It was 9 AM and I was already drunk. It's a hard world out there, but I was coping. Still, the booze did not fully prepare me for the mess of intestines flopping around on my desk. If only Dale had been alive still, he was always the one with a better stomach for dealing with Beasts. Filthy things. I poured another glass of bourbon and looked my visitor in the eye. "That all of it?" She shook her head, visibly disturbed by the thing she had brought me, packed in a garbage bag. "I was told you were the person to go to." Fuck. *Even as a kid I was always able to Sense what was about to happen. It did not take long for me to find out that is not the great advantage you think it might be. On the contrary. Try standing in the schoolyard as a short kid, knowing that next punch is going to hit hard. After dropping out of high school, I enlisted, thought it would make me a man. Protect the homeland and all that crap. The things I saw... there's stuff they don't tell you in basic training. The Beasts I fought... not many people know, or even believe. If I could burn the memories from my mind I would.* Median was not the worst part of town in those days, but you could be off better. I pulled open the front door leading inside and stepped over a pair of legs twitching slightly in the dimly-lit hallway. My visitor, Melody, urged me to lead the way up the stairs. I sniffed the air and near gagged from the overwhelming smell of wet dog and four-day-old faeces, clinging to the back of my throat like dying flies to fly ribbon. I pressed my coat sleeve to my nose, feeling sick. A series of images flashed before me when I grabbed the handrail, incoherent as always; a single eye, widening in shock; a steaming bathtub, scented candles and a glass of burgundy on the rim; and a tall man in an overcoat, the only facial feature visible a smiling mouth with a blonde mustache, a thin stream of blood running down from the corner. I swallowed from the intensity of the vision and steadied myself before continuing up. I can tell you that I was not looking forward to whatever was waiting for me upstairs. At the top of the stairs was another hallway, doors on both sides, late morning sunlight falling through a grimy window at the end. The scent here was stronger, more Beast-like. Taking shallow breaths I walked on, the buzz of liquor subsided to the background as I opened my Senses and reached outwards. "It's the second to last to the left," Melody said, "there's a... mark on the doorpost." As if I did not know already, could not already feel the perversion so near. "Wait for me here," I said, loosening my collar. Underneath my coat, I put my hand on the grip of my pistol and wiped my brow with the other hand. Hot as the deepest reaches of hell in there, perfect for breeding Beasts. There were scratches on the door frame, as if something had tried to get out, but was dragged back in before it could reach safety. I could almost see it happening, right there, feel myself gravitating towards the door, sucked into an ethereal echo of a recent death. *It comes at a cost, you know, the Sense. There's always a cost. It's like an itch that is always there, and you're never able to properly scratch it. A drain of energy that keeps you awake at night. An eye staring into a blinding darkness, restless and forever searching. It forces you to See, prevents you from forgetting. There is no unseeing with the Sense. Most times it makes me want to die. But every now and then, it is the thing that keeps me alive.* With a lazy twist, I sidestepped as a bright-red limb crashed through the door, flesh tearing off where it scraped along the splintered wood. It groped around, feeling for its prey, long nails tearing as they slammed into the wall where I stood only moment before. But I was way ahead of it. I cried out as I kicked in the door, pistol already drawn and pointed to the spot where the Beast would stand in just a second. Two rounds fired as it moved in place. Before it knew what hit it, I shot it right between its oozing eyes. The bullets exploded on impact - that's a trick one picks up quickly in my line of work - and as I walked past the still thrashing corpse, thick chunks of green brain tissue dripped down the unpainted wall. There was no time to waste for this fucker to die, I had to get to the Mother, while I still had some element of surprise. There's a smell to the Mothers, a pungent, sickly sweet tang. Sensing, I could almost see fetid trails leading off into the pitch-dark living room, outling the abomination that this apartment's former inhabitant had become. The soft hiss of a birthing filled the apartment. Sssp-ht. Ssssssp-ht. I had to swallow a sudden mouthful of bile at the thought of walking into that room, but I knew it had to be done. I had to get it over with. Four strides, pistol ready, hand covering my mouth, I stepped into the room - sssp-ht - and flipped the light on. "Martha?" Shit. "I told you to wait for me in the hallway." "Martha!" Melody burst past me into the room and wailed, arms falling to her sides. To her credit, she only started to heave after she'd had time to take in the horrifying scene before us. Splayed out on a once-beige couch was a pile of flesh, disfigured and broken limbs sticking out in unnatural angles. What could have been three fingers jerked in a repetition of agonised spasms, somehow holding on to scented candle. Lavender, my Sense told me. Lolling near the top of the pile was a head, long black hair caked to the bloodied face, lifeless eyes gazing in separate directions. It seemed Martha was no more, her body altered into one of the biggest Mothers I had yet seen. But by whom? The blonde man? Ssssssp-ht. Formless globs of slime, hair, and blood slid down what must have been a nice bathrobe once. Strings of entrail were pushed out of the folds of pallid meat, moving without a coordinated sense of direction. Out of the mess shot a couple of writhing, not quite solid, arms covered in razor-like nails. I Sensed them and shoved Melody out of the way, ducked, and shot off one of the twitching limbs. Then, I aimed for the mid-section of the rolling mass of flesh. Three succesive shots and the pile seemed to deflate while a wheezing moan filled the room until the flesh stopped moving. Melody sobbed as I pulled her to her feet. "We need to leave, let the badges do the cleaning." "Martha..." "This was not Martha anymore. Hasn't been for a while, far as I can tell." I started for the apartment's exit. "Does... did Martha know a blonde man? Tall, mustache?" Melody's answer came when we were near the top of the stairs. "Vincent? He...," she bit back another sob, "Vincent was our brother. He died four years ago, when he was deployed. What of him?" I shrugged. "Nothing, I had a...", I swallowed as I remembered the vision, "I saw a photo in there." Vincent. Dead... or was he?