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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Watus" data-source="post: 1535923" data-attributes="member: 14589">Update no.3: More shocks…Where the hell was she?  The seconds ticked by and James grew more and more tense.  He reached into his bag, and carefully tucked the Glock into his jacket.  Getting up from his seat, he moved slowly toward the door, fervently wishing for the trooper to walk through it and tell them everything was alright.  He’d heard her yelling, and he’d heard the shots.  That had been minutes ago now.His father had been a cop.  Hell, his whole family was blue: uncles, brothers, cousins.  You couldn’t spit at an O’Connel family picnic without hitting a trooper or a special agent or a patrolman.  He’d be one himself if the academy hadn’d dropped him.  There wasn’t anything more horrifying to James than the idea of a dead cop, not even whatever the hell it was outside.  And now he couldn’t get the sound of bagpipes out of his head.He turned back to look at the quietly milling group of strangers.  The priest was standing right behind him, his collar practically glowing in the dark.  They locked eyes for a moment, and James pushed open the door.Glass was everywhere – little shards of it, glittering in the darkness.  He could barely make out what was left of the vestibule at the other end of the lobby.  The steel structure of it had been ripped apart: it almost looked like something had torn it down.  Snow was drifting across the white tiles, and everything, even the ceiling, was covered in a thin layer of frost.  But there was no sign of the trooper.James noticed that the door to the hallway leading to the restrooms was lying, crumpled, several feet from the jamb on which it had hung.  He took a tentative step out into the lobby, half expecting something to charge him from out of the shadows.  When nothing did, he took another step.  And then another.As he neared the door to the hallway, James realized the priest was headed outside into the wind through the shattered vestibule.  “Jesus Christ,” he swore.  “Where does he think he’s going?  Guy’s tryin’ to get himself killed.”  Suddenly alone, he flicked the flashlight from corner to corner, double and triple checking.  Somewhat comforted to find the lobby more or less horror-free, he turned back to the hallway.That’s when he saw her.She was lying in a crumpled heap just in front of the restrooms, and James could see, even in this light and even from a dozen feet away, that she was dead.  He called out to the priest, but wasn’t sure if he’d heard him through the wind.  The amount of blood on the floor was substantial: it was splattered on the walls, even the ceiling.  The pool on the ground around her was already clotting and starting to freeze at the edges.  It looked like she’d been mauled.  Mauled by something big.  Nausea nearly overwhelmed him.  It was hard to believe this was the same woman he’d seen only minutes ago drinking coffee and reading the paper in the donut shop.  It was almost impossible to believe.  This lifeless, gruesome thing - it just couldn’t be the same.  He dropped to his knees and tentatively pulled the collar of her jacket away from her ruined face, looking for the nametag.  Sgt. McDermott, it said.  He wouldn’t forget it.He reached over and forced himself to pull the service weapon from her lifeless hand, apologizing to her in his mind.  Whatever had done this was still out there.  There were other people in the building – lots of others.  He was going to need the gun.  As he was retrieving the extra clips from her belt, he heard a sound behind him.  Spinning, he raised the pistol.It was the fat man.  He barely seemed to register the gun.  He was staring past James at the trooper, open mouthed.      “She’s dead,” James said, lowering the pistol.He looked up, and met James’s eyes.  “What the hell?”“I don’t know,” James said, handing him the trooper’s flashlight.  He half-turned and looked back down the hallway.  “You hear that?”The fat man looked down toward the men’s room.  “Sounds like running water.” James  made sure the safety was off and took a few more steps toward the bathroom.  There was definitely water running in there.  It sounded like a lot of it.  A few more steps and he could see a little ways inside – he could see the porcelain sink had been snapped right off.  It was nowhere to be seen, and there was water pouring out of the exposed plumbing and onto the floor.“Oh, crap,” he said.  “I think it went into the bathroom.”They paused a beat, and then James stepped forward and swung his flashlight and pistol into the room, police-style.  What he saw was a disaster area of shattered mirrors, broken porcelain and running water.  The stalls had been thrown aside, collapsing on top of one another in a heap, like so many playing cards.  Sinks and toilets had been snapped off their moorings, and the water on the floor was several inches deep.  Frost covered every surface that wasn’t already covered in standing water and a thick mist hung in the air.  Whatever had done this must have been huge.  James quietly thanked God it wasn’t still in there.  From under the collapsed partitions, James heard a soft moan..</blockquote>

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