The two police cars were like lone boats navigating with difficulty in a viscous grayish-white ocean, slowly driving toward the community in the east of the town.
Along the way, the twisted figures emerging from the fog and shadows increased in number. Most of them wandered aimlessly or let out agonized hisses at the air.
As long as these mutants did not directly lunge at the vehicles or try to attack the windows or tires with their twisted limbs, the police officers inside the cars strongly resisted the urge to open fire. They merely gripped their weapons tightly, held their breath in deep concentration, and let those terrifying figures drift at the edge of the headlights' halos before being left behind in the rear.
A faint trace of hope still remained in their hearts—
Perhaps these people, these former neighbors and friends, were just temporarily controlled by something unknown, and maybe they could still be saved...
Firing at will and killing compatriots who might still be saved was a bottom line that was hard for them to cross deep down as law enforcers.
Furthermore, ammunition was precious, and their primary goal was to confirm the safety of their families.
Before long, they arrived at their target community.
This was a typical Western European inner suburban scene. Single-family homes were arranged somewhat haphazardly, originally tranquil and peaceful.
At this moment, it was likewise shrouded in thick fog, deadly silent.
Occasionally, one or two figures could be seen swaying stiffly in their own yards, or hobbling down the street dragging deformed limbs, clearly indicating that the residents here had also undergone a tragic transformation.
The two police cars finally stopped in front of a house with white exterior walls and blue shutters. This was the residence of the young officer, Jack.
The headlights illuminated the tightly closed front door and garage. The windows all had their curtains drawn, making it impossible to see the situation inside.
"Alan, Pete, you guys stay outside and keep watch. Guard the cars and supplies."
Sheriff Roy instructed the middle-aged officer and the other officer in a deep voice, "If anything is wrong, honk the horn lightly immediately. Jack, come with me, and move fast."
The two who were called upon nodded and quickly took up advantageous positions next to the cars, their gun muzzles pointing vigilantly at the fog-filled street and the shadows of the neighboring houses.
Roy and Jack took a deep breath, carried their guns, and walked quickly toward the front door.
The door was locked.
Jack took out his keys, but his hands trembled slightly from nervousness. He tried several times before successfully inserting the key into the keyhole.
With a soft click, the door was pushed open a crack.
An indescribable foul stench, a mix of rust and a certain odor of decaying internal organs, surged out from the crack in the door like something substantial, instantly drilling into their nasal cavities.
!!
Roy and Jack's expressions changed drastically at the same time!
This smell was so incredibly similar to the stench that permeated the police station and emanated from the bodies of those mutants.
An ominous premonition instantly coiled around their hearts like a cold poisonous snake, nearly suffocating them.
6
The two looked at each other and saw the horror in each other's eyes.
Roy fell silent, tightened his grip on the shotgun in his hands, and turned sideways to enter the house first.
Jack followed closely behind, his finger already resting on the trigger guard of his rifle.
The living room was a complete mess.
The coffee table was overturned, vases were shattered all over the floor, and water marks were mixed with unknown dark red stains.
The family photos on the wall hung crookedly.
That foul stench was especially strong here.
Jack's heart sank to the bottom, and his gaze involuntarily fell on the stairs leading to the second floor.
"Check the bedrooms first."
Roy said in a low voice, his tone sounding exceptionally abrupt in the dead-silent house.
The two, one after the other, carefully stepped onto the stairs. The wooden steps let out slight and nerve-wracking creaks.
Every sound was like a strike on their taut nerves.
Arriving at the second-floor hallway, the door to the master bedroom was tightly closed.
The closer they got, the stronger that nauseating foul stench became, almost forming a substantial wall blocking their path.
Jack's face turned ghastly pale in the dim light. He reached out a trembling hand and tried to turn the doorknob, only to find that the door was locked from the inside.
"Step aside." Roy said deeply, gesturing for Jack to back up.
Jack stepped back two paces. Roy lifted his foot wearing a police boot and viciously kicked near the door lock.
Bang—!
The door panel let out an overwhelmed groan of pain and sprang open inward.
An even more extreme and intense stench hit their faces, almost making the two vomit on the spot.
And the scene inside the room made Jack feel as if he had been struck by lightning. He stood frozen on the spot, his pupils instantly dilating.
His parents—
The two elders who had smiled and seen him off to work yesterday morning were currently lying side by side on their bed, covered with a blanket, as if they had merely fallen asleep.
But their faces...
His father's cheeks were twisted, the skin taking on an unnatural livid gray hue, and his eyeballs slightly protruding;
His mother had her head turned to the side, dark red bloodstains lingering at the corner of her mouth, and her expression frozen in an indescribable agony and... relief?
But the most shocking sight was the two household fruit knives plunged into their chests right up to the hilts.
The pajama fabric around the blades was soaked with dark red bloodstains that had already dried and turned black.
"No... no!!!"
Jack let out a heart-wrenching wail, and his rifle dropped to the floor with a clatter.
He stumbled and was about to rush over.
"Jack! Wait!"
Roy grabbed the young officer's arm in a death grip.
Even though the scene before him also made his heart spasm, he had to maintain his rationality.
"Look closely! They... they did it themselves..."
Roy's words awakened Jack, who had been overwhelmed by grief.
Jack struggled to stop his steps and looked carefully through tear-blurred eyes.
Indeed, both elders had their hands gripping the knife handles. Although their postures seemed somewhat awkward due to rigor mortis, it was undeniably a posture of ending their own lives.
There were no signs of a struggle in the room, nor any indications of other intruders.
A terrifying conjecture surfaced in Jack's mind.
"They... they might have realized that they were going to turn into those things outside..." Jack's voice was dry, "Or... to protect something... they chose to do this..."
Protect!
This word struck Jack like a bolt of lightning!
"Michael! My brother Michael!" Jack suddenly reacted and cried out involuntarily.
Michael, his thirteen-year-old brother, should be in his own bedroom!
He could no longer care about his parents' remains. He turned around and rushed out of the master bedroom like a madman, charging toward the bedroom at the other end of the hallway.
The door was likewise tightly closed.
This time, Jack did not kick the door right away.
Forcing down his extreme grief and fear, he raised his hand and forcefully slapped the door, shouting hoarsely, "Michael! It's me! Jack! Are you okay? Open the door quickly!"
It was dead silent inside.
Jack's heart sank bit by bit.
He was almost about to raise his foot to kick the door again.
"Wait!" Roy stopped him once more, turning his ear to listen, "There are sounds inside..."
"
Jack also held his breath.
Sure enough, through the door panel, one could seemingly hear extremely faint, suppressed sobbing, like the whimpering of a small animal?
"Michael? Is that you? Don't be afraid, it's your brother! Open the door quickly!"
Jack's voice took on a crying tone and a plea.
The sobbing inside the door seemed to grow a little louder, but there was still no intention of opening the door.
Subsequently, a young boy's voice, carrying endless fear and trembling, faintly came through the door panel: "Go... go away... You're not my brother! In the dream... the demon in the dream said my brother would kill me..."
The demon in the dream?
Jack and Roy were both stunned at the same time.
"Michael! What nonsense are you talking about! It's me! Jack! Look at me!"
Jack was extremely anxious.
"No..." Michael's voice was filled with a collapsing terror, "As soon as I close my eyes, it's there... in the fog, in the dreams, it said everyone is going to change... It said when my brother returns... he will bring death, he will kill me! It told me not to trust anyone...
Especially you, Jack!..."
The boy's words were logically chaotic, full of nightmare-like ramblings, but the information revealed within them sent a chill down the spines of the two outside the door.
In the fog?
Prophesying that Jack would kill someone?
This sounded like the nonsense of someone subjected to extreme fright, but combined with the real, supernatural, and terrifying mutations happening outside, who could be sure that this was merely a child's nightmare?
66
Roy's eyes became incomparably solemn.
He gestured for Jack to step back and slowly raised the shotgun himself.
"Jack, step back. No matter what is inside, no matter what Michael has turned into, or if he's just terrified, we must face it. I'll count to three. After I open the door, you stay on my flank, don't be impulsive."
Jack nodded in pain, but he knew the sheriff was right.
He gripped the rifle in his hands tightly, his trembling fingers resting by the trigger, and backed away to the side of the door.
66
The crying and whispering inside the door abruptly stopped, as if the Michael inside had also sensed something.
9
The hallway fell into a dead silence.
"Three!"
Roy lifted his foot and kicked viciously.
Crash—!
The door lock, along with a portion of the surrounding wooden boards, was kicked to pieces, sending wood chips flying.
The muzzle of the shotgun in Roy's hands was the first to point into the room.
The light in the room was dim, and the curtains were tightly closed.
Relying on the faint light filtering in from the doorway, one could see the room was neatly arranged: a desk, a bed, a game console...
Everything was as usual.
Gazes swept rapidly, under the bed, behind the desk, and so on... there was no sign of anyone.
Finally, their gazes locked onto the half-open wardrobe in the corner of the room.
Inside the wardrobe, a huddled figure was faintly visible, wearing blue striped pajamas. He was hugging his knees with both hands, his face buried deep in his knees, trembling violently all over, and letting out suppressed, intermittent sobs.
Judging from the figure and the pajamas, that was exactly Jack's brother, Michael.
"Michael..."
Seeing that his brother seemed to still maintain a human form, Jack felt a glimmer of hope ignite in his heart and couldn't help but want to step forward.
"Don't move!" Roy shouted sharply, the muzzle of his gun still steadily pointing in the direction of the wardrobe.
His gaze was fixed on that trembling figure. "Stay calm, don't be impulsive."
At this moment, Michael's figure trembled even more violently, and he shook his head desperately, burying his face deeper and continuously crying out words like "Demon!" and "You will kill me".
The whispers of the dream demon intertwined with the suspicious signs of reality.
Was the brother in front of him a terrified child, or...
Was some even more terrifying thing incubating inside this young shell?
The thick fog not only shrouded the town but seemed to have also seeped into people's dreams, sowing the seeds of fear and distortion.
And Jack's family had already become the first batch of sacrifices to this nameless nightmare.
The young officer Jack's heart felt as if it were being twisted by a knife, but he still used the softest voice possible to speak to his brother in the wardrobe: "Michael, listen, look at me. I am your brother, Jack.
I will not hurt you, never. That thing in the dream is lying to you. Do you believe a demon in a dream, or do you believe the brother who has always protected you since you were little?"
His voice was filled with sincere pain and pleading, piercing through the boy's mental defenses shrouded in fear.
Subsequently, Jack, step by step, extremely carefully approached the wardrobe and continued to say, "Look, I haven't mutated. I am still me. I don't have those weird things."
The sobbing in the wardrobe gradually subsided.
A small head, stained with tear tracks and written all over with panic, slowly lifted from between the knees.
Michael's eyes were red and swollen, his gaze unfocused, but upon seeing Jack's familiar face, as well as Jack having normal human skin, a faint glimmer of light flashed by.
"Brother... did you really not sleep?"
Michael's voice was as small as a mosquito's, carrying suspicion and lingering fear.
"No, Michael. I was on the night shift today. I patrolled all night and didn't close my eyes."
Jack said affirmatively. He shuffled half a step forward again, reached out his hand, palm up, making a completely non-threatening gesture.
Hearing this answer, Michael's tense body seemed to relax instantly, and his last psychological defense line collapsed.
He let out a cry mixed with relief and grievance, violently bolted out of the wardrobe, and crashed directly into Jack's arms, burying his face into Jack's shoulder and crying out loud.
Jack, in turn, tightly hugged his brother's trembling body, his tears finally breaking the dam.
While gently patting his brother's back, he looked at Sheriff Roy, his eyes full of inquiry.
Roy slowly lowered the shotgun, but his brows remained tightly locked.
He keenly captured the key information:
Sleeping,
Dreaming,
Demon.
This seemed to provide a vague clue to this bizarre disaster. Perhaps the mutation was related to dreams?
Or perhaps, this thick fog would induce specific, malicious dreams, and those who slumbered...
He dared not think any further, only deeply engraving this discovery in his heart.
"We shouldn't stay here long." Sheriff Roy's voice was hoarse. "Take the necessities, we are leaving immediately."
Jack nodded, comforted his brother, and quickly packed some clothes, medicine, and a few boxes of his brother's favorite cookies.
Before leaving, he stood at the door of his parents' bedroom, taking one last look at the peaceful yet gruesome remains on the bed, a flash of resolute agony passing through his eyes.
"Help me get the gasoline," Jack said to Roy.
Roy immediately understood his intention. He did not dissuade him, but merely gave a heavy nod.
They took out the spare gasoline from the trunk of the car, and Jack personally splashed the gasoline over the first-floor living room and the stairs.
"Goodbye, Dad, Mom..." Jack muttered softly, tossing a lit match into the gasoline.
Whoosh—!
The orange-red flames fiercely shot up, greedily swallowing the furniture and walls, rapidly spreading toward the second floor along the trail of gasoline.
Thick smoke began to pour out of the windows, mixing with the grayish-white fog outside, forming a bizarre and tragic scene.
The group quickly got into the cars, and the two police cars once again drove into the fog-shrouded streets.
Through the rear windows, one could see the white house with blue shutters turning into an increasingly bright, dancing orange-red cluster of light deep in the thick fog, eventually being completely swallowed by the rolling grayish-white, leaving only a dim red glow on the horizon.
That firelight was like holding a hasty and desolate funeral for the deceased, and also like an attempt to burn away the ominousness and pain on this land.
For the rest of the journey, the atmosphere grew even heavier.
They successively arrived at the homes of the other two police officers.
Unfortunately, their adult family members—wives, parents, or other relatives—had all met with misfortune, either wandering in twisted forms or lying silently in pools of blood.
The only thing to be thankful for was that the few young children, like Michael, although suffering from extreme fright, did not seem to have undergone any visible mutations, merely crying endlessly or looking vacant.
This gave Sheriff Roy a faint glimmer of hope.
He was a single father, raising his daughter Emily, who had just started middle school, all by himself.
The survival of the other children made the taut string in his heart relax slightly.
Finally, they arrived at the street where Roy's house was located.
Roy's residence was a modest two-story brick house with a small front yard.
The house was incredibly silent, enveloped by the thick fog just like the other houses.
Roy's heartbeat involuntarily sped up, and the palms holding the steering wheel broke out in cold sweat. He parked the car as close to the house as possible and signaled the others to stay alert.
He took a deep breath, carried his shotgun, and walked quickly toward the door of his house.
He inserted the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open, there was no expected foul stench.
The interior of the house was neat, even tidier than when he left in the morning.
The TV in the living room was off, and the breakfast dishes in the kitchen had been washed.
It was so quiet...
Somewhat abnormal.
Roy's heart sank. He dashed up to the second floor and rushed toward his daughter Emily's bedroom, while Jack, who was responsible for covering him, followed closely behind.
The bedroom door was tightly closed.
Just as he was about to knock or call out, he abruptly stopped in his tracks, and his pupils suddenly contracted!
He saw that from under the crack of Emily's bedroom door, and around the edges of the tightly drawn window curtains, there emanated a light that was absolutely not natural, nor could it be produced by any household lamp—
It was a warm, pure, golden light that seemed to contain some kind of wondrous perception.
______
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