Red and blue lights pierced the quiet of the night as two police cruisers skidded to a stop just outside the rusted gates of Ravenhill Theme Park. The gates creaked open slowly, the old iron protesting every inch. Gravel cracked beneath heavy boots as three officers filed into the overgrown grounds.
The wind blew colder now.
"Unit 3, come in. Respond."
Silence.
The officer leading the team—Sergeant Lorrell, a stout, middle-aged man—clenched his jaw and motioned for the rest to fan out.
"He said he saw movements around. Stay sharp."
Flashlights swept across the cracked pavement and faded signage. The clown-faced archway above the carousel swayed slightly. The theme park stood like a ghost town under the moonlit sky.
The rickety rollercoasters, a blur of steel and screams now loomed like skeletal giants, their tracks a serpentine silhouette against the stars. The Ferris wheel hung motionless, its seats swaying gently in the breeze like empty cradles.
The group turned the corner toward the cotton candy stall.
Then—someone shouted:
"Over here!"
They rushed over.
The beam of a flashlight caught the glint of wet blood, streaked and pooled across the ground like spilled ink.
There he was.
The patrol officer, sprawled unnaturally on his side, eyes wide open—one missing entirely, a sickening cavity of gore. His mouth was frozen mid-scream. His service pistol lay several feet away, untouched.
"Oh my God…" one of the younger officers muttered, backing up a step, hand over his mouth.
"Jesus Christ, look at his head..." another said, voice thin with horror.
Sergeant Lorrell crouched down slowly beside the body. The blood had already begun to dry around the wound, but the metallic puncture through the skull—neat, surgical, brutal—was unmistakable.
"There's no way a regular knife did this," he said under his breath. "This was... something else."
A sharp chill ran through them all.
One of the officers stepped back and spoke into his comm unit, voice tight.
"Dispatch, this is Unit 5. We've located Unit 3. I repeat, we've located Unit 3."
A few seconds passed. Then the voice crackled through:
"Copy that. Any developments?"
The responding officer paused grimly, exchanging looks with the others before answering.
"Negative. He's dead. Repeat—Unit 3 is down. Fatal. Immediate med-extraction and full sweep recommended. Over."
There was stunned silence on the other end before the dispatcher responded, voice now more alert.
"...Understood. Reinforcements en route. Proceed with caution. Do not engage unknown hostiles alone."
Sergeant Lorrell rose to his feet, his expression darkening.
"Call in forensics and homicide," he said flatly. "And seal off this entire goddamn park."
He looked again at the bloodied body of his colleague. The two others did too.