“What the hell is this?” The words were uncharacteristically faint and subdued as Lieutenant Ferguson tried to take in the scene that was spread out before him. Sure he had heard that it was bad. The radio chatter had made it clear and now he was seeing first hand that the radio chatter had not been lying this time. But he hadn’t seen anything quite this twisted. 

That was saying something, Lieutenant Ferguson had seen Col Ironside’s corpse, the blasted out hulk that was left behind when the museum of metahumans was hit a few months back. He’d seen men dissolved to the bone by Slugguth’s slime, or turned into a cancerous sludge of melting flesh by the touch of the Cancer. And that was just some of the sickening things that living and worse working for law enforcement in a city with so many supers had forced him to see, it didn’t even count the regular sadists and killers he had dealt with. 

“Nobody touch anything until we get this all recorded.” The man barked, largely on autopilot as his gaze swept over the living room of the large family home in Olympia, Lost Haven. The place was well furnished and quite comfortable. But that wasn’t what someone noticed now. No, the blood, butchered bodies and carnage were what drew the most attention. 

Blood spatter coated the walls and the furniture, along strewn body parts that had once made up the family of five, the Conner family, who had owned the home. But that wasn’t the worst part. Strips of flesh had been cut off the already torn apart bodies and pinned to the walls of the living room. Strips that made up letters and then words. 

[b]HELLO LOST HAVEN
1 OF 20
OR MAYBE I’LL STICK AROUND
RECRUITING
NIGHTMARE [/b]

The 1 and the 20 had been made from arms torn from the victims and with so much skin hacked and slashed away from the others it was easy to see why some of the responding officers had puked. There was popcorn scattered around, and several overturned bowls revealed that it had probably been a movie night for the family before the attack. This was way above his area of expertise but he knew some of the steps that needed to be taken.

“Make sure we keep the press from getting their hands on this.” He ordered somewhat shakily before a voice piped up from behind him. “Keep it from the press? You know you can’t really do that right?”

There wasn’t supposed to be anyone other than himself and the other officers in the scene while the investigators and techs were on the way and neither of the other officers was female. Lieutenant Ferguson turned to see a young woman in a suit with a mask that covered her face standing on the other side of the room with the video camera and inwardly face palmed. Not now, of all nights.

“Confiscate the camera and arrest her for trespassing in a crime scene.” He spat out the instructions with distaste.

“Not going to happen.” The woman replied and flickered out of the existence before any of the cops could actually do anything to stop her from vanishing.

“Fucking hell.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“In other news reports of a horrific attack on the Conner family from Olympia Lost Haven have been confirmed. While the police have attempted to keep a barricade of silence up and refuse to allow anyone access to the crime scene, and the FBI and STRIKE both have arrived on scene we have special footage of the inside of the crime scene.”

The man who was reading the news paused for a moment as the screen behind him began to change to show the footage. “Those with small children should turn off their television sets now or have them leave the room as the footage is not suitable for such audiences.” 

The scene that unfolded on the television was graphic and horrifying, exactly as the police officers who had witnessed it would have seen. There was only the quick pan but the message on the walls and the carnage was clear to anyone watching. And such footage was shown again repeatedly throughout the day on various news productions.