: Prompting Needed_

Get Popped (NIB)

From Daily Quordle 349 (1/8/23): SHARE, VAPID, HERON, OUGHT

Terry slid the clip home one more time, placed the gun on the dash, and sighed as he leaned into the seat once more. The first three hours of the 'monitoring position' as John had called it was excruciatingly boring. The second two passed with a numb sense of obligation. Now Terry was bordering on hour number six in the darkening van and – save for the one bathroom break one of the crew had given him – he was starting to feel like he was being had.

He picked up the dossier from the seat next to him and thumbed it open to stare one more time at the picture clipped on the inside. It was an image of their target, taken close with a camera that was most likely concealed. It was in greyscale and had a fish eyed effect so that the center of the target's face protruded slightly from the rest of the photo. The target's round, all-too human eyes stared back at him out of a basketball shaped head. Light colored fur that looked to be about an inch in length covered the face and long, floppy ears hung from the back of the thing's scalp. They hung in the same fashion as a mullet if they would been on a human. It was smiling a wide, toothy grin.

Terry shuddered. He had seen all manners of fucked-up individuals before, but this target took the award from most FUBAR. He flipped to the back of the packet and looked at the other more candid shot taken from a distance. In almost all of them, the rabbit-boy thing wore a trench coat the hung almost to the ground. Hands peeked out from the sleeves and were covered in tight dark leather. It made each finger seem a bit pudgy. In one picture, one of those hands had no problem handling a .45 revolver, however. In half of the shots, they showed the thing wearing a snap-brim hat that seemed to match the coat in style. They probably ought to have matched in color too, but that would require pictures not taken with crappy black and white film.

This thing was creepy, ugly in that sort of ugly-cute bulldog way and unnerved the hell out of Terry. It was a walking manifestation of the evidence that science had gone too far. Sure, he had seen his share of superpowered freaks with all sorts of technological and genetic advancements shoved inside, but that thing was only half human to begin with. It was... what had John called it? "An abhorrent affront to God himself," Terry muttered as he placed the folder back.

He glanced at the clock again and cursed. It was only twenty minutes from the time he had said he wasn't going to look again until someone called him. He stared at the bright green numbers in the dash and felt something inside of his chest snap. He snatched up his phone and hit redial.

"Do you have him?"

Terry exhaled forcibly through his nose. "Goddamit, John. No. What I do have is ass cramps from sitting here and no one – I MEAN NO ONE – has come in or out of this warehouse."

"Language, Terry. Remember, you're on those heart meds. How's about you take a deep breath? You wanna share some of that stress?"

Terry's hand gripped the phone so hard, he heard the plastic cover slip over the screen protector. He eased off as he thought about losing more bounty money to buying a new device. "That's why I'm calling, John." His voice came through gritted teeth. "I'm sharing the fact that I've been on a stakeout in a place we think this thing'll be and I wasn't even the one who drew the short straw. Derek was. You remember that?"

"Yeah, I do. Do you remember Derek's dead?"

Terry's breath caught in his chest. "Wait, what?"

"Derek's dead, man. We thought you knew."

Terry felt his jaw tighten and his grip on the phone relaxed just enough for the case to slip back into place. "No." He closed his eyes. "I feel like an ass," he sighed.