Chapter Sixteen

Stanley Green, his NYPD precinct station, Day 67

As Stan and Marie arrived to the precinct that morning and sat down to deal with the mountain of paperwork they were each given as a slap on the wrist for their relationship coming out, the chief called out “Stan, Marie, come over to my office!”

“Any idea what that’s about? Think the new assignments came through?” Marie asked as they got up and started heading over to his office.

“Not sure, nothing has really happened in the last week since our, relationship,” Stan coughed, embarrassed, “got approved. I don’t think we’ll be taken off desk duty for at least a month, though.”

“Maybe it’s about the rat?” she asked, “I mean, nothing has really happened on that front.”

“Something like that is above our pay grade,” Stan joked half-seriously as they walked into the chief’s office, and immediately saw a man in a suit sitting in a chair across from the chief, and a woman wearing a purple sweater and gray slacks, and didn’t recognize either.

The man stood up and greeted them, “Hello, I presume you’re Stanley Green and Marie Carpenter? I’m Mr. Johansson, with the FBI, this is Dr. Livingston, I hear you were the ones who encountered the anomaly, a,” he hesitated a moment, “giant rat,” he managed to say seriously.

Stan just stared, shicked, while Marie picked up the slack, “Yes, although actually, we first reacted to a large cat of some type breaking into a nearby apartment, which abducted a woman. We then proceeded to search for the cat, but lost track of it at some point. While trying to find it, we were then attacked by the giant rat-”

“The anomaly,” Mr. Johansson interrupted.

“Yes, ‘the anomaly’,” Marie continued, “It attacked Stan, who then spent a day and a half quarantined in the ICU before he was cleared to return to duty, we did manage to kill the ‘anomaly’ though. This should all be in our reports…” She finished, clearly wondering why they were here.

“Yes, both I and the doctor have read the reports, I was hoping you had additional insights, since the anomaly has proven very concerning” He asked, searchingly.

“No, Mr. Johansson, nothing else to report, we tried following the cat, heading to the area behind the local Chinese restaurant, but couldn’t find any trace of it, so as we searched around, and were attacked.” Stan replied.

“Local Chinese restaurant? The eponymous Pa Pa Jiang’s then, I believe.” Mr. Johansson said, “So you believe the other anomaly ventured there and vanished then?”

“That ridiculous!” Interjected the chief, “you can’t just vanish!”

“True, but rats do not grow to be a meter long either,” Dr. Livingston said, “Analysis came back on the anomaly, it is 99.99% genetically similar to a common brown rat, well within margin of error, yet in size and anatomical characteristics the anomaly diverges from the common brown rat. Our working hypothesis is that some sort of environmental factor is responsible, and we believe it likely to have also resulted in the characteristics of the missing anomaly as well.” She paused a moment before continuing, “speaking of, analysis reported organic residues on the body of the anomaly. We thought they may be just contamination due to the state of the alleyway and the struggle, but if the restaurant is somehow involved...” she began to ponder to herself. “Would it be possible to perform a secondary investigation of the site?”

“Yes,” the chief replied, “Although it has been almost a month since the incident. We did do a preliminary and additional investigation, given the case. The results and evidence collected should have been in the reports?” he questioned.

“That’s not the issue, though,” she replied, “My primary concern is that, barring human influence,” she looked at Johansson, as if alluding to his job, “the phenomenon can recur. We do not want giant aggressive animals on our doorstep.” The chief groaned at that, “With that in mind, me and my team would like to conduct a secondary investigation in case we can isolate any potential environmental factors.”

“That’s fair, doctor,” the chief admitted, “Stan and Marie live over there so for the time being they can escort you, while Mr. Johansson does his own investigation, how does tomorrow sound? In the meantime, Stan, Marie, get back to work,” he sighed, frustrated.

“That would be perfect,” she replied as Stan and Marie got up and left the office.

After that, they continued through the day with a stop at the local deli for lunch, then went back to Marie’s place for the night, where they had been since the incident, it was still in the area, but was on a higher floor and thus seemed somewhat safer comparatively, though most of the neighbors who could stay with friends or relatives, go on vacations, or even outright move out had already done so, afraid, resulting in an exodus of sorts and a sudden drop in property values that trapped everyone else.

The next day, they got ready and showed up to work, only to be immediately directed to Dr. Livingston and her team of three other CDC reps, “Hello, Mr. Green, Ms. Carpenter, here are my assistants,” she said, “This is Derek, he’s an undergraduate intern,” She indicated a sandy blond haired guy in his early twenties, “This is Susan, she’s an intern who recently graduated with a bachelors in epidemiology,” She indicated a dark-haired girl in a blouse and jeans. “This is my fellow researcher Ms. Forester, with a masters in epidemiology,” she finished, indicating a confident woman with a casual smile, her white grin emphasized by her dark skin and hair.

Ms. Forester shook hands with Stan and Marie, adding in a comment of her own, “I’m sure you’ve met my friend, Dr. Livingston, doctorate of biology?” she indicated to the side at Dr. Livingston.

“Of course!” Stan grinned back, “So, our job is to ‘escort’ you through the alleys, correct?” he asked.

“That would be appreciated,” Ms. Forester said, climbing into the van they had prepared, “So, have you noticed any other phenomena in the area?”

“No, honestly, after the incident most of the people who could left, I mean, if your neighbor got abducted by a disappearing tiger that can rip through walls, wouldn’t you?” Marie replied, getting behind the wheel and driving them to the Pa Pa Jiang’s parking lot, maybe about ten minutes away in the morning traffic.

As they climbed out of the van and the others began to unpack, Stan pointed to the alley, “That’s the back alley I referred to,” Derek started to head over to check it out, raising his arm to cover his nose already at the smell, “I’d use a gas mask if I were you,” Stan told the intern, “if you think it smells bad out here, you don’t know the half of it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured Stan, “This isn’t my first job,” and continued heading into the alley, “Oh, god!” he began screaming shortly thereafter, and the sounds of him vomiting quickly began to come from the alley.

“Newbie?” Marie joked with Dr. Livingston, who just groaned.

“Greatest scientific discovery of our time and we can barely pull a team together,” she replied under her breath, before speaking up for the rest of the team, “Okay, everyone, hazmat precautions!” she shouted, pulling out a kit including disposable scrubs and a gas mask and starting to put them on. Once she was done, she pulled out another set and offered it to Stan, “One-size fits all, want it?” she asked.

“If you’re offering,” he said, taking it and pulling it on, Marie pulling on one of her own. “We lost the cat over there, I think,” he said pointing deeper into the alley, once he had it on, “Follow me, I’ll take you through the alleys as you sample.”

There was a series of groans and gagging noises as each successive person made their way into the alley after him, though he managed to hold it to an awkward gagging grunt as the quality of the air, even through the gas mask, dropped precipitously. “This can’t be healthy or safe!” Ms. Forester exclaimed, already writing notes on a clipboard she had pulled out from somewhere.

“Probably not,” Marie agreed, “But we all agree to ignore it for cheap good food. You want to head over to the old man’s for lunch? You’ll never eat food the same way again.”

“Best not to mix work and play, given the circumstances,” Ms. Forester replied, getting straight to work sampling everything, from the various strangely colored stains to the strange ooze leaking out of the dumpster, needless to say, that intern needed to vomit several more times before he was done.

After the first couple times, it was routine, move a dozen or so feet, sample, log, and categorize everything, repeat. It was pretty obvious that Stan and Marie were window dressing, maybe there in case something happened, but nothing did, they just pointed out key spots like where they fought the giant rat, where they last saw the cat, and where the apartment was broken into, but even so the four managed to process each of those spots several times faster than the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang’s. In all the researcher’s fervor, and the stink carried over since Pa Pa Jiang’s they never got around to eating lunch, so, once they were done they just stripped out of the gear, put that in its own evidence bags, got in the van and drove back to the precinct. “Thanks for all the assistance,” Dr. Livingston said as Ms. Forester and the interns began to sort and catalogue their samples, dismissing them, “Although We didn’t find anything yet, given the state of that alley, I think I’m going to call for a decontamination of the area,” she shrugged, “Even if it isn’t some source of miracle science, it’s still a potential source of other problems, I’m honestly surprised it got that bad.”

“Yeah, well, what can you do?” Stan shrugged, Mr. Jiang had too many connections to really mess with him, and nobody actually got sick at his shop so nothing ever happened about the alley in the end. “I hope your analysis goes well.” He replied, before heading off to the men’s locker room and the showers.

Once they had showered, Stan and Marie sat down for a long night of writing reports on coffee fueled-overtime.