Gordon reached for his gun out of habit, his fingers slapping against an empty holster before remembering that Catwoman had already took it.
The Bio-Human’s massive, foul-smelling fist swung at Gordon, who was frozen in his place by pure terror.
In that very moment, his old partner lunged forward, tackling him out of the way.
The near-miss leaves Gordon with a bloody deep cut on his face.
Close.
A fraction of an inch closer and he would have been a dead man.
Scrambling through the filth, they rolled desperately to avoid being crashed.
There was no time to celebrate surviving.
They were instantly thrown back into a relentless, desperate game of cat and mouse.
Bullock opened fire, shooting blindly.
Back at the academy, he had been a marksman.
In proper lighting, he had a ninety percent chance of blowing a monster’s eyes out before it could get close.
But down in this pitch-black drainage pit, the faint beam of a single flashlight was their only source of light.
He had to rely on his ears, firing wildly toward the nearest sound of heavy breathing.
The gunfire worked temporarily, forcing the Bio-Humans back.
But they weren’t quitting.
They growled, beating their chests like enraged gorillas as they began circling the two cops in the dark.
Meanwhile, Vincent was hiding in a corner, completely silent.
The moment he hit the grate, Vincent noticed a weakness.
These freaks had spent their entire lives in glass vats and were only recently dumped into the sewers.
Both environments were practically pitch black.
Their vision was severely damaged; they could only react to direct light sources.
The way Gordon and Bullock were screaming and waving that flashlight around was practically setting up a sign for an all-you-can-eat buffet.
They were begging to get eaten.
Vincent had wanted to warn them, but speaking up might have drawn the monsters straight to him.
Still, he couldn’t just play dead forever.
Gordon and Bullock were his shield.
If this shield broke, he would be left completely exposed to the slaughter.
*Think of a way.
Think of a fucking way!
What would Batman do?* Growing up, everyone who knew Vincent said the same thing: brilliant, but lazy.
“Lazy” was the perfect summary of his entire vision on life.
In school, he aimed straight for the mediocre middle, never wanting to stand out.
In the workforce, he kept the same habit, going along, sleeping at his desk, playing on his phone during meetings, and delaying assignments until the final hour.
He had the talent, though.
His brain moved fast enough that a single hour of effort could match someone else’s full day of hard work.
His favorite thing was teamwork; it meant he didn’t have to think.
He just did what he was told, and if everything went downhill, the blame fell on someone else.
Sure, he never got the credit, but a guy like him didn’t give a damn about that.
Life was just a drag to him.
But since crossing over into this hellhole, one heavy burden after another had dropped onto his shoulders.
First, he had to keep Oswald alive, and now he had to pull Gordon out from under the claws of these bio-engineered freaks.
He despised responsibility.
He hated having his choices stripped away.
Now, he was stuck with both.
He wanted nothing more than to just lie down and let it end, but his survival instinct took over him.
Like an overheating engine, his heart pounded violently, flooding his veins with pure adrenaline.
In this high-stress clarity, his thoughts sharpened.
A completely unhinged idea kicked in.
“Captain Gordon!
The handcuffs!” Vincent shouted.
“What?” “I said the goddamn handcuffs!” His desperate scream tore through the loud rush of water, reaching Gordon’s ears.
Under the faint beam of the flashlight, Vincent caught a glimpse of metal flying through the air.
But his shouting had also invited an unwelcome guest.
The Bio-Human that Bullock had managed to shoot had been licking its wounds at the back.
Vincent’s sudden outburst instantly drew its attention.
The flashlight beam swept past and vanished, followed by the metallic clink of the handcuffs hitting the grate.
Vincent scrambled on all fours, desperately moving his hands across the wet steel mesh, trying to remember where they landed.
At the same time, the filtration mesh beneath him vibrated violently.
Something massive was closing in.
Then, the vibrations stopped.
It was looming right over him.
Hot, wet air blew against the back of Vincent’s sweaty neck, accompanied by a sickening wave of decay that drifted into his nostrils.
He froze, holding his breath, though his heart was pounding.
Finally, his fingers touched something metal, but the handcuffs were caught right on the edge of a gap in the mesh.
A clumsy touch pushed them over.
In a desperate reflex, Vincent lunged forward, catching the chain with the tips of his fingers just as it slipped through.
The movement was too loud.
Even with the background roar of the rushing water, the Bio-Human caught the shift.
It lowered its massive head trying to distinguish the scent of living flesh from the stench of waste.
It didn’t actually need to hunt.
If the bastard took a single step forward, it would crush Vincent’s skull.
*You can’t see me…
You can’t see me…* Vincent kept repeating it in his head, desperately trying to psych himself into invisibility.
Amazingly, the monster stayed still.
His racing heart began to settle slightly.
He naively thought he might actually survive this.
But bad luck always strikes when you’re hanging by a thread.
Without warning, a glob of stinking slime dropped onto his head.
Vincent could handle the terror, but the smell made him want to vomit.
For a second, the urge to vomit completely overwhelmed his fear.
His face went pale.
If he threw up right now, he is a dead man.
He bit his lower lip until it bled, forcing it back down his throat.
But the stinky slime seemed to have a mind of its own.
After covering his hair, it slid down his arm, instantly coating his fingers and lubricating the tiny gap holding the handcuffs.
The metal rings began to slip from his fingertips.
Vincent’s expression went completely blank.
Those cuffs were their only ticket out of this pit.
If they dropped, they were done.
He tried to adjust his grip, but the slime was like industrial grease.
Every time he squeezed, the metal slipped out of his reach.
The sharp edges of the steel mesh scraped his wrists raw as he wrestled with it, leaving smears of blood on the grate.
The Bio-Human caught the fresh scent of copper.
Its massive snout lowered.
*Clink.* His fingertips felt lighter.
The handcuffs fell down into the endless dark, taking Vincent’s last shred of hope with them.
“Ah!
Fuck my life!” he snapped, completely losing it and screaming out of desperate anger.
The Bio-Human, still searching, flinched back at the sudden explosion of sound right next to its ear.
But the hesitation lasted only a second.
There was nothing to fear from food.
It reached with his massive, hairy hand and grabbed Vincent and lifting him like a ragdoll.
Hearing the scream, Bullock realized Vincent was in deep shit.
He swung his gun around wildly, completely missing the second Bio-Human emerging from the darkness.
A massive arm slammed into his chest, brutally knocking Bullock unconscious and sending him crashing into the grate.
He lay motionless.
The monster holding Vincent unhinged its jaws.
Caught in the stray beam of the dropped flashlight, Vincent stared down a mouth of rotting, yellow teeth covered in decay.
Just when the last shred of hope was gone, a beam of light cuts through the darkness from a hole in the sewer wall.
Two precise gunshots echoed in rapid succession.
The first one ripped straight through the open jaw of the freak holding Vincent, tearing out its lower jaw and forcing it to drop its prey in agony.
The second shot caught the monster hovering over Bullock, going through its head and killing it instantly.
The monster died instantly from a headshot, thrashing wildly before falling still.
Its death made the rest of the pack freeze in hesitation.
“Gentlemen, are you entirely useless without a woman around?” A familiar, mocking female voice echoed through the thundering roar of the drainage pit.