Hmm, I don't know what happened the first time I tried to post this...
I thought I'd mention to potential readers that these stories do not have to be read in order. They are all related in theme, but they are all their own story, all with different characters. To understand the entire storyline, all of them will have to be read, but the order doesn't matter. And if you don't care about the storyline, you could read them on their own.
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12/15/07
090 – Why?
They were the closest car when the call came in at 2230 hours. Suspect with a weapon assaulting a man. Officer Julie Hammal and her partner, Cody Philips, were at the scene in less than two minutes. But they were too late to save the victim.
Their headlights revealed the killer, still standing over his victim, pulling a knife out of the chest. He whirled around as Hammal kicked her door open and screamed at him, her gun pointed at his chest.
“Police! Drop your weapon and raise your hands above your head!”
The man was naked and filthy. Must be some bum, probably with mental health issues. But he had killed a man and he was under arrest.
He didn’t seem to hear her. He bent over the dead body once more. He was a hairy bastard, with matted strands running down his chest and back, and covering his arms and legs. As Hammal shouted at him once more, she saw the hair stand up along his back. That was weird. Something about the man’s appearance rang a bell.
“Mutt!” she bellowed. “He’s a Mutt!”
Philips was standing on the other side of the car.
“Put your hands up!”
The Mutt looked up. Then he ran at them. Before Philips could run around the front of the car, the Mutt knocked Hammal to the ground and was stabbing at her with the knife.
Philips kicked him off of Hammal and the knife flew from his hand.
“Now put your hands up! I have a gun and I will use it if you do not cooperate!”
In answer, the Mutt attacked again, leaping at Philips this time. Hammal sat up and squeezed the trigger of her sidearm with both hands.
The Mutt didn’t respond to the first bullet or the second. The third got his attention. But while he may not have noticed them, the bullets still affected him. He stumbled when he ran back to Hammal. She fired another shot right into his stomach and he fell.
By now Hammal was shaking so badly that the next three bullets went astray. Then one slipped into the Mutt’s skull as he tried to crawl towards her. It made a soft popping noise and the Mutt collapsed into a quivering heap.
Afterwards, Hammal didn’t even remember the back-up cars arriving, or the media van. All she remembered was the popping noise of the Mutt’s skull cracking and Philips helping her up from the ground. He took her to a coffee shop and gave her a cup of black decaf. They sat there together for a long while, Hammal drinking cup after cup of coffee, as Philips stared out the dark window.
