Police arrive

The authorities arrived about twenty minutes after the call. But it wasn't just that they took that long, but, from what the lady on the emergency line said, they were already on their way.

Other than police vehicles and ambulances, even firefighters and the army showed up to the feet of the mountain. The number of vehicles was excessive, these might have been moved from all the nearest cities.

A helicopter located the victims after some of the already healed people heard the siren and turned on a campfire. The smoke guided the rescuers to the place of the incident.

But for that to happen, it took almost another hour.

After a lot of commotion witnessing around half a hundred human corpses and more than hundreds of dead monsters, the authorities evacuated all the alive victims of the incident to the different hospitals of the closest city.

Sebastian was forced to leave the bodies of his family behind, and a lot of survivors got outraged for that same reason.

But he believed that part of this loss of control was more due to the shitty night they all had. So much so that some reliable and gently speaking rescuers were their best target to vent anger, frustration, and helplessness.

The violent phenomenon didn't become better restrained until a high-rank police officer spoke up, who also informed that these actions taken were to prioritize their lives, also that the corpses will be carried back when enough personnel and cars arrive.

On the other hand, headed by soldiers, and having the police officers making defense, the army entered the forest to chase the escaped monsters.

After that, the crowd of cured and some still injured people were escorted down the mountain guided by the authorities and the lights they instated on their way up.

Despite not having any wounds left, Sebastian was recommended (forced) to be transferred to a hospital. But also because he was the least injured, his turn was one of the last.

Before entering a police car, he saw a new helicopter arrive.

It could be more soldiers, he thought, but at the moment the aircraft gave a turn, he saw only an ordinary office lady with glasses.

'A TV reporter?' Sebastian inspected the helicopter again, but the printing clearly had written POLICE.

Suddenly, sensing a glance, she looked back at him... Of course, that didn't happen. The person on the aircraft was focused on hearing from the headphones, and Sebastian had already peeked his head inside the car.

…

…

Snap!

No sooner had the previous people left than the new visitors were already making a racket in this forest that in the future will become historically important.

The next generations of textbooks will include this place's name before the word incident, and the cold numbers of dead and survivors perhaps even appear in final exams.

Snap!

For now, flashes of cameras lighted shortly everywhere after each click, and the columns of lights from good quality flashlights kept changing where they pointed at. If some stranger stepped on this territory, they might even believe that there is a disco party.

Although it was a party.

For the officers, inspectors, and detectives whose dreams were crushed after entering the field and learning what their job was truly about, each corpse in this place was like a bottle of fine whiskey and the hints its ice.

Also, for the photographs, there was no necessity to find a good angle or position, because every place the camera lens pointed at, was a story.

The number of undiscovered details was like water dropping in hot oil, and thus, the load of work was unschedulable.

Somebody even suggested videotaping instead of their traditional methods.

Hearing that, the police captain patted that 'somebody's' shoulder, knowing who he should promote in the next quarter.

"Wow, this is the most complete corpse I have seen over the night. Okay, what do we have here?" The sightly obese man crossed his arms.

The 'somebody' behind immediately provided vision with the light. Doing things before they ask was some resourceful quality.

Although in the eyes of his coworkers, he was being an authentic kiss-ass parasite.

"I don't know captain, for some reason these three corpses are the only ones placed organized in the whole place." The person responding to the question was a sergeant, who have been in charge so far before the man arrived. "They seem to be a family."

As he said that, he handed, inside a plastic bag, a wallet that was found in the dead man's pocket. Inside, there was not only the ID, driver's license, and credit cards, but also a family picture, four people.

"And here's the other curious part. There seems to be another person lying here before. I asked, and apparently, no one picked up a survivor on this spot. Form the ratio of the footprint made when this person stood up, its height matches with the boy in the picture."

"So he moved the bodies."

"No, probably not, there's an insane amount of blood here, likely to be from our guy. If he had done that… first, he shouldn't be able to while having such blood lost. Then, none of these bodies were dragged here, but carried."

The officers around intermediately understood why 'carried' was highlighted by their superior: that was impossible for one teenage boy.

"They were all brought here by the owner of the third kind of nonhuman footprint we have found tonight. Let's call it 'Monster C'." This time the sergeant handed a tablet to the captain, showing the pictures.

"Despite the survivors and hospital staff made a mess to the scene, we rescued some of the Monster C's footprints. So, our subject came from that direction, left body 1 next to body 2 that was already here, walked that way to the human corpse area, brought body 3 back, went to that place, and also brought a corpse back. And then it disappeared, no more footprints, gone."

"What if Monster C climbed the trees?" One of the officers proposed.

"It's a possibility." The sergeant responded, "But now it comes the best part, follow me."

…

"This is another place where Monster C's footprints were found."

The Captain and some other officers that haven't been in the area looked with astonishment at the weird empty space of this forest that should be abundant in pines. It was also in their consideration to observe the black floor and burned trees that fell out.

"Look the monster here, burned in half."

"Maybe it couldn't escape… which means that all this happened instantly, in less than a second whatever it was burned all this perimeter."

"What kind of weapon could cause this… the temperature it must have had."

Waiting few seconds for his workmates to recover from the shock, the sergeant took the floor again to explain the findings.

"This was probably work of Monster C. After causing this, it walked through the way it made, going to that direction. I sent some people to check what's going on, but we already know that C came back from there with a corpse and then placed it with the other family member."

"We also can almost confirm that monster C is responsible for killing all the other big and small monsters. The only clue is we don't know is how many Cs there were."

"Now come this way and look at this."

The sergeant guided them to the opposite direction of the burned space. They walked by the edge of a road full of dead monsters. As the police officers observed the bloody ending these creatures had, they couldn't stop marveling how strong this Monster C had to be to kill all of them. After all, they were simply humans, their only question left was 'could their guns inside the case do anything against them?' Yes, 'them', no one wanted to believe that Monster C was only one.

…

"Are these the same fire burn marks as the ones in that direction?"

As the group approached the third key place, the officers that were already in the place taking pictures responded.

"Correct, and these are older than the ones in that direction according to the firefighter. If you uncover the dead monsters you'll find that under these there is more burned dirt. Basically, there was a fire here first, a spiral fire, then these monsters attacked to something and got killed."

"Good observation." The captain gave his compliment.

"He hasn't finished yet. Look, this, this is what I want you to watch. The blood pool and these footprints, here is where the Monster C got the fourth member of the family." The sergeant used his light to show something over the blood.

"I see only some human organs, well, supposing these are human's."

"Yeah. By the shape of how the dirt is sunken, we can tell that a person was lying here… but the problem is the fire, the same fire that could instantly burn monster bodies leaving not even the bones happened here too… So, why is the dirt still wet?"

The words of the sergeant left the officers thinking, but for their disappointment, he never waited for an answer, it was all a rhetoric question.

"We have pieces of meat and organs here, but not even the father who got stabbed lost organs, much less the two women. So the fourth family member that was here has to be the son… Who now is disappeared."

"Wait, you said that he stood up before, right?" The captain right away asked his subordinate.

"Yes, I remember that's was what I said."

Hearing the response, the captain squatted and without gloves or anything started to search the pile of meat and blood. Not long after, it paid off.

"There's half a stomach here, and I think this is a rib? Oh shit, even a kidney… Are you sure the guy stood up?"

"It was a complete right foot and left foot and stood up and walked away."

The captain chuckle "I found a foot bone."

"What… the fuck?"

Swearwords escaped from the sergeant's mouth, who had been always serene throughout the case.

"Losing these vital organs, he should be dead." The captain declared.

"Go contact the hospital, and check if there is the son of this Joseph Bercic in the survivor list, and also take samples from here and where the family is, send it to the lab to check if they are the same person. Then run a DNA test with samples of the father or the mother too."

"We are not dealing with humans in this case, if the son of this weird family is still alive, he might have been supplanted…"

"He may be an impostor."