Weekly Drabble #203: Foreign-sics (Patreon)

This week's prompt is 'strange blood' from Sam C. It went through several different revisions before I settled on this aspect. A rookie police officer is investigating reports of an intruder and makes a startling discovery. Enjoy!

~

Foreign-sics:

Myrxii’s hooves clopped over the flat, parched and cracked sandstone surface of the Aberilzo Flats as the policewoman shone her lantern’s beam across the desert. A short distance behind her, the homes of the Aberilzo Ranch subdivision, an expensive gated suburb, glowed from their backyard lamps and lanterns like blue beacons.

The rookie kept her annoyed mumbling within her own head as she searched the area, but the twitching of her long ears betrayed her annoyance. Her partners were back there, collecting witness statements that no one was ever going to read because this was all a stupid waste of time. Naturally, as the rookie and as one of the first females in the city’s police force, this inanity had been dumped on her, so she was out sweeping the area for signs of the ‘intruder’ as the wind picked up, spraying sand and dust over her in random spurts that were increasing in intensity and duration. A storm was coming. In less than an hour, the flats would be wracked by gales that could strip the flesh from your bones and shattered by lightning formed from the intense static charges caused by the swirling dust clouds, leaving fresh glass craters in their wake.

Myrxii spat out a glob of dirt that had gotten into her mouth. She took her bandana from around her neck, pulling it over the lower half of her face. Her eyes were covered by her goggles, so she at least didn’t have to worry about that. Her long tail, normally held stiff as a counter-balance when she ran, was curled under the four-legged policewoman’s torso to keep it out of the wind.

Her radio clicked. “Have you seen anything?” Erash’s hoarse voice demanded.

“Nothing so far,” the woman replied, her lamp scanning across the ground. “Wind’s starting to pick up.”

“Keep looking. The locals swear they saw something run out that way.”

Of course they did. “Yes, sir,” Myrxii replied, just knowing that Erash and Vaunt were probably looking at each other over the radio right now, trying not to laugh as their female rookie blundered about in the desert. Bastards. She didn’t deserve this shit.

People on the city’s outskirts had been claiming to see things ever since the meteorite. It had crashed down in the Aberilah Mountains, a few kilometers from here. Geologists and researchers had been asking for permission to visit the crash site, but it was storm season across the Center-West, and the Aberil region always had the most severe conditions; there’d already been three major storms. The first unauthorized group to reach the crash site had had to be rescued in the middle of a storm that had nearly brought down the search helicopter. A second attempt had lost half their members before they turned back and there were still a pair of hikers unaccounted for. The city had had to lock down all travel across the region to keep overly-optimistic amateur scientists and lookee-loos from killing themselves in the desert.

There’d still been odd reports from the city’s outermost suburbs and outlying homes, though. Most commonly they featured some odd, pale creature wandering through the area. At first, the reports had been ignored as nonsense from derelicts, homebody women and drunks. Blurry camera footage hadn’t helped convince the authorities that there was anything out there, but the Aberilzo Ranch was a high-middle class neighbourhood. Even before tonight, there’d been multiple calls about some white beast, and then this evening there’d been a report of weapons fire as one of the homeowners had taken a shot at the intruder.

All that was going to come from this was a negligent weapons discharge summons, Myrxii thought. Her team had been told the creature had fled into the desert, so naturally who got the job of ‘investigating’? Her. This was pointless. Even if there was anything out here, the blowing sand was going to wipe all traces of it away, if it hadn’t done so already. Grumbling silently to herself, the woman continued her survey, wondering how long she had to be out here before Erash considered his rookie sufficiently humiliated.

Myrxii took some solace in doing her job properly, at least. She scanned her lantern across the flats, looking for any sign of an intruder, examining the most likely routes to and from the ranch’s homes through the sandstone, rocky outcroppings and blowing dunes of the desert. She didn’t believe the stories, of course. A tall white beast walking on two legs? There’d been some schlock horror film a few months back with that premise, so this was probably just some idiot youth playing stupid games and the story spinning out of control. A waste of police resources and her time.

She sighed through her bandana. No, there was nothing here. No trace of hoofprints or anything else that would indicate a burglar or trespasser. It was getting darker now, and all Itriaka had poor night vision. If it wasn’t for her lantern, she’d be completely blind out here. Myrxii reached up to radio Erash and hope she could come back before the storm got too severe when her hand froze. Her lantern had caught something in its beam.

What was that?

She swept her light back. There, caught in a slightly-deeper scuff of sand over the cracked desert substrate was some kind of... some kind of what? She didn’t know what she was looking at. It was twice as long as her own feet, and patterned very oddly. It wasn’t a hoof, nor any kind of footprint that she’d ever seen. There was another one next to it, and they headed further off into the desert. The spacing between them was all wrong; no Itriaka had made these.

Myrxii clicked her radio. “Sir,” she reported as she knelt by the strange markings, pulling her camera out of her poncho-bag. “I think I’ve found something.” She examined the impressions carefully. They looked artificial, if that made any sense.

She quickly took several photos before the wind wiped the markings away. Next to the prints she noticed something else, a red glob of liquid already half covered by sand. It was too dark to be blood. There were more droplets next to it, alongside the tracks as if whatever had left those prints was... what? Leaking? Bleeding? The policewoman took an evidence kit out of her bag, scooping some of the liquid into a vial. She lifted her bandana and carefully sniffed it. There was a coppery odour to it, almost like blood but... not quite. Foreign. Wrong.

Her ears twitched as she heard the laconic footsteps of her partners approach, barely audible over the rising wind. They’d been in no hurry to meet up with her.She stood back up, highlighting what she’d discovered in the cone of her lantern. “What is this?” Erash demanded. “What have you-” he stopped as he caught sight of the markings in the sand. “What is that?” he asked again.

“I don’t know,” Myrxii admitted. She raised her lantern to follow the tracks as they disappeared into the desert. A sudden, crazy thought struck her. She raised her vision to the black mountains, completely swallowed by the night. The sightings had begun right after the meteorite...

But I don’t think it’s from around here.She knew not to say that aloud. She had enough of a time being taken seriously as it was. “Whatever it is, I think it’s gone for tonight, though.”

“Well.” Erash said, at a loss for words. “Well, I guess we’re done here now.”

“I took photos and samples,” Myrxii told him.

“Good,” her superior said with a stamp of his front hooves. “Good, that’s, ah, good. Let’s just head back to... we’ll call this in and tomorrow someone can come out and investigate after the storm.”

There wouldn’t be anything left tomorrow, but Myrxii didn’t argue. There wasn’t anything else that they could do tonight anyways, not with the weather picking up. With a little more reluctance than she’d had before, the woman turned to follow her partners back to the lights and safety of the subdivision, out of the desert and away from whatever it was that she’d found.

Myrxii glanced behind her every few steps, but all she saw was blowing sand. Whatever it was out there – if it was anything at all – was indeed gone for the night. At least, that’s what she hoped.