Chapter Text
Intern Jordan kept their eyes on the floor, not looking at what was on the bed. They breathed through their mouth, keeping the smell from overwhelming them. But they couldn’t do their job without a touch. They reached where they thought the patient’s arm was, overshot slightly, and ended up with their paw against the patient’s side.
Even through the nitrile gloves, the flesh beneath the patient’s fur pulsed with his heartbeat. So close to their claws.
Rip him.
Jordan shook their head and plucked a hair sample.
He has fainted. Perfect to consume. Ideal for rending. Nobody will notice.
Fainted patients always made it harder for them to stay focused. Jordan placed the hair into the DNA reader, then licked their fingers. No taste left over, alas.
Tear him.
They stared at the DNA reader and waited. Nothing to think about other than the unconscious pile of flesh behind them.
The red feast is yours if you just grab it!
“Or I could not do that,” they muttered. They needed more coffee to keep putting up with this crap.
The machine dinged and displayed the diagnosis. Another Canuck. What else, when the latest anomaly attack was at a hockey game? Jordan already had maple syrup ready.
They walked over to the patient, head down. There were still smudges of black on the linoleum from the last bed monster that had never come out, no matter how hard they scrubbed.
Aren’t you hungry?
“Oh, shut up.” Now was the tricky part – they had to look at the patient to pour maple syrup into his mouth. Seeing an animal just lying there, defenseless, every breath heaving their flesh slightly up and down… it made the voice grow louder. It made saliva pool in their mouth. It made their gut clench up in hunger.
With a normal patient or coworker, they could keep up a friendly conversation to keep their mind off the urge. Fainted patients were the worst.
They glanced at the fox just long enough to grab his fragile jaw.
Don’t think about what’s under that fur.
Think about what’s under that fur.
They could feel the patient’s pulse under his jaw.
Slash him, maul him, puncture through his hide
Heart, intestine, gnaw on what’s inside!
A strand of maple syrup oozed down Jordan’s paw. They had gripped the bottle so tightly that one of their claws, too large and jagged for a normal rabbit, had punctured the bottle.
I’m sure he wouldn’t miss a little bit of flesh…
They raised the bottle and squeezed a dollop into the patient’s mouth.
EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HI–
The door opened as Jordan lowered the bottle. Thank goodness. They were used to this. Used to the voice, the hunger. They’d ignored it hundreds of times. But it was always good to have a distraction.
And what a distraction it was. The purple elk who calmly wandered in had flames crackling on his shoulders, head, and antlers.
eat him?
The voice was faint now, easy to discard when they weren’t touching an unconscious patient.
The elk was an anomaly, of course. Jordan could always tell, a sixth sense that came with being an anomaly themself.
“I’m hungry…” said the elk, his gaze moving lethargically toward the patient.
Jordan patted the fire out with their hands. The elk didn’t seem to notice. He ambled toward the bed where the patient was recovering.
Jordan placed themself between the anomaly and the patient. They’d only had a handful of chances like this, where it was just them and another anomaly, no coworkers or cameras or awake patients.
“Do you have a name?” Jordan asked.
The elk mumbled something under his breath and kept walking forward until he bumped into Jordan. He took a couple of steps back, looking mildly confused, eyes peering over Jordan’s shoulder at the patient.
“I didn’t quite hear you,” said Jordan. “Do you have a name?”
"Hello, my name is Coco Meadows. I want to check in as a patient..." Coco’s mouth briefly flashed to one with hundreds of razor teeth taking up half of his face.
This was hopeful. Unlike the other times, this was an actual response to Jordan’s question. Could they have finally found another anomaly like them, one with the capacity for reason? “Coco. Nice to meet you, Coco. I’m an anomaly, too. Now, around here, we can’t eat the patients.”
“Hungry…”
Maybe they wouldn’t be so alone anymore. Coco could be somebody they wouldn’t have to hide their nature around. The two of them could share advice on how to hush the voice. “Yeah, I’m hungry too. But before you became an anomaly… you knew killing people was wrong, right? It’s the same now.”
“Hello, my name is Lloyd Wooble. I want to check in as a patient..." Coco, or Lloyd, walked into Jordan again, this time more forcefully.
Jordan felt the familiar stab in their chest of their hopes crumpling. But they had to keep going. Just in case. “Is it Coco or Lloyd?”
The elk mumbled something Jordan couldn’t hear. His face changed again, this time staying permanently on the giant mouth full of teeth. One of his eyes drooped, while the other darted back and forth. He took a step back, then lunged at Jordan.
Jordan only had one option to protect the patient. They stopped maintaining their ordinary face. Their eyes shrank to dots, and their lips spread across their oversized jaw, revealing a forest of needle-like teeth. Their arms split down their lengths, giving them two new arms. The claws on their fingers grew to the size of daggers.
Sure, they could have used a gun or a taser. But this was a rare opportunity to give in. To let the bloodlust take over, to sink their teeth into flesh. To swallow something other than coffee, something that would stick in their stomach and leave them satisfied.
They’d never met another anomaly who could reason. They’d also never met another anomaly who could truly fight. This one was no different. The elk lashed blindly, snapping its jaws and twitching. His attacks were clumsy, easy to dodge, meant to subdue a sick and terrified patient, not a real opponent.
Jordan made short work of him, enjoying the feeling of their claws slicing through sinews. In less than a minute, the elk hung limp in Jordan’s arms.
Eat him.
For once, Jordan agreed with the voice.
The hospital had over a thousand eyes. Eyes in the walls, eyes under the beds, eyes in the ceiling, eyes on the foreheads and arms and wherever else they pleased of anomalies. Of all those eyes, the pair attached to Secret Agent Alec needed to be the sharpest of them all.
They were sharp enough for his first job, spotting and stopping anomalies. He could tell when Secretary Taylor and Security Willard couldn't. He’d learned the little signs, the tilt of a spine, the sag of a shoulder, the way a head could follow you more perfectly than any normal animal’s. The barest hint of static in the corner of a photograph, a slight change in posture when the cameras were pointed the anomaly’s way, a twitch so quick that anybody else would think they were seeing things. His aim was true, and he had never shot anything that didn’t end up revealing its unnatural jaws moments later, before the second bullet finished the job.
But he wasn’t sure his eyes were sharp enough for his second job. His secret job, hunting prey far more dangerous than any anomaly. For while he had been briefed that they were definitely in the hospital somewhere, his eyes had never landed on anybody he was sure was a dissident.
Animal Corporation was the only thing standing in between decent animals and the anomaly hordes. Subversives and saboteurs were lurking in every shadow. If he could only figure out how to turn on the light.
He tossed down more coffee and rolled back the recent security camera footage for anything Willard had missed. He was always playing on his phone instead of properly watching the cameras. Could that be a cover? Could Willard be letting them in on purpose, to make a hospital run by Animal Corporation look bad?
He watched Jordan walk down the hall to a patient’s room. Something about the way that intern moved always lifted his mood. The way they were clearly just as tired as everybody else here, yet they always had a smile on their face and treated their patients and coworkers so warmly. It was like the horrors didn’t get to them the way they got to everybody else. Jordan was the perfect worker, a feather in Animal Corporation’s cap.
Next, he watched Taylor walk to the bathroom while Willard was engrossed in his phone and Alec himself was busy with the coffee. That was bad. Nobody to watch for anomalies.
Sure enough, an elk walked in, a subtle anomaly where his back was twitching on the camera. He rang the bell at the front desk. Willard rolled his swivel chair away from the cameras and checked him in, eyes focused on his phone the entire time. A real patient would probably have been angry at him prioritizing his phone, but the elk just stared, glassy-eyed, and waited for his nametag.
Alec switched the camera to quadruple speed. He needed to find out where the anomaly was now. The elk walked to an empty room, one which was on fire. He remained in the fire room for a couple of minutes before wandering out, flames burning on his head and shoulders. Right before the footage caught up with the present time, the elk opened the door and walked straight into the room where Jordan was treating a patient.
Fingers of ice clutched at his chest.
No.
Not them.
Not Jordan.
Alec sprang from his chair. Not Jordan. He knocked over a wastebasket full of empty coffee cups as he sprinted out. Not Jordan. He practically flew around the corner into the hallway. Not Jordan. Not Jordan. Not Jordan.
He used one hand to slam the door open as the other raised his gun.
The whole room reeked of blood. He ranged his gun left and right, looking for something to shoot, hoping it wasn’t too late. But on the floor, that trail… that was a lot of blood. The patient was sleeping peacefully in the bed. The blood had to be Jordan’s. Could Jordan lose that much blood and still be alive? The coffee in Alec’s stomach was threatening to make a comeback.
He followed the trail to the other side of the bed, gun ready.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Jordan’s head was half-buried in the guts of the anomaly. Their fur was soaked red. Two sets of long, spindly arms were holding the body apart so that their head could better dig in.
He pointed his gun, hands shaking. He had to do it. Had to. Had to. He didn’t know why he was hesitating.
Jordan removed their head from the elk and stared up at him, their eyes too big, their mouth even bigger. Their arms shrank back into the normal two rabbit arms. Their face scrunched back into its normal smile. Their eyes became normal too, though wide with fear. All normal, except for how their fur was still red and dripping.
“Please,” they said.
Alec was a Secret Agent. A professional. A man who did his duty, even when it was hard. So why did his trigger finger suddenly feel like it weighed a thousand pounds?
Slowly, carefully, hands trembling, Jordan stood up. Pieces of the elk’s viscera slid off their body. Back against the wall, hands up, they walked to the door.
Alec kept his gun trained on them. The words, “don’t move,” died in his throat. The words, “what have you done,” died too. So did, “I’ll shoot you,” and “I won’t shoot you.” There were three other words, deep inside, that died before he could even fully think them.
Jordan closed the door on Alec. He heard Jordan’s footsteps break into a sprint.
He slowly lowered his gun and sank to the floor, blood soaking into the knees of his pants.
What have I done?