"FOR THE LOVE OF God," breathed Special Agent Bill Brodham.

He was standing in the Parsons' living room looking down at a body that that been twisted into a nightmare. Its body was covered in a black cloak, but he could see the toes of the man's black shoes, pointing at the ceiling. Mottled blue palms at the ends of splayed limbs. The wide bulge of a muscular chest.

The body was definitely on its back.

But its face was buried in the carpet.

"Someone sure did a number on him," said Agent Vickers, who was standing behind Brodham.

The two agents had arrived at a scene of mayhem. Three firetrucks were parked along the curb, their crews dousing the last flames licking the interior of a blackened shell of a car. A coroner's sheet lay in the street over an irregular bumpy shape about a dozen feet from the wreckage. Bits of scorched metal and safety glass were spread all over the street and the surrounding lawns. A gearshift poked out of the side of a mailbox across the street, rubber head partially melted away.

The rest of the street was crowded with half a dozen police cruisers, overhead lights blinking overlapping red-and-blue patterns through the night air. A crowd of sleepy neighbors was gathered at the edge of a yellow strip of police tape that had been hastily strung around the house and the burning vehicle.

Brodham glanced at his watch. 3:15 A.M. Twenty-four hours almost to the minute since he'd been dragged into this mess. He thought of Clarice and wished he'd taken an extra few minutes to wake her up and give her a proper kiss. The vision of her clear skin on the soft, warm bed, pale moonlight seeping through the windowshade, had the far-off quality of a dream. Except for his brief moments of unconsciousness in the ambulance, he hadn't slept. It felt like a week had been crammed into a day's time. His whole body ached, and the spot on his chest where the rifle shot had hit him had begun to itch.

Brodham stole a sidelong glance out the window that overlooked the street. Even at this ungodly hour, the neighbors had come streaming from their brightly lit homes. The crowd had already grown since he'd gone inside the house, and the media trucks would probably show up within the next 20 minutes. He needed the two bodies out of here before then.

"Mark it, then bag it. Yesterday," he instructed an EMT who was kneeling with his fingers on the dark wrist belonging to the twisted corpse on the carpet.

"It's a stiffy," the man said, craning his neck to look at Brodham through wire-rimmed glasses. "We'll get a guy out here from the morgue. It's out of my hands."

"I said bag it," Brodham repeated, flashing his CIA badge. The EMT looked around for help. A uniformed officer caught his eye and sidled up.

"I'm Detective Owen Callaway. Can I help you with something, mister..." Callaway fished for a name.

"Special Agent Brodham. This is Special Agent Vickers. CIA. This body is material evidence in a matter of national security. Bypass the direct line and get him and his friend," Brodham jerked his head toward the street, "into an ambulance immediately."

"I can't do that, sir," Callaway said. "We're required to fully investigate all matters of home invasion that occur within our jurisdiction."

"And I'm here to override that order," Brodham said evenly.

"I'll need to see a written subpoena before this body can be moved," returned Callaway. He seemed nervous beneath his calm demeanor. "This is a, uh, highly unusual case, and nothing is happening without the authorized paperwork."

"Looks perfectly normal to me," said Brodham, eyeing the bruise-colored flesh and stringy black hair of the corpse's mangled head. "Vickers?"

"Looks like a picture of health," Vickers left the bench. "Must have spilled some paint on himself. That's all."

Callaway's eyes went wide with disbelief.

"Paint? Are you kidding me?"

"Absolutely not, detective," said Vickers coolly, putting his arm around Callaway and leading him away. "You see..."

His voice faded out of hearing as he ushered Callaway out of the room.

The EMT watched them go like a puppy in a window as his master drives away. He looked nervously at Brodham.

"Get a stretcher."

The man pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, nodded mutely, and rushed out of the room, leaving Brodham alone with the corpse. Brodham rubbed his toe gently against one of the bloodstains in the carpet, his brow creased in thought.

"Bill, come here and have a look at this."

Brodham looked up to see Vickers leaning through the kitchen door.

"What is it?"

"Maybe you should see for yourself."

Brodham gave the bloodstain one final glance, then followed Vickers through the kitchen and into the dark yard behind the Parsons' house. The moon hung low in the west, pale and sickly, and Brodham was again reminded of how long it had been since he'd slept. Vickers had a small penlight in his hand and the two men followed its shaky beam up a low hill that sloped away from the house to a green slat-board fence.

Just before the fence, Vickers stopped and knelt in the grass.

"See this?" he asked, pointing with the narrow beam of light.

Brodham stooped to get a better look, and just then a sharp pain lanced through his chest. He clapped a hand over his bandage and inhaled sharply.

"You okay, Bill?" Vickers asked quickly.

"Yeah, yeah," Brodham grunted, then knelt beside Vickers. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. The penlight was illuminating a black circle in the grass, about two feet in diameter and perfectly round. Brodham traced a finger across it and pulled it away black.

"Burned," he said, rubbing the soot-smeared finger against the ball of his thumb. "From what?"

"Something concentrated to an extremely specific area, that's for sure," Vickers replied. "And look at this." He angled the flashlight away from the spot on the lawn and held it at the base of the fence a foot away from the edge of the circle. The bottoms of the green boards closest to the burn mark had drooped and pooled into a twisted mass, like melted plastic.

"Give me that light," Brodham said, keeping his eyes on the base of the fence. Vickers held out the penlight. Brodham took it and used the slim metal cylinder to prod the lump where it spread away from the fence and into the grass. Satisfied, he gave Vickers a quick glance and then held his hand against the lumpy mass.

"It's cooled," he said, "although there's still some warmth left. What's this fence made of, some of that pre-fab vinyl stuff?"

"That's what I thought, too," Vickers said, "but it's wood. Whatever left this burn here melted the wood." He sounded like he barely believed what he was saying.

"That's not possible," Brodham said, creasing his brow. "Wood burns before it reaches any temperatures that would, you know, do this. Liquefy it."

"I know that, Bill. I didn't say it made sense, I just said what it was. And what do you make of this?" Vickers pulled the penlight from Brodham's fingers and held its beam over the charred circle again. "Get in there low. See that glint?"

Brodham brought his head down until the blades of wet grass tickled his cheek. Scattered through the black circle were tiny motes of silver reflecting the light back at him. For a moment he crouched there, deep in thought, then he straightened and regarded Vickers.

"You saw the interrogation video," he said, a statement, not a question.

"Right," Vickers replied.

"The cloaked men who came in had firearms..."

"And these two didn't," Vickers finished, his eyes widening. "You think...?"

Brodham didn't hear Vickers finish the sentence. Something shifted in the air around them, turned it thick like molasses. He felt the presence before he saw it. Suddenly there was a muffled hum in his ears, followed by a dry rustling like leaves in the wind. Then, materializing out of the black night behind Vickers, a tall, whisplike shape came into view. Brodham took it in in a fraction of a second, but his brain didn't entirely grasp its features until much later.

It stood nearly eight feet tall and walked on splinter-thin legs that bent backwards grotesquely at the knees. Rather than a single mass, its torso seemed to be made of snaking cords that twined and writhed around each other. Its arms – just as thin as its legs, like bones spliced together – hung from its shoulders all the way down to the reversed knees and ended in at least a dozen long fingers that splayed out like twigs on a dead tree. It had no head.

Stepping up behind Vickers, the thing raised its thin hands, fingers whispering like beetle wings as they slid past each other, and held them over Vickers's head.

"Alex, duck!" Brodham roared, whipping open his sportcoat and grabbing for the Beretta in his shoulder holster. Without hesitating, Vickers dropped like a stone and rolled to the side, bumping up against the fence. Brodham leveled his gun at the creature and nudged off the safety with a flick of his thumb.

"Bill! What are you doing?" Vickers shouted, struggling to get to his feet.

Brodham ignored him and took aim at the throbbing mass at the center of the thing's chest. It shrank to the side, moving faster than Brodham's eyes could follow, a blur of angled limbs. With long, smooth strides, it swept past Brodham. He whirled to follow it, keeping his Beretta up, and found himself face-to-face with Detective Owen Callaway. The barrel of his gun was pointed straight down the bridge of Callaway's nose.

"Move!" Brodham thundered. "It's getting away!"

"What's getting away?" Callaway asked. His hands were raised, palms toward Brodham. "Just lower your firearm, sir. There's nothing there."

Brodham shoved Callaway to the side with one hand and took two steps forward, straining his eyes to see in the dark. It was no use; it was gone. He dropped his gun to his side and took several deep, wheezing breaths. His heart was racing like a snare drum, shooting out sharp pangs into his chest with every beat.

"Sir?" Callaway's voice broke into the silence.

Brodham turned to see Owen Callaway regarding him cautiously. His hands were still raised. Behind him, Vickers was watching Brodham with an expression of uncertainty.

"Why'd you get between us like that?" Brodham asked Callaway, his voice harsh. He slid the Beretta into its holster and snapped the leather safety strap in place.

"Between who?" Callaway asked. He looked bewildered.

"The thing, the..." Brodham gestured behind him with a flapping hand. "The..."

"There was nothing there, Bill," Vickers said softly.

"B.S. I know what I saw. It was coming right for you, Alex. It was right there. Right behind you."

"Look, man," Callaway said, taking a step away from Brodham, "I just came out of the house and saw you two kneeling up here, then all of a sudden you pulled your firearm and pointed it across the yard. If there was someone over by the fence, I mean, I can get a squad to–"

"Forget it," Brodham said. "And put your hands down."

Suddenly he felt scared, and it wasn't because that creature, that thing, was still out in the night somewhere. He threw a look at Vickers that was equal parts apology, confusion, and betrayal, then turned and walked down the hill to the rear door of the house.

Once the two bodies – Brodham and Vickers had taken to calling them "Blues" – were safely loaded in the back of the ambulance, Brodham instructed Vickers to take the car and meet him at a nearby safehouse. There they'd transfer the Blues to another vehicle and get them to the black-book facility in northern New York for analysis. There was no talk of what had just happened in the Parsons' backyard.

Sliding behind the wheel of the ambulance, Bill Brodham's thoughts wandered back to the bodies. In his mind's eye, he saw them: one burned to a crisp in the street and one twisted on a beige carpet. Blue skin, black eyes, and glowing veins. Neck twisted like a bottle cap. What had happened there? Vickers had ID'd the two corpses as the men from the holding facility. Been pretty certain. Brodham knew he'd been over the video feeds at least a dozen times, so he was inclined to accept the man's word.

Then what had become of Inmate #4213? Where was Petar Tesla? The inexplicable wave of relief Brodham had felt on seeing that Petar wasn't among the bodies had now tightened into an uncomfortable knot in his gut. He was missing something important. And then there was the Parson family, who seemed to have no part in the thing at all, and yet here they were.

Inevitably, though, his thoughts kept returning to the thing he'd seen behind Vickers. One moment it hadn't been there, the next it had, gleaming in the pale moonlight, as if it had grown out of a floating dust mote in the blink of an eye.

Brodham shut his eyes wearily and leaned his head against the back of the driver's seat. Too many questions with no answers. Too many hours with no sleep. He took a deep breath and shifted the ambulance into drive just as his cell phone rang. It was Vickers.

"Found the Parsons," he said. One mystery solved.

"Where?"

"Belleviue General Hospital. Ten minutes west."

"Is Petar with them?"

"Who?"

"4213."

A pause on the line. What was Vickers thinking?

"No," he finally replied. "And neither is the son."

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 15!