Welcome To Your New Life, Sir.
Anders Sjostran looked around as he passed through what appeared to be an extremely rural part of what he thought might be Louisiana. He'd been driving about ten hours a night for almost a week on a meandering, twisting route south and west to flee the Big Apple. Life as he knew it was over, no longer a cop, the kind big brother, the helpful son.. not long after he was attacked on several routine B&E calls he realized something was very wrong. The car swerved off the road and came to an abrupt stop as he flashed back to the final, awful night of his humanity.
Sjostran had been working graveyards to cover for the absence of Parker, who was out with a serious knee injury. The B&E call came over the radio just as he was about to get out of his squad and grab some chow. It was a building just a couple blocks from where he was sitting so he replied and rolled over.
Gun and flashlight at the ready, he stepped through a shattered door to find a trashed living area. The condemned warehouse had obviously been in use by squatters for some time, filthy mattresses and large quantities of trash littered the area and the stench was incredible. A combination of unwashed bodies, rotting food and ..human decomposition?
The hand holding the flashlight came up to cover his mouth and nose momentarily, providing the scent of tanned, dyed leather to cut the squalor and stink from his senses. Though his feet stopped moving, his eyes never did and he caught a flash of movement down a corridor off to the left. "Hey! Stop, put your hands where I can see em!" His order echoed slightly off the badly damaged walls but the movement disappeared and he opted to give chase. His boots kicked trash out of the way as he ran down the hall but one foot caught something sodden and heavy, causing the officer to tumble to the chipped tile floor.
Andy scrambled to find the flashlight that had clattered out of his hand in the fall but instead found what felt like a human hand grasping at him. He jerked back and just barely prevented his own finger from squeezing the trigger of the gun he'd managed to hold onto. He shook his head hard and his free hand came up to cover his throat where on two previous B&E calls he'd been attacked and bitten. The bites had healed very quickly, leaving only faint marks to attest to the injuries.. but this was starting to feel like another one of those nights.
He fumbled at his belt for one of the glow sticks they carried sometimes in case of a situation just like this one. He tore the wrapper with his teeth and snapped the stick over his knee, creating a slowly brightening amber light as he gave it a few shakes to activate the fluid inside.
What he saw in that eerie glow was enough to give anyone nightmares, he hadn't heard anything but he was surrounded by dying bodies that were being eaten? by other human looking forms. Again, his hand rose to his throat and covered the marks left by prior attacks as he started looking for a way out of the situation without attracting the attention of the people savaging the scattered bodies.
Too late, blazing eyes turned his way and the freaks that had invaded this squat lunged at the lone cop. He jumped to his feet but got only two or three steps before the first attacker reached him and started tearing at his clothes. He started firing wildly as they attacked in absolute silence, the only sounds were the booms of his gun and the clattering and crinkling of trash as feet shuffled through. The gun boomed one last time and then it was click, click, click as he continued to squeeze the trigger in a panic.
They brought him down in something akin to a dog pile and he felt his uniform rip in several places. Burning bites came next, his throat, his legs, his arms and even a few on his torso. He scrambled and squirmed, writhing in a futile attempt to escape the vicious attacks but his strength was flagging rapidly as his blood drained from his body.
Anders finally fell still, too deep in shock to notice the bodies being flung from his own with savage strength and fury. His finger was still clicking away automatically at the trigger of the useless gun, his eyes stared up, unseeing, unblinking, past the dimly lit figure crouched over his bruised and bloodied body.
What happened next was a complete blank, not even the faintest flashes to tell him what change he had gone through or what it had felt like. He had returned to work two nights later, apparently fully recovered but after sharing a meal with a few fellow officers he'd fallen rather ill and took the night off. He plead ill several more times as he tried to control the blood thirst rising in him and finally gave in to it. He had drained dry with his newly sharp fangs several street people.
Terrified of what he might do next, he threw a few belongings in the trunk of his car and bailed without a word to his family or his superiors. He'd been driving and hiding ever since and finally he reached a town called Honfleur where he decided he'd stop for the approaching day.