"Sir, what can I do for you?" The only police officer in the room asked without even looking at us. He was typing away on his keyboard.
"We're here to report a case of wild animal on the loose in the neighborhood," I said matter-of-factly.
"We've sent an animal control unit to the vicinity; they'll track down the python soon enough." The officer continued to stare at the screen.
"No, this time we're filing another report." Liz said, her hand tightening its grip on the video recorder. "It's a wild animal, but not something the people from animal control services can handle."
The police finally turned his asymmetrical square jaws towards Liz and me, "Ma'am, do you have something to show us?" For a brief moment his eyes fell on the recorder.
Liz opened the camera and showed him the footage while I stood by the entrance and leaned against the door frame.
They sat and watched in silence.
"This is when the thing attacked us." Liz leaned in and pointed at the tiny LCD screen.
The officer watched attentively.
"We have no idea what it was," she said. "It was some kind of hybrid. Half spider, half human."
"Is it showing? Can you turn up the brightness a little?"
"Brightness level is at maximum."
The officer stood up to go turn on all the other lights in his office, then he came back.
"And when exactly would this animal show up?"
"What do you mean?" she yelled, poking her finger at the screen. "It's right there!"
It couldn't be.
I rushed to where they sat, limping. The beast was clearly visible on the screen.
"Is this a prank? I want to remind you that you're working with an officer of the law. You could get in serious trouble for these kinds of things."
"It's right there!" she shouted, her frail voice resounding down the empty halls. "Look! You can see him being in actual pain in the video…"
The officer gave us an incredulous look. "Is this AI?"
Of course he'd think it was AI generated.
Liz had told me about this.
She said, "We can put it through a detection app. Do you have a USB cable?"
I decided to step in, "You think it's edited? This is the raw footage—it's over four hours long. And here, look—"
I pulled back the jacket to show the badly-done gauze dressing awkwardly wrapping around my torso.
The officer studied the wound on my back for a couple of seconds, as if he didn't know what he was looking at.
"I'm afraid there's not much we can do for you," he said gravely. He didn't even put the file on his computer to check if the footage was real.
Liz pleaded, "Please help us. They're right there. You can see it..."
The officer turned to look at Liz, then turned to me. He was silent for a while, as if he was thinking of a proper way to respond.
"It appears that you have a serious issue on your hands." His fingers wove together as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "I'm just going to be frank with you. We're not equipped to work with these kinds of problems, as the paranormal are beyond what we can handle. Especially the ones we can't see."
"You have to help us!" I said. "If you don't, more people will get hurt."
"I'm afraid this is beyond our authority. There's nothing we can do."
"We are asking for your help. Aren't you supposed to protect the people? That's your job! That's all we're asking for."
His face was getting paler by the second.
"If you are concerned about your safety, we can let you stay in our police department for sixteen hours."
We didn't know what to say after that.
There was no point in staying here, either.
Then he said, "Although I have to say—this is only between us—They've already broken inside your home. My suggestion is that you should move to another state and live there for a while. It would be dangerous if you stayed in the city."
"..."
"There's not much else we can do for you. I'm sorry."
We thanked the officer and left the room. They couldn't see those things. If we stayed with them, it would just lead to more unwanted casualties.
Or maybe they were pretending that they couldn't see them.
The officer didn't seem the least surprised when Liz mentioned that we were attacked. Before we came in, she told me there was also a chance that they were getting reports like this one on a frequent basis.
So much for the fighting human spirit. This was how humanity would go out eventually.
The things we couldn't see or understand, we would simply chalk up to superstitions.
I also saw it—for a moment I'd thought that there was fear in his eyes. There was also a hint of sadness in them. It was when Liz brought up the idea that they were supposed to protect the people, the common folk.
It made me wonder just how many people they'd lost working on similar cases like this one, until one day they collectively decided to drop all of them and dismiss any reports coming in as people having hallucinations or something else entirely.
They all had families to look after. This was simply beyond what they could handle.
We were left to our own devices.
Liz hadn't said anything since we left the office. She was walking in front of me, rewinding the recorder in her hands to watch the footage for the umpteenth time.
I looked through the glass of the entrance from a distance and saw the traffic. The road was packed with cars at this time of the day.
Maybe we should do as he suggested. We'd keep moving from state to state until those things would stop coming for us.
Our options were limited.
She was already walking down the steps in front of the building.
The traffic noise in the distance was fading. They probably stopped to wait at the red light.
I limped past the entrance as my right ear started to ring.
Those monsters, those hideous things couldn't chase after us forever. I thought.
Then I felt a hand gripping my shoulder.
Liz called out to me, "Robert?" I could hear the girl but she was nowhere to be found.
All the cars on the road stopped dead on their tracks right in the middle of the road.
I couldn't hear the engines.
I couldn't hear anything.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't turn around to face the person behind me.
I wanted to scream, to struggle. But my body was stiff and unmoving.
"We haven't much time. Listen to me." The voice sounded like it was spoken by somebody in their sixties.
The only place I could turn is up, or at least I thought my head was tilting up, since my consciousness could not will the body to move in any way. My irises felt like eggs nailed to the back of the eye sockets. Even the hanging leaves on the cypress in front of the building had stopped swaying. The wind stopped blowing. air could not enter or exit my lungs since I could not feel the diaphragm moving.
"You are playing with fire. If you still value your life, turn back now and let that thing go."
Was he talking about Liz?
"The Kitsune not your friend," he said.
I felt the worn and fraying fleece of the hand glove on my shoulder, and imagined that I was talking to a homeless man.
Who are you, I thought to myself.
"That should not matter. Listen to me. An animal will show appreciation for the food bestowed on it, but a fiend will play with its food believing that the taste will be better that way."
Even though I could not move or speak, he could still hear my thoughts. Fiend? Food? So she wanted to eat humans? This couldn't be right.
Judging from what he was saying, I'm assuming he already knew everything about these beings—the fox spirits and the spiders. He knew about the curse as well.
I didn't understand. What did she have anything to do with this?
What about the spiders? Why were they after me?
"Kitsune live much longer lives than humans. This is why they're so afraid of death. They constantly scavenge for new bodies to possess. And every few decades, once they have found a new host, they will forget. But they can't escape their nature. Just as you can't befriend a cub. Some day they will grow fangs. They will remember their place in the world and return to their old ways."
His words sent chills down my spine.
But she couldn't digest food properly, I said.
"That is correct. Much like your own kind, they also eat for the perverse pleasure of taste. What sets them apart from you is the notion that they also eat for a different kind of pleasure. The only passion of the Kitsune is the sight of its prey shuddering with blood."
What are you talking about? I said.
"Listen to me, both you and the fox spirit carry the energy of the pact, but the Kitsune has the heart of the curse. You must pierce the heart of the curse. Do it quickly, before its skin turns into stone."
What does any of this have to do with you, I asked him, looking at the expanse of unmoving clouds over my head.
"It doesn't," the man said, "I'm merely an outsider looking in. Interference is strictly forbidden, yet, I could not help myself. There is neither truth nor beauty in this world. All I see is ugliness." There was a hint of sadness in his tone. "And what I'm witnessing is especially hideous. The decision is yours. There's no time. Hurry. Make your choice."
"Robert!" Liz slapped her palms on my shoulders. "What's up with you?"
I could blink again, finding myself standing in front of the station.
The vehicles that had been standing motionless were now speeding down the street. The overbearing noise of traffic flooded my eardrums.
"Nothing. Just something on my mind."
"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing."
"Oh. Okay, then… But if it's something about those monsters then you'd better tell me."
They like to play with their food. His words kept ringing in my mind.
Are you messing with me, Liz?
That was what I wanted to ask her.
Is all of this real?
Then I said. "Listen. I'm not sure what we're going to be doing from this point forward."
"Yeah, this whole thing is getting out of hand. I have something to tell you, too." She turned to me. "You can't stay with me forever. I'll look for another place to rent. You should go back to your family. If I stumble on a cure for your curse, I'll give you a call."
"How will you defend yourself against those things?"
She gave a smirk. "I saved your life, remember? You're the one who needs a bodyguard, not me."
I didn't know what was right and what was wrong any more.
"Don't worry about me," she said. "And even if I can't fight them, I'll spray them."
"With what?"
"Bug spray. Doesn't matter how big they get; they're still insects."
Whatever choice I made didn't seem to matter anymore, because they would all be wrong.
"What about the human half of those monsters?"
"I'll combine it with pepper spray, then."
Why are you talking to your food?
I said to her, "You know what? Let's go buy you a bottle before I send you off."
"Oh, okay." She looked almost disappointed.