Chapter One

Chicago, Illinois.

It was an ordinary day in Chicago, on the evening of the 21st of September. Summer had disappeared like a bad mirage, and now the trees were bursting with red and orange, and soon the leaves would fall away and the eternal cycle would begin all over again. The wind was gradually picking up, and in a few weeks time it would whip off the lake and the cold would settle in on the city like arthritis on bones.

Just outside the city, a single Chicago Police car was moving east on the Reagan Memorial Tollway. Inside the car were Officer Thomas Everett and his partner and long-time friend, Officer Joseph Harris. Tom was sat back in his seat, his hands on the wheel, his eyes scanning the Tollway intently as the breeze coming through the open window ruffled his hair. Sat next to him, Joe Harris was cleaning a shotgun with a cloth.

"Unit 242, dispatch." The radio crackled.

"Dispatch, this is Unit 242, go ahead." Tom replied.

"Unit 142, we've got a 552 on the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway, just outside the city. Render assistance at the scene and determine the extent of the damage. Fire and ambulance crews are en route, over."

"Uh, copy that dispatch, we're rolling now. Out."

Tom put the mic back in its cradle and looked at Joe.

"What do you think that's all about?" He asked.

"I don't know," Joe replied, stowing the shotgun under the dashboard. "Maybe some guy got drunk and drove off the road. Whatever it is, it's going to fuck up the traffic."

Tom nodded, relieved Joe had put the shotgun away and wasn't going to accidentally blow both their heads off with it.

The car shot down the Tollway, its siren howling like a wounded animal. The car screamed around the corner and Tom slammed on the brakes so hard that both men flew forward in their seats, their belts locking violently around their shoulders. The tires screamed in anger and burned out a ten-foot stretch of skid marks on the asphalt.

"Holy crap." Tom said breathlessly. His knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel.

A truck had jacknifed, tipping on its side and blocking all three lanes of the Tollway. It had spilled its contents during the crash, and now smashed crates and broken pieces of glass littered the highway. About a dozen cars were parked in the breakdown lane, their owners now milling like sheep around the wreckage of the truck. Some of them were using their cell phones, either to talk on or to record the scene on for some juicy YouTube footage.

Tom pulled up behind a parked car, and both officers stepped out of their vehicle and started to jog toward the crash site.

"Anybody see what happened here?" Tom asked the assembled crowd, as Joe went off to look in the trucks cab.

Most of them shook their heads, but an elderly man who had his arm around a woman Tom presumed was his wife, spoke up.

"We were drivin' just in front of it, son." The elderly man said. "I saw 'em fighting in the cab; there was blood everywhere." He paused, evidently pleased with the impression his words had made on the awed crowd, who were looking at him like he was some elderly visionary.

"Fighting?" Tom asked, puzzled.

"Ayuh, it sure looked like it anyway. There was so much blood I couldn't even see inside, and then it just tipped over."

"Do you know if-" Tom began, and then a woman screamed and pointed at the truck.

Tom whirled around with his hand on the butt of his gun, and saw Joe desperately grappling with a heavy, bald headed man wearing a grimy mechanics uniform. He ran for the pair and seized Joe's attacker around the waist, hauling him off his partner. Tom had a second to notice the guttural growling sounds the man was making before he twisted round in his grip, now snapping his jaws at Tom's face instead. Trying to keep a grip on him was like holding a bag of snakes, and the man was no lightweight. Taking a step back to try and keep himself balanced, his foot landed in some slimy substance that was pooling on the ground. He lost his balance and fell down with the man still on top of him. There was blood around the mans mouth and chin, and Tom suddenly realised that if he could not get this psycho off him soon, his throat would get torn open like a chicken drumstick.

Fortunately, that was when Joe's shoe connected solidly with the side of the crazy man's head. He went of rolling off, still snarling and growling, and Tom took the opportunity to jump to his feet and draw his gun. Next to him, Joe had done the same thing. Tom moved forward, meaning to try and cuff the guy before he could get back up but the man was already struggling back to his feet, looking around with his head low and his face curled into a predatory sneer.

"Put your fucking hands up!" Tom yelled. "Last warning!"

The man made a noise that was a cross between a scream and a snarl, and lunged at them again. Tom gripped his right wrist with his left hand, and squeezed the Glock's trigger. There was a dull flash of fire as the gun spat out its bullet, and Tom saw a smoking hole appear in the mans leg. Joe then fired off three shots in quick succession and more smoking holes appeared in the attacker's chest. Then the man slammed into Tom and both of them fell to the ground again.

His gun went flying and clattered to the ground. Tom grabbed the man's head in one hand, trying to keep his mouth away from his throat, whilst his other hand groped madly for the gun lying next to them. One of the crazy man's hands found its way to Tom's throat and began to squeeze, and Tom saw the look in his pale and somehow dusty eyes. There was no anger or hate in his eyes, just a kind of vacant emptiness.

Tom's hand wrapped around the gun just as his lungs began to feel like they would implode from lack of air. He grabbed it and put it against the mans forehead as the world slowly began to fade and lose its colour.

Two shots banged out, and Tom felt the vibration slam up his arm. The man on top of him ceased snarling immediately and fell sideways off of him, revealing a very pale Joe stood with his gun still clasped in both hands.

"Jesus fuck, dude." Joe said, helping Tom to his feet. "Are you okay? I couldn't have shot him it would have hit you too. Jesus Christ…"

"I'm okay, man." Tom said, coughing as the air rushed back into his lungs. He put his gun back in its holster with hands that shook slightly. The front of his blue uniform was stained with blood.

"What was wrong with him, Tom?" Joe asked, seeming scared. "Was he on drugs or something? I've never seen anything like that in my life…"

"I've never heard of a drug that lets you get shot and not even feeling anything." Tom said.

"What about steroids?" Joe asked, apparently determined to find a rational explanation to what had just occurred.

"Joe for fuck's sake, we shot him four times and it didn't even slow him down." Tom surveyed the scene; one crashed truck, one dead crazy man. "Bleeding Christ."

"C'mon, we need to check out the truck," He said, suddenly remembering what the old man had said to him.

Joe nodded and the two of them jogged over to where the truck lay on its side like a dead dinosaur. One look inside the blood-splattered cab was enough to confirm Tom's suspicions. He felt his blood suddenly turn to ice in his veins. It was easy enough to see what had happened here; Man is driving truck, man picks up hitchhiker, hitchhiker goes crazy and kills man causing truck to crash. Hitchhiker attacks two cops and takes six bullets before being shot in the head, which puts him down for good.

Elementary, Watson, Tom thought. Ele-fucking-mentary.

He suddenly realised he felt a little like puking and turned away before he blew his groceries all over the place. An ambulance followed by two State Police cars was arriving on the scene, and Tom went to talk to them whilst Joe moved to keep the crowd back. A tall black Trooper wearing a Stetson stepped out of the car, his eyes surveying the scene grimly.

"What in the name of Christ happened here, son?" He asked as two paramedics went to examine the man who had attacked Tom.

"What happened is some crazy son of a bitch killed the guy driving that truck then tried to kill me and my partner, so I shot him. We've got one suspect down and another dead man inside that truck."

"Jesus," One of the paramedics looking over the dead man said. "Did you really need to shoot him five times?"

"He didn't go down until I shot him in the head." Tom explained. "It was like he couldn't even feel the other bullets."

"That's impossible." The tall Trooper said simply.

"You're fucking telling me." Tom retorted, and then jerked his thumb toward the assembled crowd, who were now being kept away from the scene by strings of yellow tape. "But it happened, and any of those people over there will tell you." He lowered his voice a little. "And before he died he was going for my throat; with his teeth."

"Like Dawn of the Dead, eh?" Said one paramedic, a young man with carroty hair. "You gotta shoot them in the head."

"Not helping, dude." Joe said, walking over. His eyes looked sick and his face was extremely pale. He looked at Tom and the Trooper. "If we hadn't shot him he would have killed us."

The Trooper was speechless. The three men looked at the scene without talking, just taking it in. The crashed truck, the dead man lying in the middle of the road, the first arriving emergency responders and the crowd excitedly muttering to each other. Tom didn't know why, but it felt like an omen of things to come.

Four hours later and night had fallen over Chicago in earnest. The city slept uneasily under the wings of night and in the in the black depths of space the first stars had begun to shine like hard chips of ice. Tom Everett was sat in the Chicago PD headquarters, jangling his car keys in one hand and relaying the events of the day over and over in his head.

The man's name had been John Anderson.

The man in the truck had been his brother, Robert Anderson.

Beyond that, they didn't know a fucking thing. They didn't know what had driven John Anderson to attack and kill his brother, they didn't know what had driven him to attack two cops, and they certainly did not know what had allowed him to take half a dozen bullets without showing an ounce of discomfort. Worst still, the forensic team had apparently discovered evidence that John Anderson hadn't just killed his brother. The wounds on Robert Anderson had been inflicted by his brother's teeth.

Tom thought this might have been one of the most horrible incidents in his career.

He kept thinking back to the look in John Andersons eyes; that cataclysmic…emptiness. But Tom had thought there might have been something else under it and now he knew it for what it was. It had been hunger. Tom shivered and looked at his cell phone which was lying on the desk. He had needed someone to talk to and he had considered phoning his wife, but she was visiting some relatives in Maine, and the last thing he wanted was for her to worry.

At least it's over now, he thought to himself. The thought brought little comfort.

He sighed and put the phone in his jeans pocket, then stood up and left the room.

It had just gone midnight.

Down in the morgue of County General Hospital, two men in surgical scrubs and face masks stood over the body of the unfortunate Robert Anderson, who was laid out on the table in front of them. The body of John Anderson had already been flown out of the city to a secure location.

"So, I'd say it was throat laceration that killed him." One of the men was saying, wiping the blood off his white gloves. "You agree Blake?"

"Yeah," Said Blake. "What time's he due to be flown out?"

His colleague gave a cursory glance at a nearby clipboard. "He needs to be at O'Hare Airport by 0040 hours. A C-130's scheduled to take fly him out to Andrews AFB at 0100 hours."

"We'd best hurry this up then." Blake said, glancing down at the corpse on the table. He jumped with surprise.

Robert Anderson's eyes had opened. His jaw fell open in a slack snarl as he slowly began to register the two men stood above him. He began to sit up.

"Good morning, Mr Anderson." Blake said pleasantly, drawing the silenced 9mm he had been holding under the table and shooting Anderson twice in the head. He fell back on the table with a muffled thump, mercifully dead at last.

"That was a close one." Blake's colleague remarked, his eyes grim over the rim of his surgical mask. "I'd he'd been just one second faster-"

"Yeah, well he wasn't." Blake said, putting the gun away. "C'mon, let's get a gurney and wheel this dead bastard out to the van. We're handing him over to the guys at the airport and then we're getting extracted from Chicago in the morning."

"Alright," The other man said, nodding and they turned to leave the room.

"I hope my next assignment's in Florida, or California." Blake grumbled on the way out. "Hell, even Tehran would be fine. Just as long as I'm nowhere near Chicago."

His colleague nodded. He had been in this field of work long enough to know that Chicago had now quite possibly become the most dangerous place on earth.

A.N. This is the end of chapter one, please read and review, constructive criticism welcome :)