Chapter 9

Without wasting a second, Tom took out the small black drone from his back and put his earpiece inside his long, furry ear. The rectangular plastic box with four tiny propellers at each corner began to buzz, and a second later, it was fully operational.

"Come on, get to work," Tom said on the device as he opened the big double glass door at the entrance and let the drone fly inside.

There was this extremely raunchy rap music being sung by a woman blaring in the background as Celene took a few seconds to answer. "On that," she mumbled, going first to explore as Tom looked around the reception, carrying his shotgun.

While Tom was looking around, happy that his new eyes made it easier to see in the darkness of this abandoned building, thanks to the ambient light of the moon, he noticed something strange. The whole room was selectively cleaned. There was dust, the pink paint on the walls was peeling, the light green tiles on the floor had a large number of cracks, and the floor above had long lines of wire exposed. Just simple damage from the environment. However, there was no mold, or insects, or even vermin droppings around. The catboy's nose didn't lie; it was too humid. There should be at least some mold around.

"Oh, that is hmmmm," Celene muttered in her comfy room.

"Did you see any monsters?" Tom asked while looking at the painting hanging from the wall, which was just this huge black and white rectangle with a single orange line in the middle. Since crypto replaced fine art as the favorite method to launder money, these had become just fancy wallpaper. 

She took a second to answer, and then the drone came back to him from one of the alleyways to his left. "Yes, I saw something on the first floor, in a big room near the entrance," the girl muttered, trying to think. She would have sent a picture to Tom, but the catboy already had his hands full holding his shotgun. 

"Describe to me," Tom muttered, now only paying attention to that hallway in case whatever it was there decided to follow the drone, but also the sounds around him. Each step came from around or over him. 

"The fuck, it's kind of weird . . . kind of funny looking," she answered, not really that alarmed by how weird that thing was.

"Details, please . . ." the man almost snarled, knowing full well that information was life or death in this kind of situation.

"It is long . . . like a horse . . . and red? Well, it seems to move like a monkey . . . " Celene added that she had only seen it for a few seconds before going back. She replaced the clip on her other monitor to double-check, but still, it was hard to describe it.

Tom took a step toward the location, walking slowly while trying to process all the information he had. "Tsk . . . I am going in. Is this the only monster you found?" He asked again just to double-check.

"Yes, well, there is weird stuff on the upper floor, but they don't seem to be moving," she confessed.

He took a deep breath, dismissing the woman. "Keep an eye on the nearest one; if it wakes up and rushes toward me, I want to know," Tom added while reaching a strange place.

It was a huge open gallery, the rough size of a soccer field, but it was just filled with "people." Mannequins, almost a hundred of them, created this forest of dark gray plastic around him. Each of them was in a different pose and completely naked; however, all of them were standing in a small concrete box, making it perfectly able to do both, giving him cover and obscuring his vision. 

"Ye-yes! It is around 50 meters ahead of you," Celene muttered with a nervous tone because she really wanted to stay to see Tom fighting, but duty called. 

"Remember, you lost your two thugs. I am the only thing keeping you out of the streets, so play nice, and I will reward you when I return," he whispered, making sure that she would not play any funny games on him. However, his attention was quickly focused on the thing looming in the distance.

Tom began to breathe faster, his heart beating like a drum, and his eyes widening. His disorder kicked him on the balls again, as that thing was just too wrong to be real. 

It was too long but also too thin. A three-meter-tall creature with two arms, two legs, and a face that was more like a trunk than a proper snout. Each of his limbs was not thicker than a soda can, making that thing stand as an impossibility, but that was only the appetizer. Even its eyes were long, as if someone had grabbed goat eyes and stretched them over its face like gum. The flesh had more in common with red plasticine than proper animal skin. But that was nothing compared with the smell and the way it moved. A pungent chemical odor that Tom immediately covered his face as a precaution, and his movements were like watching an animation with a low frame rate. 

A flash of light shone from the tip of his shotgun the second that the thing moved toward him, pouncing at such speed that Tom barely got another four shots before dodging out of the way. It was a miracle that the sound of the shot didn't deafen him, but it was probably a side effect of his mutation. 

There was no time to think if he managed to hit it, but the thing recoiled and got slower with each press of the trigger. However, the monster was able to close the distance between them and even managed to graze him. The sensation was as if the hand had just cut a chunk of his hair, but the smell quickly removed that hypothesis. It was too chemical, like burned hair, but a little more acrid.

Tom widened his eyes as he realized that the long trunk thing was the reason why there was no biological matter on this floor. No matter what, he could not get hit.