Once, there was a man, and the man vanished behind something else. Finally, he was gone and there was a monster. It was all that was left. What remained were whispers, like memories, they turned alive to speak to him.

Sandra Folkert. The name was ever-present.

It was not hard to find her, but it was hard to get there. Sewers had many options and he had never studied the map. He made signs to orient himself, signs in the only language he spoke now. The only language there was.

It took him days until he found the right path through the tunnels. Only when he found the subway system did he finally find his way. But trains were on those tracks, so he had to wait until they were asleep with the rest of the city. Then he dared to make his way through empty train stations and equally empty streets. Occasionally there was even a drunk or homeless to devour. He preyed on those he assumed would not be missed. When they were missed, it didn’t matter. They would never resurface anyway.

Sandra didn’t live near a sewer exit though, and even in the depth of the night, he had a hard time passing through so many streets, especially since she lived over some sort of club, which made her street a little more alive than practical.

The roofs were the solution. Nobody was there and nobody really looked up when he was in the streets. So, the monster began to use the roofs. It also solved the problem of shadowing Sandra. She slept a lot, so in the hours he could be active without risking being spotted, there was not much to learn. But once he had the roofs, he followed her everywhere. He followed her and her boy everywhere. They were one heart and one soul, and soon he considered them one meal and one prey too.

Then they saw him. He had followed them all the way to the harbor, where roofs were far apart and people were too many to risk a journey through the small alleys. So, he waited for them in the subway station they had exited, hoping they would enter here again. He waited for many hours and ate rats that were running in his direction to flee from the coming subways. He waited for hours, and they were still out there. Then even those ceased, as the last subway passed and the station was sealed. He waited nevertheless, patiently. Sandra was his to take and he would not be discouraged so easily.

Finally, they reappeared. The old nineties displays hanging every few meters from the ceiling said that the first train would arrive soon. He was in the tube and watched them when she looked in his direction and saw him. He knew he should have moved away and gone back into the darkness. Or he should have reached out and killed them both right then and there. He was not sure if they were the only ones, though, and he could not make a mistake. Yet, he found an almost human feeling inside of him as he saw how scared she was. Pride. He grinned with what remained of his face and allowed even her boy to see him.

In her eyes, he saw she knew it. She knew exactly what he was, and she knew he was death and death was coming for her. He wanted to tell her how much he longed for her, how deeply he felt the need to devour her. He wanted to tell her how he longed for her eyes. He said nothing. He just enjoyed the looks and the fear and slowly withdrew into the shadows again.

This moment would be the only one he ever shared with her, but it was even sweeter for that. The acknowledgment by both of them that he would kill her was so sweet.

Yet, her death was stolen from him.

Something he considered impossible that night.

****

Brockmann was in bad shape, but at least the bleeding seemed to stop as Simon pressed his sweater against it.

“You are in no shape for another round,” Simon said. Brockmann gasped in pain as he pressed the sweater again against him.

“Neither is he,” Brockmann answered and pushed himself away from the wall. He grabbed his jacket and fumbled at the inner pocket until he found a syringe he had smuggled in when Simon had obviously not been looking. He removed the plastic cover and Simon watched as he rammed it into his leg.

“What is that?” Simon asked.

“Something to help with the pain.” Brockmann seemed to feel better right away.

“Great, so you’re gonna finish this on drugs?” Simon said.

“Jealous?” Brockmann asked and Simon looked at him.

“Seriously? Now you start joking?” Simon had to laugh. Brockmann gave a single barking laugh.

“Better now than never, right?” he said. He began to limp in the direction of the monster, his gun raised to the height of his hips. Simon followed him, taking out the hand grenade Brockmann had given him and offering it to him.

“I am not reliable. You might need it more than I do,” Brockmann said. Simon understood what the words meant. If that thing was in fighting shape, it would probably kill him. Simon would need something to attack it now that his gun was empty.

A siren was heard outside and Brockmann began to limp away faster. Then there were screams.

Anton Burchard and Akim Osokin were doing their usual round when they heard the loud bang. In their blue Nissan car, they looked at each other. In five years, they had never seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. A homeless man who had wandered here had been the worst they had ever experienced. They had politely asked him to leave and when he had gotten aggressive, they had beaten him up and called the police.

“Maybe one of those things collapsed?” Anton asked. Akim fired up the engine and drove quickly to the location where they had roughly heard the sound. At the first sign of dawn, he saw black smoke coming from one of the southern warehouses.

“I thought they were empty,” Akim said. Anton shrugged and quickly checked the flashlight he had before deciding it was probably appropriate to check his gun. Akim gave him a surprised look.

“Terrorists?” he asked. Akim grinned.

“Blowing up empty warehouses?” he asked and shook his head. “Shall we report it?”

“Let’s get a better picture of what we’re dealing with. Maybe we need firefighters out here.” Anton sighed. They had an hour to go and this sounded like overtime. Only God knew if they would be paid for it. Secretly, he hoped they had not fucked up. They barely did anything but watch movies and sit around at night, sometimes making a round with the car. Not exactly what one would expect from two well-paid guards.

They turned around the corner and at first felt relief, all warehouses were still there and seemed intact. Though, one was smoking heavily.

“What is that?” Akim asked. He put the lights of his car on. Anton immediately saw what he meant. The concern over the warehouses had made him overlook a strange . . . Thing . . . Standing on the street. It was quite hard to make out what it was, although it seemed roughly human and badly burned. He opened the door and put his hand on his gun.

“Are you alright, sir?” As he asked, he wondered if an explosion could have done this to someone? As he looked closer, he saw the tentacles over the body move and spasm. The thing turned around and he saw that it was not human at all.

Akim yelled in shock. Anton was at least so calm as to try and draw his gun. When he got it out, the thing had gapped the distance between them and he felt its tentacles around him, crushing his arm with the gun before it ripped him off his feet. He screamed now, feeling teeth buried in his flesh.

****

Brockmann led the way as they exited the warehouse. Right in front of it stood a blue car with the letter HPC on it. Hamburg Port Control. The mutilated body of two men lay next to it, their faces constituted of bloody messes of meat and skull, with their skins entirely ripped off. The window of the car was smeared with blood from the inside.

Brockmann didn’t care too much for the two men who had died and looked around.

“There it is,” he said and pointed to the only building that was not a warehouse. The ruins of the old port control were shining white in the dawn, but the building was half-collapsed by a demolition attempt that had happened a few weeks earlier. Simon saw the black shadow slip into it.

“Take his gun,” Brockmann said and went to the trunk of the car. He hammered his gun against it until it opened. Simon carefully came closer to the dead body as if he expected it to jump up as an undead monster. Well, it seemed less impossible than it did a week ago. He grabbed the gun and quickly withdrew. Brockmann took an axe and a canister of gasoline from the trunk and had to set down the gasoline immediately. Even with painkillers, it was too heavy for him.

“You take this,” he said. With the axe in one hand and the pistol in the other, he marched right towards the empty ruins of port-control. Simon looked into the trunk and saw he had ignored the first aid kit there. He grabbed it quickly and opened it, getting bandages and tape from it. Then he took the gasoline and walked after Brockmann, trying to catch up.

He managed to do so as they reached the ruins. From afar they looked more intact than close-up. The windows were long gone and so were the doors. A whole level on the left had collapsed and had ripped one outer wall down with it. Brockmann stepped inside carefully, his steps making a gnarling sound as he stepped on broken glass.

Simon held him at the shoulder and gave him the gun.

“Is it ready?” he asked. Brockmann took it, pulled the slide back and chambered a bullet. Then he gave it back.

At that moment they heard a sound from above. It sounded as if something was sliding over the floor. Brockmann looked up, drew his revolver again, and looked at Simon. “Stay right behind me,” he said, slowly making his way to the untrustworthy-looking stairs. He stepped on one and it held. With quick steps, and his gun before him, Brockmann climbed to the second level. Simon followed him.

The old man cautiously made his way through a rotten door frame. Most of the walls in the room behind it were intact, so it was pretty dark, untouched by the light of the dawn. Simon put the canister down, not ready to let go of the gun. He put his flashlight out and sent the light bowl into the room. Right away, it found what they were looking for. Gnawing at an arm it had taken from one of the guardians, the burned monster was sitting in the middle of the room. It turned and gave an inhuman shriek. Then it sped forward. Brockmann fired immediately. The thing was thrown back and ended up on the floor. It slowly rose up again and Brockmann fired again and again and again. He hit its head and legs, but when the gun made the clicking sound to indicate it was empty, the thing was still alive. Brockmann holstered it, took the axe into both hands. Simon saw a wild determination in his feverish eyes. With the axe in both hands, he raised it high above his head, stepped towards the thing, and brought it down. The creature screamed again, wincing as the axe entered it. Brockmann withdrew it and one of the tentacles from what the thing used as legs wrapped around his leg. He brought the axe down and severed it. Simon finally woke up from his role as an observer and stepped into the room, this time keeping a careful distance. He aimed and fired three shots into the thing. It crawled away and was much smaller now, having lost most of its body mass. Brockmann brought the axe down on it again. It collapsed this time. The tentacles seemed to move aimlessly around.

“Get the gasoline,” Brockmann said. Simon nodded and got the canister he had left at the door. He put it next to Brockmann, who had used the time to give it one more powerful strike from the axe, which made it look as if the man was chopping wood. Simon watched it spasm under the blow and opened the canister. When it was open, he kicked it and the gasoline began streaming out of it as it tipped over. The gasoline mixed with the black blood now streaming from multiple wounds. Getting out his Zippo lighter, Brockmann looked at Simon.

“Get out,” he said. Simon did as he was told. He assumed the heat would be hard to bear in his exhausted state. He stumbled to the door and then heard a sound that was not the monster. It was the gurgling sound of a suffocating human.

He quickly turned around and saw that the thing was now standing on one leg, somehow, and it held Brockmann with its last tentacle wrapped around his throat. The Zippo was on the ground and the flame had gone out.

The surge of adrenaline was unbelievable. Simon knew it would snap Brockmann’s neck, and that was something he would not allow. Stepping forward, he grabbed the axe lying on the ground and screamed as he brought it sideways, cutting into the thing. It hurled Brockmann aside and the old man crashed so hard into the fragile old wall that it crumbled.

Simon stepped back and slashed the tentacle out. He put the axe behind his head and then jumped forward; giving the swing all the strength he had left. He hit the neck of the thing and it was ripped off its feet. Brockmann tried to rise to his feet and Simon breathed heavily. Freeing the axe from the thing, he saw one last tentacle rise, and he brought the axe down on it. He didn’t have Brockmann’s physical strength, so he didn’t sever it. The axe entered it halfway and was ripped out of his hands as it trembled now.

“Get out,” Simon said to Brockmann. He reached into his pocket and got out the hand grenade. Brockmann nodded and crawled towards the door, making it to his feet halfway and limping and stumbling through the frame. Simon stepped back and held the grenade up, as the monster remained on the floor.

****

“I love you, you know that?” Sandra smiled at him as he opened his eyes, lying on the mattress that served as their improvised bed. What a way to be woken up.

“I love you too.” He smiled at her. He had never heard those words from her.

“No, I mean it.” She smiled. “I was lonely and desperate. I have escaped things . . . You would not believe.” She said.

“Like what?” he asked, but Sandra put a finger on his lips.

“I was lost. Then you found me. These last weeks, they made me . . .” She smiled, struggling to find the right word.

“Happy?” Simon asked with a broad grin.

“Happy, yeah, that's it,” she answered, and then leaned forward and kissed him. A kiss so intense he felt like the world exploded in his head.

A strange thought came into his mind. He would go to the punk concert with her. He would go anywhere with her. He would never let her go.

****

Simon stepped towards the doorframe himself and saw Brockmann stumbling down the stairs. He let go of the grip of the grenade and rolled it into the room.

Three.

He turned and leapt down the stairs, catching up with Brockmann right away.

Two.

Pushing the old man out of the rather unstable ruins, he closed his eyes and put his hands over his head.

One.

The explosion ripped through the building, not as loud as the last time, but it was still deafening. The walls crumbled like they were made of sand. Brockmann grabbed him by the jacket and dragged him away. The gasoline sent out a heat wave as it ignited. The flame could not be seen under the debris as the building collapsed. It burned bright in the early morning sun.

Simon turned his head to the ground and looked around at the collapsed ruin, now on fire. He smiled and looked at Brockmann.

“That should do the trick,” he laughed, feeling exhausted.

Brockmann lay on his back and nodded. He held his side and then slowly drifted into unconsciousness. Simon decided to give him a moment to rest, before dragging him out of here and calling an ambulance.

Brockmann had insisted on getting rid of their clothing and hiding his gun, but to Simon’s surprise, he finally agreed to be brought to a hospital. On the way, he was already drifting in and out of consciousness.

Simon delivered him to the emergency entrance and the doctors immediately took him in. He told them the story they had agreed upon, that Brockmann had been beaten up by a gang. They didn’t fully believe it, but they could hardly make sense of the wounds to explain it. Again, Simon was surprised when Brockmann agreed to be hospitalized for ten days. For most of the first three, he slept. Simon was at his side the whole time. After three days, Fornby finally showed up and took a shift.

Simon went home to get new clothes and found another burned-out ruin. This time it was his flat. He spent hours with the police. Arson, they said. They took it very seriously and asked about who might have done that. Simon saw no point covering up for the obvious suspect and told them he had split with Alex, whose second name he didn’t even know. It had been wrong anyway, he assumed. He gave them a description of her and even spent some time creating a phantom picture of her. All of it seemed so mundane. A few weeks ago, this would have thrilled him. The loss of his flat would have been terrible. Now it was just a minor horror in a world having surprisingly much larger horrors. He bought some new clothes and a new tablet; packed two bags and moved to the other headquarter as he had dubbed the empty flat.