, or a loved one comes home with a suspicious bite, take heed. The legends are real, and “urban sanguivores” are far closer than comfort allows.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Look at him.

[Eli]

Eating whatever he wants, never gaining a pound. Well, I'm stuck with the boring special and can't lose an ounce. How's your lunch, man? Amazing.

[Kayla]

Yours?

[Agent Conroy]

So good.

[Narrator]

Oh, I'm so happy for you.

[Eli]

Cool, buddy.

[Narrator]

Weight loss isn't fair, but Mochi Health.

[Eli]

Is the affordable GLP1 source that can.

[Kayla]

Fix your frustration with food.

[Eli]

So, same time next week?

[Kayla]

No.

[Agent Conroy]

Definitely.

[Narrator]

And your friends.

[Eli]

Learn [e-mail] Mochi members have access to.

[Kayla]

Licensed physicians and nutritionists.

[Eli]

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[Agent Conroy]

Beware the Redwood Bureau.

[Narrator]

A secret organization which captures and researches creatures and objects that defy explanation. Their reckless procedures have led to countless innocent lives lost.

[Agent Conroy]

I am Agent Conroy. I worked for the Redwood Bureau.

[Narrator]

But I have escaped them to leak their reports to the unsuspecting public.

[Agent Conroy]

You have the right to know.

[Kayla]

It. 911. What's your emergency?

[Eli]

My sister. I need help, please. She's.

[Narrator]

She.

[Eli]

Something's wrong with her.

[Kayla]

Okay, sir, slow down. What is Your address?

[Eli]

Apartment 9, 6th floor. Please, you have to hurry.

[Kayla]

Is she there with you now?

[Eli]

No, I locked her out. She's in the hallway. I found her in our neighbor's place. She was. There was blood everywhere and she attacked me.

[Kayla]

Are you injured?

[Eli]

Yes. She fucking bit me. I'm bleeding a lot.

[Kayla]

Use a clean towel and keep pressure on the wounds. Stay where you are and keep the door locked. Officers and EMS are being dispatched to your location. Do not open the door for anyone except uniformed officers or paramedics. Do you understand?

[Eli]

Yeah. That's. That's not my sister. I don't know what happened. She was just sick, sir.

[Agent Conroy]

Can you hear her now?

[Eli]

No. I think she walked down the hall. I don't feel so good.

[Kayla]

Sir? Sir, are you still there? Hello? Sir?

[Narrator]

When you hear the word vampire, I know what comes to mind. Capes, old castles, a pasty figure brooding in the shadows. Maybe glitter if you had the misfortune of coming up in the wrong decade. We turned it into a costume and a romance because the original version was useless for selling anything except fear. The older stories aren't pretty. Dig far enough back and you don't find seduction. You find livestock torn apart, children missing, people falling ill and becoming violent, families digging up their own dead to drive stakes through a body that didn't look decayed enough. Different countries, different names, same pattern. People noticed and they did the only thing they could. They wrapped the idea in rules they hoped would keep them safe. Don't invite it in. Use garlic. Crosses. Turn a creature into a person and you can start to bargain with it. Or at least pretend you can now trade the village for a city. Your new wells are subway lines, storm drains, freight tunnels, miles of concrete veins under everything carrying heat and noise and people too tired to be careful. If you wanted something that feeds on people and hates the sun to survive in the 21st century, you wouldn't put it in a castle. You'd put it under a city. Most of you have already heard pieces of it and shrugged. Some homeless guy bit a commuter. Some junkie attacked a woman outside a station. The clip plays once. You blame drugs or mental illness and the story disappears. The police file it as an assault. The city cleans up the mess and everyone moves on. Not long ago you heard of a deputy driving alone down a country road to check on a 911 call. He walked into a house he wasn't meant to walk out of. He went down a staircase and entered a new nightmare that would never leave him. He didn't get to go back to his old life after that. Men who survive places like that almost never do. The Bureau has been training him, using him. That's what they do when they find potential. You're going to hear from people who thought they were dealing with normal kinds of trouble until something inexplicable proved them wrong. You'll hear what it sounds like when the Bureau finds a pattern in something that sounds like an urban legend. If you still like the word vampire after that, just remember the real thing isn't waiting in a castle somewhere far away. It's perfectly happy to live under your feet in the dark between stations, waiting until the infection can work its way into your home. Into your home.

[Eli]

Rent was the real horror in that building. $1,800 a month for a sixth floor. One bed, one bath with paper thin walls and a view of brick. My sister and I split it because it was either that or move back to mom's couch an hour outside the city and watch everything go backwards. I've been doing construction demo, mostly. Dirt, noise, hard work and shit pay. She was in nursing school full time with a part time job at a coffee place near the hospital. We saw each other in passing, me coming in covered in plaster, her heading out in scrubs with her hair in a hasty bun. That night I was on the couch with my boots off, half watching some old action movie on my phone, trying to push out the thought of how screwed we would be if the landlord raised rent again. It was late enough that the hallway was quiet. Then the door slammed open and Kayla stumbled in. She was holding her left forearm tight against her chest. Blood had already soaked through the sleeve of her hoodie and run down to her fingers. There were drops on the floor, leaving a trail to her. What the fuck, Kay? I was up before I even knew I was moving. Her eyes found me, wide and glassy.

[Kayla]

He.

[Eli]

He bit me, she said, voice thin, breath coming in quick little gasps. She tried to kick the door shut, missed, and I grabbed it for her, closing it. Sit down, I said, steering her to the couch. Let me see. She hesitated, then peeled her arm away from her chest. The hoodie cuff stuck to it with blood. When she rolled the sleeve back, I saw deep marks on her forearm, right where people get IVs, skin ragged and torn with multiple punctures. Blood was still seeping out and snaking trails. Oh shit, I said. K. We're calling 911.

[Kayla]

No.

[Eli]

She grabbed my wrist with her good hand, nails digging in painfully.

[Agent Conroy]

Just.

[Kayla]

Just the hospital. We can't afford the ambulance bill.

[Eli]

He bit you, I said. We have to report it to the police. What if he's still Eli? She snapped.

[Kayla]

Please. I don't want to spend all night answering questions. I want them to clean it and give me whatever I need so I don't get rabies or whatever. That's it. I have to work tomorrow and so do you.

[Eli]

Her face was gray under the fluorescent kitchen light. There was sweat on her upper lip. I looked at the bite again, at the way the skin around it was already puffing. Fine. What the hell happened, though? I asked. She swallowed.

[Kayla]

I got off at 42nd, took the back stairs, the ones by the broken vending machine. It was empty. I heard something behind me, turned around, and he was just there. Taller than me, naked, pale. He grabbed my arm and bit me.

[Eli]

Before I even her voice broke.

[Kayla]

I kicked him and ran. I didn't look back. I just ran all the way here.

[Eli]

Okay, I said, more for me than her. Okay. Hospital. Get a towel on that. I'll call a ride share.

[Kayla]

Don't call 91 1, she added. Seriously, it's not worth it.

[Eli]

I hesitated, phone in my hand, in my head. I could see some skinny white dude with bad teeth and wide eyes, probably spun out. I could also see 30 hours of paperwork and some detective trying to get her to remember exactly what she saw in three seconds of sheer panic by going over it 15 times. I opened the rideshare app. The ER was the way it always is. Too bright, too loud, waiting too long. Plastic chairs, plastic plants, faces, and every flavor of exhausted, pained, and pissed off. We sat there for an hour. Her hoodie sleeve was wrapped tight with a white dish towel, and she had my old denim jacket thrown over it. Every few minutes she'd flex her fingers, making sure she could still feel them. How's it feel? I asked.

[Kayla]

Like someone bit me, she said. It hurts.

[Eli]

You dizzy?

[Kayla]

A little. Probably just shook up.

[Eli]

She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. The skin under them was already darker than usual. A kid puked into a trash can. Across from us an old woman moaned softly every time she breathed. A TV in the corner showed some home improvement show with the sound off. By the time they called her name, we were both half asleep. The doc was mid-40s, hair going grey and thinning at the back, stethoscope hanging around his neck. He glanced at the chart, then at Kayla's arm as she unwrapped the the towel.

[Agent Conroy]

Human bite?

[Eli]

He asked. Yes, she said.

[Agent Conroy]

You sure?

[Eli]

He asked again, looking at the wound with a furrowed brow.

[Kayla]

He was on two legs, she said. He grabbed me like this.

[Eli]

She mimed the grip, fingers around the.

[Kayla]

Forearm, and bit me.

[Eli]

His mouth went into a line I didn't like.

[Agent Conroy]

Any dogs nearby?

[Eli]

He asked.

[Agent Conroy]

Bats? Rats?

[Kayla]

No. Just me and him.

[Agent Conroy]

And you don't know him?

[Eli]

He pressed.

[Kayla]

I've never seen him before in my life. Can we get this over with? I have school and work tomorrow.

[Eli]

He sighed.

[Agent Conroy]

I'm going to irrigate it, yes. You're going to need antibiotics, rabieseries, unless you can be absolutely certain it was a human.

[Kayla]

It was human, she said. He was pale and weird and nasty, but he was a man. I'm worried about Hepatitis, aids, whatever he might have had.

[Eli]

The doc gave this little head tilt, like he'd said the same thing a hundred times. The risk of hepatitis or HIV from.

[Agent Conroy]

A bite is actually fairly low.

[Eli]

Rabies is a much bigger concern.

[Agent Conroy]

If we're wrong about the source, I'm going to treat it like a human bite but give you the rabies shots as a precaution. We'll document the incident. If police want to follow up, they.

[Eli]

Might have some questions for you she nodded, jaw clenched. He numbed the area with a shot that made her hiss between her teeth, then flushed the bite with so much saline it dripped down her elbow and onto the pad. Stitches went in before he bandaged it and gave her a stack of paper with instructions. Keep clean. Watch for signs of infection. Come back if a fever develops. I stood in the corner and watched his face more than his hands. There was a second right before he put a bandage on, where he looked at the pattern of the teeth marks, then up at Kayla's eyes, then at me. Something in his expression said he wanted to ask more questions and decided not to. He gave her the first rabies shot in the shoulder, wrote her a script for antibiotics, and told us we could go. We got home around 2 in the morning. The elevator was still broken, so we took the stairs, Kayla dragging a little, she said as she fished for her keys. Her fingers fumbled and they slipped. I caught them. Yeah, no shit, I said. Text your manager before you crash. Tell her something hit you and send her a picture of your hospital paperwork.

[Kayla]

Yeah.

[Eli]

She rubbed her eyes with her good hand.

[Kayla]

I'll do it right now.

[Eli]

I didn't say anything else. I was thinking about the doc, asking if she was sure, the way his eyes had slid sideways, like he didn't want to scare her. She was out almost immediately. I heard her moving around in her room for a minute or two, then nothing. I lay there on the couch, scrolling mindlessly on my phone until the screen blurred and my eyes didn't want to stay open. The alarm went off at 5am My entire body felt like wet concrete. Her door was closed. I pictured her cocooned in blankets and thought about checking on her, but I didn't want to wake her. She needed rest. We were jackhammering tile out of some rich guy's future indoor pool that day. The vibration worked up through my arms and into my skull until my thoughts were a scrambled mess. Every break I checked my phone. No messages. Around noon I texted her. How's the arm zombie? Nothing at two. Seriously? You alive? Nothing at three. I'm calling you. Pick up. She didn't. Straight to voicemail. My stomach did a slow turn like my lunch didn't agree with me, only I hadn't eaten. But I also knew how she was when she was sick. She slept like the dead, and if she'd taken a Benadryl on top of everything else, good luck waking her. By the time my shift ended, the inside of my skull buzzed with caffeine and anxiety. I threw my dust cake shirt in a bag and headed home. I unlocked the door and stepped in. The apartment was dim, curtains closed. The air had that heavy slept in thickness. I could hear a noise from down the hall. Rough coughing cut off, like someone was trying to hold it back. K. I called you awake.

[Kayla]

Don't.

[Eli]

Don't turn the light on, she croaked from her room. I froze with my hand halfway on the switch. Okay, I said. How you feeling?

[Kayla]

Like shit.

[Eli]

Her voice shook.

[Kayla]

Every time I open my eyes it feels like someone's pushing a needle straight into my brain.

[Eli]

That's probably the shots, I said. Side effects.

[Kayla]

I googled it, she said. It's a thing. Fever, headache, all that. I'll be okay.

[Eli]

I stepped closer to her door. The smell leaking out under it was off. Not like puke, more like sweat and something sour like dirty laundry left in a gym bag too long. You want to go back? I asked. We can go back. You look worse. No hospital, she said instantly. Too fast.

[Kayla]

I can't deal with the fluorescent lights. My head will explode. Just let me sleep it off, Eli.

[Eli]

You sure?

[Kayla]

I'm sure. Please, I just need it dark for a while.

[Eli]

Alright, I said. I've got an early shift tomorrow. I'll check on you before I leave. If you're worse, we're going back. Okay? Yeah, she breathed.

[Kayla]

Okay.

[Eli]

I didn't sleep well that night. The next morning I woke up before the alarm. Her door was cracked an inch. The smell was stronger. Our whole apartment was starting to stink. Kay? I asked softly, knocking with my knuckles. Don't, she said immediately.

[Kayla]

Don't open it.

[Eli]

I eased it wider anyway. She was curled on the mattress with the blinds duct taped shut. The blue light from her alarm clock painted sharp lines on her skin. Her hair, long and dark, was stuck to her face in damp strings, and there were clumps of it on the pillow like she'd been pulling at it. Shit, I said before I could stop myself. Kay, don't look at me, she whispered, covering her face with her forearm.

[Kayla]

It's too bright.

[Eli]

It's not bright, I said. The sun isn't even up yet.

[Kayla]

It feels like my head is going to be burst. Everything hurts. My skin hurts. My teeth hurt. I can smell the hallway.

[Eli]

I stepped in and sat on the edge of the mattress. Her skin under my hand was weird, cold and damp, like she'd been sweating, but now the sweat had chilled with some kind of thin, clear fluid that dried in flaky streaks. Hospital, I said. Now. I'll call out from work. No, she said sharply, grabbing my wrist her grip was surprising, fingers pressing harder than I expected.

[Kayla]

No, they're just going to sit me in a bright room and tell me its side effects and ask me questions. I can't. I can't go there. It's too loud. It's too. Too much. Please, Eli, just give me one more day.

[Eli]

I looked at her eyes. Her pupils were huge, almost eating the brown. The whites weren't white anymore. Veins shot red. Your hair is falling out, I said. She gave a short, humorless laugh.

[Kayla]

Yeah, I pulled out a little by accident. I was having really bad headache.

[Eli]

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Work. Our crew was already on thin ice with the foreman after the last job ran long. We needed the money. She knew that as well as I did. I have to go in, I said quietly. Just for today. I'll be back by four. If you're not better by then, I don't care what you say. We're going to she let go of my wrist slowly.

[Kayla]

Dio. Bring me Gatorade on your way home. Please.

[Eli]

Sure. Text me if anything changes, I said, brushing damp hair away from her forehead. It came away from my fingers in a little clump. I tried not to react, but my heart sank. She pulled the pillow over her face. Close the door, she muttered.

[Kayla]

Too bright.

[Eli]

Work was a blur. Shouting over truck beeps. My foreman bitched about schedules and deadlines. My body was there, but my brain was miles away in a dark little bedroom that smelled like sickness.

[Narrator]

Warning Signal interruption detected.

[Agent Conroy]

New Year.

[Narrator]

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[Agent Conroy]

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[Eli]

And for delivery. Hey there.

[Agent Conroy]

Darkness prevails here.

[Eli]

Founder of Eeriecast, my little network of scary shows.

[Agent Conroy]

I appreciate you listening to our scary content, but did you know you can support us?

[Eli]

Get ad free feeds of your favorite.

[Agent Conroy]

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[Eli]

The Eeriecast store and unlock access to.

[Narrator]

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[Agent Conroy]

Just go to eericast.com/ and become a member today.

[Eli]

It's cheap and really helps us out. That's eericast.com/thank you.

[Agent Conroy]

Signal connection restored.

[Eli]

By my 15 minute break at noon. I texted her twice. No response. At 2. I tried calling. It rang and rang, but no answer. The whole subway ride back, I tried to talk myself down. Shots can hit people differently, I told myself. Fever's normal. Migraines are normal. People's hair falls out after stress. The hallway on our floor was quiet when I stepped out of the stairwell. Too quiet. No TV noise, no music, no old lady's radio. Our apartment door was open. Not wide, just cracked. The deadbolt was extended like it had been thrown with the door open. Kayla. I called, pushing it with my fingertips. It swung inward with a low creak. The place looked like someone had picked it up and shaken it. Couch cushions on the floor, coffee table on its side, kitchen chairs knocked over like someone had run into them. One of the cabinet doors hung by one hinge. The fridge door left open. The light inside flickered. My first thought was robbery. My second was that nothing was missing. TV was still there, cheap laptop still on the counter, the jar we kept tip cash in untouched. K. My voice sounded wrong in the empty space. No answer. Her bedroom door was half off its hinges. The mattress was stripped, sheets on the floor, blinds ripped from the window and lying in a bent heap. The duct tape was still clinging to the edges of the frame. There were scuff marks on the walls. High up. A noise down the hall made the hair on my arms stand up. Not a tv, not someone talking. A kind of wet, rhythmic sound. Soft, repetitive, like I don't know what it came from. About six doors down the Halloran place. Older couple. The husband always smelled like pipe smoke. The door was wide open. I should have gone back into my apartment. I should have called 911 from there and waited. I couldn't help myself as I walked toward the sound. Each step felt like it was happening to someone else. My boots were suddenly too loud on the carpet. The hallway lights hummed over my head. The closer I got, the more something in my gut screamed at me to turn around. The Haller ends doormat was half rolled, bunched up. There was a smear of smoke, something dark on the wall beside their door, right at shoulder height. Mr. Holloran? I whispered. It's Eli. From down the hall. Nothing. The smell hit me before anything else. Heavy and hot. Not just blood, more than that. Old spilled beer. Unwashed bodies, something rotten underneath. It was like walking into the subway on a summer day and finding a dead, bloated animal. The living room looked like ours, but worse. Lamp knocked over, coffee table split, rugs bunched up. TV broken on the ground. A discarded slipper lay in the middle of the floor. Mr. Hollerand I tried again, voice shaking. The sound I'd been following got louder. Wet, repetitive. Coming from the far side of the couch where I couldn't see. I should have backed out. Every part of me knew it. But my sister was missing, and something in me was convinced that wherever this trail led, she'd be there. I edged around the couch. Kayla was on all fours over Mr. Hollorand's body. He lay on his back, shirt torn open from neck to ribs. There was a hole torn into the side of his neck. Blood had pooled and spread and soaked into the rug. It should have been a lot. It didn't seem like enough. Teela's knees were planted on either side of his ribs. Her hands were on the floor and her head was down in the mess at his neck. Her shoulders moved in short, violent jerks, and every time she pulled back there was a wet sound, like something stuck being torn free. K, I heard myself say. It came out as more air than sound. Her body stiffened. For a half second she didn't move. Then her head turned just enough that I could see her profile. Her hair was almost gone, hanging in greasy strands around her face. Her ears looked wrong, longer and thinner at the tops, edges ragged. Her jaw jutted forward, the muscles branched along the cheeks like cables.

[Agent Conroy]

Her mouth.

[Eli]

I don't know how to describe it. The teeth were flattened and chipped, gums pulled back. There was blood on everything. Chin, neck, chest. Her hands, the front of her torn shirt. She turned to look up at me the rest of the way. Her eyes caught the light from the street through the blinds. There was just this thin line of white haze over the irises that caught the light and reflected it back. Two pale coins and an unfamiliar face. For a heartbeat we just stared at each other. Whatever part of her had said my name that morning was gone. She made a sound then. Not a word, more like a low, breathy growl. Kayla, I stammered. It's me, Eli. We have to she launched off the floor. Her weight smashed into my chest and drove me backwards into the wall. My head hit the drywall. Plaster dust puffed around us. My ears rang and my vision swirled. The smell up close was so horrible it brought clarity back to my throbbing head. Rot and blood and death. It hit the back of my throat and my stomach twisted violently. Her hands gripped at my sides, claws, just broken nails, really, but sharp enough digging through my shirt. Her face went from my throat. I managed to twist, and her teeth sank into the soft spot between my neck and my shoulder instead. There was no numbness, no gentle slide into darkness. It was just white hot pain as she shook her head like a dog with a toy. I heard myself scream, high and raw. I heard the tear before I felt it. I shoved at her shoulder, her face Anything I could reach. Her skin was slick and cold. She didn't react. She just found another piece of me and bit down again. This time it was my upper arm, that soft bit near the armpit. I felt the teeth go in, hit something, and slide along bone. I gagged and puked right there between us, bitter acid splashing up my chin and hers. She didn't even flinch. If anything, the smell seemed to make her more frantic. She let go suddenly and lunged, lower jaws snapping near my side. I kicked out on instinct, caught her knee. She slipped for half a second, weight shifting. It was enough for me to twist, get one shoulder off the wall. I grabbed for anything with my free hand, and my fingers closed around a piece of wood, a broom handle, I think. I didn't look. I just swung. The first hit connected with the side of her head. It made a dull thunk and cracked. She snarled and snapped at the stick, teeth scraping wood. I jammed it downward toward her chest. The end of the stick dug into the notch at the top of her sternum. I put my weight behind it. Something crunched. For a moment she choked, gagging, eyes bulging a little. Her hands clawed at my shirt, then at the stick. Her breath blasted hot in my face. Blood ran down my side, warm and slick. I just pushed until my arms burned. She let out this awful bubbling screech that sounded nothing like my sister. Then her grip loosened just a little. I took the chance. I stomped on her bare foot, felt bones crunch under my heavy foot, and shoved off the wall with everything I had left. She tipped backwards, hands grasping at the stick instead of me. I slid along the wall, smearing blood, and bolted toward the door. Behind me, I heard her nails clawing at the linoleum. A half snarl, half cough followed me down the hall, and my legs felt like rubber. My shoulder screamed and my arm hung limp. My shirt stuck to my side in wet patches. I slammed into our apartment door, shoulder first. It bounced back, and I pushed it shut. My hand fumbled with the lock, covered in blood and slipping. I could hear her coming, bare feet slapping carpet. Her weight hit the door from the other side. The frame shook. The chain lock rattled. Her hands slapped flat against the wood. I could hear her breathing on the other side, fast, wet, like an animal. Kayla. I yelled, not even sure why. Stop.

[Agent Conroy]

Stop.

[Eli]

Please. There was no answer. Just another slam, not as hard as the first one. Then nothing. I braced the door with my whole body, cheek pressed to the cool, peeling paint. Every muscle shook. My shoulder throbbed. The bites burned like someone had poured acid into them. Her shadow stayed under the door for a few long seconds, then moved away toward the far end of the hall, where the exit sign glowed a flickering red. It took me a second to realize I was crying from pain or shock or both. My phone was still in my pocket. Somehow my hands didn't want to cooperate. But I got it out, swiped to unlock, leaving a bloody smear, and dialed 911.

[Agent Conroy]

911.

[Kayla]

What's your emergency?

[Eli]

The operator asked. Female voice. Calm. Practiced. My sister. I need help. Please. Something's wrong with her. My hand slipped, the phone clattering to the floor. The operator's voice became a tiny thief thing under the buzzing in my ears. I leaned against the door. The bite in my shoulder pulsed with my heartbeat. The one in my arm felt hot all the way to my fingertips. Stay awake, I told myself. I think I said it out loud. Stay up till they get here. Just. Just stay up. The ceiling swam. The humming of the hallway light seeped through the door. Somewhere far away, a siren started. My knees went first, then my hands. The last thing I remember was the taste of blood and bile in my mouth as the whole world narrowed down to a pin and went dark.

[Agent Conroy]

I can't help but notice how similar the back of this truck is to that ambulance, metal walls stained rails overhead. The only real difference is that this time I'm not strapped to a gurney. I'm sitting on the side mounted plastic bench helmet in my lap, rifle across my chest. Last time I was in one of these, I thought I was headed to County General. Woke up surrounded by concrete to a stranger telling me my wife had already buried what she thought was me and that my options were limited on paper. I died in that house on 47. The bureau was nice enough to keep the rest of me. Kraft tapped my boots with his. You look like you're somewhere else, Deputy. I'm here, I said, cold and plain. Across from me, Naylor had her helmet on already, chin strapped tight, rifle vertical between her knees. She watched me for a second through a half face of plastic and padding. Whatever she saw, she didn't like or didn't trust. I felt the same way.

[Kayla]

Good, she said. Because you're on point when we hit the tunnel. Fuck up and it's your ass, not mine.

[Agent Conroy]

Ortiz sat next to her, holding a small black box in his hands, his thumbs moving over controls. The screen washed greenish light up to his tired face.

[Eli]

You want him to run through it again?

[Agent Conroy]

Graff asked.

[Eli]

Calm his nerves.

[Agent Conroy]

Everyone should be nervous, ortiz said. That's how you Stay alive. I'm not fucking nervous. I don't like being manipulated, I told him. He shrugged without looking up. Join the club, Deputy. I don't know why, but I hadn't considered that they might be in a similar situation as me. All said and done, it didn't change anything. I pulled my helmet on and tightened the strap. The world shrank a little and then brightened with the activation of my hud. Outside noise went soft, replaced by the hiss of comms. My own breathing sounded loud enough to give us away. My left wrist ached under the glove. It still didn't like cold or prolonged movement. One of those things in that house of horrors that snapped it like a twig. The bureau doctors had said it and given me some injections of God knows what. It had held abnormally fast, but the ache had yet to go away. The truck crawled to a slope. Sixty seconds, the driver said over comms. Naylor brought her rifle up and checked the magazine one last time.

[Kayla]

Deputy on point, Ortiz behind me with the toys. Craft is bringing up the rear. We don't wander off. We don't chase shadows. We see something that doesn't fit, call it out.

[Agent Conroy]

She looked straight at me when she said the last part. Understood, I said. The back doors released with a heavy clunk and swung open. Cold air rolled in, fouled a little with city smog and something underneath it I couldn't identify yet. We stepped down onto concrete. The access corridor looked like every other forgotten hallway they'd walked me down since I signed my life over. Bare block walls, exposed pipes, a no Unauthorized Entry sign, a couple of buzzing fluorescent tubes, one of them strobing just enough to throw off your vision. At the far end, a still hatch sat flush with the floor. Someone had stenciled B13 on it in fresh yellow paint, the Transit logo on a nearby wall. Smell that? Kraft asked quietly. Even through the mask filters I did. Old, damp concrete. Rust. Sour sweat means starting to turn. I knew enough to know that this was the precursor to some bad shit. Ammonia levels are incredibly high. It's all over the area, ortiz said, glancing on his device.

[Kayla]

Masks stay on. No exceptions, naylor said. Last thing I need is one of you catching some parasite that turns you into a chewed up junkie with a taste for my neck.

[Agent Conroy]

Hey, maybe I'd finally lose weight, graff said. Maybe you'd finally shut up, she shot back. They took positions on either side of the hatch. I stepped up and spun the will, then resisted the way old metal does, then gave with a squeal that echoed down the hallway. The smell that rushed out was worse, thicker, like cat piss and dead animals. The ladder dropped into a round black cut that swallowed the beam on my helmet display. I looked down that hole for half a second, longer than I should have, stairs into the dark, deeper than you'd expect. I'd been here before, in another house, in another county. Only difference was this time I wasn't going down there because it was my job. I was going down there because some assholes had me by the balls.

[Kayla]

Go on, deputy Mueller said.

[Agent Conroy]

I opened the hatch all the way and took the first rung of the ladder, my foot slipping on something I didn't want to think about. The air got colder as I went down. The metal rungs trembled under my hands when a train somewhere far off rolled by, the sounds of it bleeding through the bones of the place. I stepped off onto a narrow shelf beside twin rails. Endless expanses of black tunnel stretched away in both directions. Some of the overhead lights still worked, throwing long yellow pools onto the floor. Boots hit gravel behind me. One by one they dropped in.

[Kayla]

Left is towards live trains, naylor said quietly. We go right.

[Agent Conroy]

The right side was darker. The tunnel curved that way, vanishing into it. I set the pace. Not too slow, not too fast. Too slow and you start thinking too fast. You don't see the monster until it breaks your wrist like a pretzel. Our boots wrapped the concrete between the rails, every sound amplified by the confined echo. You could hear the city above us in a dull way. Trains, traffic, the end of the vibration, close enough to feel, but a world away. About 100 yards in, the tunnel opened into an old maintenance bay. Until decades ago, they'd pulled train cars in here. Now it was a dead space, perfect for an infestation. Hold, Taylor hissed. We fanned out along the lip. The door was buried in a layer of things that used to belong to people. Clothes, sleeping bags, shoes, purses. It all mashed into one mat of fabric and plastic and dirt. On top of that there were bones, hundreds of them, gnawed at the ends, mixed human and animal and bodies. Three of them curled on that mess near the far wall, naked and hairless, skinned the color of candle wax. They looked wrong even before they moved. Long, gangly limbs with curved, bony spines, knee joints bent the wrong way. The light hit them and they jolted awake, their heads snapping up. They stared straight into it, eyes reflecting a dull, luminous white. Contacts, I said. A panic came out that I hadn't yet had time to to process. They came up from the floor in one fast, ugly Motion not standing so much as spilling onto hands and feet all at once. They moved, low bellies almost dragging backs up like spiders with only four limbs.

[Kayla]

Pick your shots, kneeler said. Don't waste ammo. This isn't even the beginning.

[Agent Conroy]

They scuttled forward over the piles of debris. One took the wall, fingers and toes finding every crack. One came straight up the middle. The third drifted along the far side, just at the edge of the light. I picked the one in the middle and held until it was nearly on us. Excelled my nerves in fear. Then I fired twice into his chest. The rounds hit. I saw the impact, a tight grouping in the sternum. It staggered but didn't drop. Whatever change these things had went through must have included an organ morphogenesis. Take the legs, ortiz called out. They can't run if they can't stand. I made a quick adjustment and sent two more rounds, one catching it in the thigh. The leg folded the wrong way and it went down hard, using its clawed hands to crawl towards me. The one on the wall ate several rounds before it hit Naylor. A second later, it launched off the brick and slammed into her with both hands outstretched. She didn't fight the momentum. She rode it, rolling and kicking to send it flying away from her. It had hardly touched the ground before she brought her rifle up in a low kneel and put three rounds through its left eye, one of the smoothest actions I've ever seen. The creature lay twitching there where it had fallen. The third one was coming at Ortiz. It had been moving slow, creeping almost as he lined up his shot. Then it did something I can't quite describe and was somehow on my right side, too fast to track. I brought the rifle around, but it was already there. It hit my legs and took me down into my back. Its weight drove the air out of me. Its breath hit me through the mask. Blood and rot layered over old sweat. It latched onto my forearm and bit down. The armor panel took most of it, but the pressure still got through. Training kicked in. Don't pull back. You'll just rip yourself open. I shoved my arm deeper into the mouth instead, buying space and time. Its eyes were anxious for mine. No fear in them, no anger or thought, just hunger and need. I slammed my combat knife into the sky side of his head. Once, twice, three times. I felt his bite loosen slightly, but it wouldn't let go. Kraft's shotgun went off next to my ear. The creature's head disappeared in a spray of chunks and blood mist. All three were down, two still, one still trying to claw its way towards us.

[Kayla]

Let me see your arm, naylor demanded.

[Agent Conroy]

Lifting a rifle slightly but not directly pointing it out at me. It didn't get through, I said, raising it and turning it over. The armor was scraped but intact. No holes or punctures. No blood leaking out.

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[Eli]

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[Eli]

This is pro linebacker TJ Watt, and I'm back with YPB by Abercrombie for another activewear drop. My second co design collection has new shorts and tanks that keep up with.

[Agent Conroy]

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[Eli]

Game changer off the field too, because.

[Agent Conroy]

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[Eli]

Online and in stores because your personal best is greater than anything.

[Agent Conroy]

Kraft Mac and Cheese is better than 90s hip hop. We'll remind you of your childhood without making a you feel incredibly old. Kraft Mac and Cheese Best thing ever. Signal connection restored. This isn't the nest, ortiz said quietly, eyes on his scanner. I think it's more like their dump figures, craft muttered.

[Eli]

They can never be easy.

[Agent Conroy]

Naylor pulled a gray box off Kraft's pack and slapped it onto the bay wall near the nest. Flat, innocuous wires coiled under a panel.

[Kayla]

If we have to fall back, we'll fall back here and bring the whole place down.

[Agent Conroy]

Ortiz pulled a long blade that seemed to vibrate from a sheath on the side of his pack and took the head off the crawling creature in a quick, clean strike. He did the same to the still form of the one Naylor had put down. Removing the head was the only way to be sure they wouldn't get back up. Or at least that was what the mission files said. We moved on. The further we went, the more the tunnel felt wrong. The floor sloped down, the air turned wetter, then thicker again. The stink wasn't just rot and cat piss. Now copper was mixed in like a slaughterhouse. Traces are getting stronger, ortiz said softly. We have to be getting close to the nest. Good, naylor said.

[Kayla]

I'd hate to think we came all the way down here for nothing.

[Agent Conroy]

The main bore ended at a junction straight ahead. The tunnel dead ended into a wall of old brick. To the right it sloped up towards a maintenance door. To the left it kept going down into a black throat of brick and pipe. Cold air came from the left. And that smell. That's your nest, Ortiz said.

[Kayla]

Everyone check mags and gear, Naylor said.

[Agent Conroy]

We did. I swapped in a full one, fingers working on autopilot. We stacked on the left hand tunnel, shoulders almost touching. The ceiling dropped enough that even I had to duck. Brick walls closed in close enough that you could touch both with your elbows if you spread your arms.

[Kayla]

Short controlled bursts. Hips, knees, neck, head. Anything that gets past us will flank, they will swarm, and nothing will stop them. Until we're dead. Or they are, Naylor reminded us. After you, Deputy.

[Agent Conroy]

They didn't trust me. Fair enough. I didn't trust them either. I let us in. The slope took us down another 15ft. Then the floor leveled and the tunnel opened. My light broke into the chamber, but it took my brain a second to process what I saw. It was a wide, shallow pit cut under the city. The floor dipped another few feet in the center like a bowl. The whole thing was filled with dark shapes, wet red and white glinting in the light. The walls were smears of prints, layers of dark grease like stains. It wasn't until my mind could start picking out individual shapes that I realized the ground was littered with bodies. A lot of bodies. Some holes, some just scattered limbs, some old and rotting, some fresh, with bright red blood still evident. The creatures were piled among the bodies in the low place in the center, curled into themselves, wrapped around and over each other, arms over faces, knees pulled up to the chests. No hair. Clothes still clung here and there, and scraps on some of them. Skin stretched then over joints and ribs, backs knotted, spines arched. Some of them still. Some of them shivered a little as the light washed over them. Then I noticed the war ones that were already awake, the ones that weren't in the pile. They were up on the walls, clinging to brick in the shadows of my light. Faces turned towards us, eyes reflecting that flat, white, soulless glare. Fuck, Kraft breathed. No order was given. We didn't need words to understand what this situation had developed into. The room exploded into flashes of fire and deafening thunder. A small, detached Thought in the recesses of my mind praised the effectiveness of the smart HUDs and reducing the muzzle flashes into basically nothing. Without that feature, we'd be deep underground in a strobing flood of murderous pale flesh, teeth and claws. With it, we had a good visibility of an incoming flood of murderous pale flesh, teeth and claws. The ones already awake launched first, kicking off the walls in a pale flash. The ones in the pile were waking up slowly, untangling from each other, but once they were up, they moved just as fast. I took the center, Naylor left, Craft Ride, and Ortiz on the rise above me. My first burst went low, sweeping across the legs of the closest rushing creatures, rounds catching kneecaps, thighs, and femurs. A half dozen went down into the pile of bodies, clawing through flesh and bone to get at fresh flesh and bone. One of them made it close enough that I saw every crack in its teeth. My three round burst caught it in the sternum, then climbed up to its neck and forehead. It spun halfway around and collapsed back into the pile of bodies. A sharp click caught my attention. I risked a glance. One on the ceiling had worked its way above us on an overhead pipe and hauled itself over our heads, going for the tunnel behind. Ceiling. I called out, filling another pale form an arm's length away with a burst of lead. Naylor twisted and put two into its arm with precision and accuracy that didn't seem possible. Its grip failed and it dropped, hitting the slope near craft. Two wet stomps cut through the coast, gunfire making the issue resolved. The infestation was like a hydra. Every time one dropped, two more took its place. There were more of them than there should have been in that space, and they just kept coming. Maybe the pit was deeper than it looked, and they'd been turning people in numbers that didn't match our intel. One of them sprang from the pile of bodies and hit me full in the chest and almost took me off my feet. Claws tore across my vest. I kicked it back and shot it through the mouth. Blood sprayed across my helmet. The temporary blindness set my heart pounding harder than it already was as I fired blindly into the sea of hunger while I wiped the gore off my visor. We weren't going to win at the pace that we were going. It didn't take a mathematician to divide the number of infected by the amount of bullets we had collectively, and see that even under perfect marksmanship, we didn't come out ahead. Torch, Naylor said. Her voice sounded far too calm. Kraft swung his pack around and pulled another device free. This one was longer, like a baton with a fat cartridge on the end. He thumbed the cap off, armed it with a twist, and threw it underhanded towards the center of the pit. One of the things jumped for it. They missed by maybe a foot and crashed back into the spot swarm. The object bounced off a bone and settled into pretty much the exact middle of them all.

[Kayla]

Eyes.

[Agent Conroy]

Naylor snapped. I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut. My arm came up out of instinct, putting armor between my visor and the device. The detonation wasn't loud in the way of grenades. It was deeper, like someone had set a charge deep in the earth. A dull thump that I felt more my teeth. Even through clothes and covered lids. The flash painted everything red. Heat crawled up the slope. Not an explosion heat, a steady glowing burn like someone had turned on a heater and pointed it at me as it climbed in temperature. The sound that followed was a shrieking I can't describe. I've heard people scream before, while in accident scenes met murder trials in the basement under the house off of County Road 47. This was something else, something that had deviated so far from human anatomy that I knew it in my bones. The only solution to this problem was eradication. I risked one eye blinking. Through the spots dotting my vision, I could see that the core of this pit was on fire. The device still burned white blue at its center, residual chemicals still reacting. The creatures caught closest to it were blackened flesh, curling limbs jerking and hard, ugly spasms. The ones at the edges and walls held themselves up, hand over hand. The burn chased after them, darkening their pale skin. The heat grew more intense still. My base guy hide. Even through the mask.

[Kayla]

Hold the slope, naylor said. We don't leave until every last one of them is dead.

[Agent Conroy]

As devastating as the device had been, they still came. One came up blind, face of a blackened mess, claw swiping. I put three into his chest and it slid back into the heat with a softening scream. Another hugged the side, claws scraping off concrete. Kraft blew his legs out from under it, and it flopped back into the pit of filling flesh. Black, darkened, burned and broken. They came. We fired, reloaded and fired still. All the while the heat climbed into my stomach and head, nausea and weakness growing by the second. Inside my helmet I could hear my own breathing, fast and rough. It must have been nearly an hour before a voice in my ear broke the rhythm. Primary cluster is done, ortiz said. His voice shook. He was filling it, too. Residual signatures and side passages only small groups. Torches still hot. Exposure was minimal, but not zero.

[Kayla]

We've done enough, naylor said. Mark this as an active site and hand it off. We are not digging them out one by one. The hard part is done. Get topside and get treatment.

[Agent Conroy]

Kraft muttered something, but no one argued. On the way back up the slope, Ortiz sprayed UV paint around the mouths of the tunnel leading to the nest. Under bureau lenses it would stand out like a flare. We placed a second charge at the nest's mouth and a third near the junction. The command decided later that this whole stretch had to go. Someone up top would flip a switch and turn a section of the city's veins into rubble. By the time we reached the ladder, my legs felt like they weighed 100 pounds each. We came out into the access corridor in a tight slow line, gear covered in gore. Two logistics guys waited by the truck, gray coveralls punctuated by badges with barcodes. They looked us over the way mechanics look over a car that's just come off a bad track. Exposure? One of them asked.

[Kayla]

No breaches, naylor said. Medium proximity to a flare. All armor held.

[Agent Conroy]

He checked something on his clipboard and nodded. Good. We'll get a medbay set up for you now. We dumped our rifles into racks by the door and strapped into the truck's benches. I don't know how long the ride back was, but it felt like an eternity of nausea and semi consciousness. That first ride, strapped down and sedated, listening to a stranger say secondary intake like it was a ward. Name this one. Boots under me, gunpowder and gore clinging to my armor, pretending I had any more say in things now than I did then. Up top, trains would keep running. People would stand over those nests without knowing, live their little lives, go home, lock their doors, tell their kids stories about monsters that drink blood and turn into bats. They'd never see the real thing if I did my job. They never would. That's what I tell myself anyway, when I'm sitting in the dark in the back of a truck headed somewhere that isn't home, with a new set of nightmares to keep me awake. Treatment was even worse. Seven days in a windowless room with nothing but a stilt toilet and a cot bolted to the wall. The IV drip burned like acid in my veins and left me heaving bile into a plastic bin every few hours. My skin turned gray, hair falling out in clumps on my pillow. By day three, I couldn't keep water down. By day five, I couldn't remember my kid's birthday. The doctors called it cellular purification, but it felt like dying in slow motion. They promised me my family was safe if I kept doing this. New names, new town, clean id. All handled. Every few weeks, some paper pusher in a suit slid a folder across a table and let me look at still shots of my wife and kids from a long lens. You're doing good work, they'd say. This keeps them off the list. They never elaborated on the list, but the threat is clear enough.

[Narrator]

When Eli hit the floor and the line went dead, he didn't get squad cars. He got a Bureau quarantine on his building. The system moves faster than any local pd. They locked the block down in under an hour and blacked out the surrounding camera grid for maintenance. The city fire department was told there was a gas line risk and to wait for readings that were never going to come. When the first team went up the stairwell, the sixth floor was already gone.

[Agent Conroy]

Gone?

[Narrator]

They don't write it that way, of course. The language is full vector saturation. What it means is everyone up there was either dead in the process of turning, or well past that impatience stage and hunting anything that moved. The fifth floor was a mixed outcome. Some fully turned, some in the middle of it, and some still on their feet, shaking, holding fresh wounds. It all means the same thing. Any stage of infection in a closed box is just a future nest. The only solution available is termination and disposal. The lower floors were uninfected. Those doors came off the hinges. One by one, residents pulled out into the hall, lined against the wall. Pupils checked, skin checked, veins tapped blood into vials, vials into coolers, coolers into testing tents. The Bureau's fugue compound did the rest. It doesn't erase a memory, exactly. It fogs it. Blurs the faces, cuts out the parts they don't like. As for the deputy, the torches his team use used in the nest, that turned a pit of those things into screaming meat and slag. That's new hardware, even by Bureau standards. Some flavor of radiation tuned into vamp biology. On paper, everyone far enough back from the epicenter is within acceptable exposure. The torches are meant for dire need only. Funny thing about tools like that. Once the Bureau develops them, every problem starts to look dire. But to a man like that, none of it matters when they're hiding his family somewhere out there. His wife and kid are living under names they didn't choose in a town that doesn't know they're prisoners. As long as he keeps walking into the meat grinder, those pictures and assurances keep going. Coming. My team can't pull him out without finding them first. As for the creatures, the Bureau calls these variations urban sanguivores. Infection starts where you'd expect saliva and blood. The parasite rides in quietly at first. Fever, light sensitivity, heightened senses, hair loss, then organ and muscle reconstruction. The higher brain functions go last, hanging on just long enough for what's left of you to understand that you're starving and everyone around you is meat. Leave that alone in a city and you don't get a lone threat. You get a full on outbreak. The Bureau will tell those who fund them they're keeping a lid on it. From where I'm sitting, they're lazily managing it, sending in teams here and there as long as the numbers stay below whatever arbitrary line they drew on a graph. If someone you love comes home with a bite from a person that didn't look right, be very cautious. Most myths and legends are rooted in facts, and this one is much closer than people realize.

[Kayla]

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[Eli]

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