Gods and Monsters

III

Embankment Station, London

Peggy stepped out of her car and approached the station. She flashed her badge to the uniformed officer outside who lifted the police tape for her. As she walked into the station she was greeted by the sickly smell of cigarette smoke. She rounded the corner to find Detective Sergeant Mike Rigby. Rigby was quite a few years older than Peggy, but despite his slightly baggier face and silver hair, he was still very much attractive.

"Morning, Parker. No lover boy with you?" Rigby let out a cheeky smirk at his own wit. Peggy had always known that Mike knew about her and Nick, but he was too good a friend to ever say anything. Peggy smiled back.

"Hello, Mike. What have we got then? A robbery gone wrong or a gang hit?"

"Nah," Mike's long face changed suddenly as he struggled to get his lighter to ignite. "I've never seen anything like this before, Parker; it's a bloody massacre down there." Failing to light his cigarette, he decided to head back inside, walking down the stationary escalators with Peggy following. She was surprised about what Mike had said — she knew his hooded blue eyes had seen a lot of awful crimes since he had joined the force. One in particular still stuck out in Peggy's mind: she remembered Mike telling her about this 'ritual suicide' that a group of foreign students had committed a few years before she had joined. Mike had described the bodies as being like lifeless dolls, almost posed to look that way. The pictures still stuck in her mind; just the thought of it made her shiver. She was quickly brought back to reality, as she and Rigby reached the platform. The stench of blood and bile was almost too much to bear. One young, uniformed officer rushed out from the platform, gagging as he went.

There was a surprising lack of police on the actual platform. Considering the scene that lay in front of them, perhaps it wasn't so surprising after all. Looking at only the front carriages of the train, things didn't look so bad. But once she got to the final carriage, she came close to leaving the station herself. It was virtually impossible to see the bodies inside, the windows almost painted crimson with the blood of the poor victims. Peggy could sense that even Mike was having second thoughts about coming back down here. Forensics were inside the carriage, trying to identify each of the victims, dancing between the bodies. She didn't want to get too close. Just then, Nick arrived.

"Jesus Christ," Nick said under his breath. He moved closer than the others to the train, relatively unfazed by the scene and stench. He peered through the glass as one of the forensic team searched through a gentleman's jacket, looking for a driver's license or bus pass. It wouldn't be easy to check if the pictures matched — the man was missing the lower half of his jaw and his left eye had been scratched away.

Peggy finally spoke up, "I-Is everyone dead?" She could barely get the words out. The scene was by far the worst she had ever witnessed.

"Everyone," Mike replied, just as a medical examiner placed a small scarlet jacket into a plastic bag to be sent off for testing. She noticed the detectives on the platform strolling over to her.

"Hello, I'm Dr Rachel Darby," the young examiner stuck out her gloved hand which was refused by all three of the detectives. "Oh, sorry about that," she retracted her hand and wiped it on her overalls. "From what we can tell, there are roughly fifty victims here. We're still going through the bodies, trying to ID all of them."

"What do we think the cause of death was; what weapon was used for this?" Nick asked.

"That's what's curious," the Doctor replied. "There aren't any signs of weapons having been used; all the injuries seem to be have been inflicted through teeth and nails, human teeth and nails that is."

"Fuck. So how many people were involved then, and have we established any motive for a massacre like this?" Peggy enquired.

"Well, we don't want to jump to conclusions, but we believe that this was the work of one individual. There is a young woman on the train whose wounds seem less fresh than the other passengers, and she's sustained significantly less damage than anyone else too."

The detectives were taken aback, "You're having a laugh, right?" Mike finally said, his cockney accent echoing around the platform. "You expect us to believe that one person on this train managed to massacre forty-nine others?"

"Unfortunately, that seems to be the hypothesis at the moment. We have to presume that this young woman was the first to be infected and that something in her system gave her the remarkable drive to perform an act like this. We'll have more details once we've recovered the CCTV footage."

Nick moved back towards the train, this time peering through the open doors to have a look in greater detail. Peggy was still surprised at how well he was handling the situation. This was a man who still refused to watch Friday the 13th with her due to the gore.

"Don't get too close, Detective," Dr Darby called, "We're still not sure on all the details and we'd rather the crime scene didn't become contaminated." Nick put up an apologetic hand and stepped away, now looking in from behind the yellow line on the platform. The forensic team moved back from inside the train, onto the platform, carrying an array of evidence.

Peggy and Mike continued their conversation with Dr Darby as she explained some further details about what she had discovered. Nick pulled out a notepad, preparing to scribble words down to describe the scene. The pen clicked, but as it met paper, nothing came out. Nick tried licking the tip of the pen to get the ink flowing, unaware of the figure slowly crawling out from inside the train. No one else on the platform had noticed the woman slowly creeping out from under the bodies, her hands now firmly on the platform. Still scribbling, Nick was beginning to get annoyed with his pen.

"Oh come on you basta-" Nick was cut off by the passenger sinking her teeth into his calf. He let out a cry of pain, causing everyone on the platform to turn. Nick swung his leg around, connecting with the side of the woman's head before stumbling backwards onto the cold, hard floor. Peggy and Mike rushed over, manually forcing the doors shut to stop the passenger making it any further. Just as the two doors met in the middle, the passenger made one last attempt at escaping, sticking her hand through the door. She succeeded in getting a finger out, enough to stop the doors from fully closing. Mike slammed his foot down hard, kicking the rotting hand back into the carriage, allowing the doors to shut. Peggy rushed over to Nick as Mike continued to catch his breath.

"Nick! Nick! Are you alright, what happened?" Peggy cried, the look of panic clear on her face. She looked down and could see the blood pouring out of his calf. Quickly, she removed her jacket and pressed it against the wound. Dr Darby instructed another analyst to take the passenger's finger and another to get a stretcher ready for Nick.

"I thought you said they were all dead, Doc?" Mike called as he lifted Nick onto the stretcher, some of the blood dripping onto his hands.

"They were!" She replied, dumbfounded. "We need to get Detective Campbell to St. Bart's Hospital as quickly as possible."

Mike and Peggy followed behind Dr Darby and the other analyst as they rushed towards the waiting ambulance on ground level. As they left the platform, more groans could be heard from inside the train when the rest of the passengers began to 'awaken'.

Once they reached the station exit, Nick was quickly carried into the ambulance. "You go with him, Parker. I'll stay and call for armed response. I'll meet you there in a bit." Peggy didn't need persuading. She clambered into the back of the ambulance and sat beside Nick, holding his hand while a paramedic applied pressure to the wound. This case just kept getting worse. 

Continued in Part 4