Demons used to be gimmicks that only existed in legends, tales, and internet blogs. Some doll that could move, a painting that disappeared, or a man who was no longer himself. It was generally bullshit.
Until the 2030 Transformations.
An estimated 2% of the world population transformed into hideous creatures. It would range from a tentacle growing from the back, to a complete shell of armor around the body. In the milder cases, they killed everyone in the room with them. In the worst, they destroyed towns.
None of it made sense. Every country and every ethnicity was proportionally affected. So even when internet theorists claimed it was a secret virus developed by the Chinese, a hidden project by the CIA, or even an African cult, everyone secretly knew the horrific truth.
No one was safe.
But the funny thing about safety is that no one was ever safe to begin with. Someone could easily die from a car accident, a mugging, or by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s why after a few years since The Transformations, everything went back to normal.
Sort of.
“CDR-4, this is Command. Do you read? Over.”
The armored truck raced along the New Changan streets. CDR, Counter Demon Response, was written on the right side with bold, white letters. The other side instead had a ban sign around a demon—Demon Busters.
The officers, about five of them, calmly sat inside the vehicle with strange tranquility. For an ordinary person, this day could’ve been the end of their life. But for them, this was Thursday.
With a can of Monster in her hand, Sergeant Jessica Yang took the radio.
“Command, this is CDR-4. Go ahead. Over.” Her voice was slightly hoarse, either from years in the Marine Corps or her time in the CDR.
“CDR-4, traffic seems to be bunched near the perimeter. I recommend dismounting.”
Sergeant Yang sighed. The rest of the car seemed to share her irritation. It meant extra walking and extra hassle. “Understood, command. I’ll give the order to dismount and to equip the APEs. Out.”
The truck came to a stop in front of a Waffle House. The lights were dead; there wasn’t a single soul inside. “Check it out,” Officer Gutierrez chuckled. “Shit’s so bad, even Waffle House is closed. And those crazy fuckers would weather a hurricane.”
“Zip it, Gutierrez. It’s too early for your jokes,” Officer Smith snapped. He had enough irritation as he put his phone away—looks like the girlfriend was annoyed he was out on another duty week.
Gutierrez smiled, despite the little gap between his front teeth. “Calm down white boy. The real joke is that it’s always too early or too late for fun. Just a matter of perspective, you know?”
Alternative Protection Equipment, nicknamed APE, was a suit of metal and wire. Despite the heavy weight of it, a trained operator could move about three-to-five times faster than an elite athlete. Strap some equipment on it, put a holster on the back, and spray paint the unit mascot on the chest, and it felt as comfy as a new home.
“Our father who art in heaven…” Officer Kang calmly muttered the prayer as he fitted into his APE. He wasn’t motivated by fear, but by casual ritual. “Hallowed be thy name…”
“Dip, anyone?” Officer Singh asked with her slight Gujarati accent. She held the tin of fresh nicotine in her hand, though nobody took her offer. “More for me then.”
Yang entered her suit with closed eyes. She could feel the machine whirr itself awake, like a beast from a cave. After a couple seconds, the system came alive with a visual system.
“You know,” Gutierrez continued, “this must’ve been how knights felt before going to slay dragons and shit. They had their sword, their armor, and their buddies. Just like us!”
“Except we have guns, APEs, and a Mexican who can’t shut the fuck up.”
“Potato-tomato, amigo.”
“That’s not how–”
“Lock it up,” Yang interrupted. “Time to roll.” Her word was law, as everyone got into formation. With their automatic rifles in hand, they exited the vehicle with the distinct red glow from their eyes.
As they approached the perimeter, they learned what had caused all the traffic jam. When the police formed a perimeter, everyone had abandoned their cars in a panicked evacuation. As a result, empty vehicles lined up the road like natural roadblocks.
“CDR-4, the target is located in the hotel at the center of the perimeter. Proceed with caution. Police have identified it as a medium-level threat.”
The team moved to the road block, where the local police moved out of their way. With their APEs on, the CDR towered over them by a couple inches. Enough for intimidation, at least.
Love Life Hotel towered over them, despite obvious destruction inside and out. Windows were blown out, walls were missing, and the H had crashed to the ground so it read Love Life otel. Medium-level threat.
“Demon was last seen on the fourth floor, but it appears to be ascending,” Command relayed.
The CDR went through the lobby with their weapons trained. Cowering civilians lined along the walls and floor as their traumatized voices struggled to scream. “I-I-I… h-h-he…”
They searched the building floor by floor. “Clear.” Traumatized civilians were directed to the cops outside. There were plenty of ambulances for casualties.
But not for the CDR. If they were hit bad, then they were dead.
“Approaching fourth floor,” Yang relayed on the radio. “Ascending the stairs.”
The five-man unit stacked along the stairs with their weapons trained in all directions. Quick, from countless hours in training, they navigated through the hallways with their 40-lbs machineguns. “Stay steady.”
Then they heard a croak, like one from a growling dog. The unit halted. “Room 44,” Singh whispered, before spitting brown-tobacco juice into the straw of her suit.
Nobody made jokes. Nobody made noise. They pressed their bodies against the walls as they prepared to breach the door. “Gutierez,” Yang ordered, “you’re up.”
“My pleasure.” He stood square against the door as Smith cocked a stun grenade in his hand. The funny thing about demons is that, like normal humans, they’re also stunned by flashbangs.
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“Breach!”
Gutierrez kicked down the door—Smith chucked the flashbang inside.
The APEs protected their sight and hearing as they charged into the room. The demon lay on the floor in writhing pain as its hands, multiple hands, covered its multiple eyes and ears. In fact, its entire body was covered in eyes, ears, hands, and mouths.
The room was covered in red as bodies lay strewn about. The demon’s mouths were in the middle of chewing human flesh, though they were now vomiting that same red goop because of the flash bangs.
“Light it the fuck up!”
Bullets rained into the beast as more blood splashed through the room. The demon screamed in pain before jumping through the ceiling with a crash. It left a trail of red in its wake.
“Singh and Kang! Go up the stairs!” Yang ordered, “Gutierrez and Smith! Guard this floor!”
They nodded. Yang’s word was law, even if it meant one concerning fact: she would have to chase the demon herself. Such was the sacrifice to ensure the demon wouldn’t run off to tear civilians.
While her subordinates took to the stairs, Yang jumped right into the ceiling hole. She calmly removed the belt of ammunition from her machine gun—watching the counter go to zero—before sliding a fresh one into the chamber: 150 rounds.
Yang chased after the trail as the demon went into the hallway. She could hear the crunching of joints as the demon continued constant transformation. If it was weak, it wouldn’t have caused so much destruction.
She followed the trail into what looked like a game room. Arcade machines were littered against the wall in their defeated form. One of them was sparking, while the other was replaying the Mortal Kombat on loop. “R-R-Ready… Fight!”
An arm swung her weapon right out of her hand. Yang dodged the second swing as she rolled on the ground. Quickly looking up, she found that the demon had already changed.
Instead of looking like a mismatch of eyes, ears, and mouths, it looked like a towering tree with arms and legs to match. The earlier form was its eating form—this was its fighting form.
To make things worse, the demon was standing between Yang and her machine gun. With her APE on, she knew that using her pistol would be useless against such a demon. That’s why she had a stupider idea.
Yang unsheathed her knife and postured her hands by her head. It was a simple fighting stance that stood square against the demon. Even as it roared, she kept her hands up.
It was time to throw hands with a monster.
The demon slammed a branch into her chest. Yang was launched to the other end of the room, but she somehow landed on her feet.
Another swing came, but she ducked before stabbing her knife into the limb.
Blood rushed out—the beast screamed—Yang came charging right into the beast with a ferocious tackle.
With the help of her superpowered strength, she managed to bash her fist into the beast over and over again. Blood spewed from the gashes as the beast continued to scream from its demonic mouth. Maybe it wanted sympathy.
Yang had none. With a couple seconds for the beast to remain immobile, she quickly grabbed her weapon and pulled the trigger.
Click. The fucking thing jammed.
Just then, the beast got back to its feet. It loomed over her as it reoriented its supernatural hatred towards putting her in the ground. There was no scream—just eyes of hate.
“Shit!” Yang had to quickly fix the gun by opening the bolt. She cleared the chamber, ran her finger along the groves, and got a fresh round in there. “Come on, motherfucker!”
Condition I: weapon is cocked and ready to fire.
She blasted the weapon into the beast without a second thought. The gun sounded like a symphony as fresh lead fired into the demon like flame from a dragon. In this fighting form, the beast couldn’t run from this barrage so easily.
All 150 rounds spewed into the beast. It should’ve been dead by now. As Yang looked, that seemed to be the case. Its body had been riddled with countless holes that she could see through.
It changed to a smaller, scrawnier form. Then dove for the ceiling again. It wasn’t fighting to live—it was running.
“Singh! Kang! Demon coming your way!” Yang relayed. “Gutierez! Smith! Relocate to the floor above!”
Right away, gunfire echoed upstairs. If there was any more fight in the monster, it was surely gone now. As the fire ceased, Yang heard the relieving message, “Demon down.”
***
CDR-4: The Demonbusters. Like the other CDR teams, they operate as the best of the best. Nobody can compare them to police, or even fire fighters. Those people deal with fires and crime.
CDRs deal with demons.
As per usual, they torched the demon’s body with thermite. Hell may be hot, but thermite burns hotter than the devil’s asshole. By the end of the process, they were looking at a nonliving sack of ash to be sent to the labs.
As for the team, they settled their celebration with some pizza in the barracks—fresh slices from a joint called Little Macho’s. Since this was CDR-4’s duty week, they had to sleep in the barracks anyway. “Come on, you can’t act like tits are better than ass,” Singh rolled.
“Hell yeah, tits are better than ass,” Gutierrez replied. “You like girls, right? Have you ever been with a girl with real melons on her chest?”
“Sure, but I can grow my ass, not my tits.”
“Pendejo, just drink more milk!”
Even Smith couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. Maybe that was just his personality: the man who tried to act all serious, but couldn't stop laughing when Gutierrez opened his mouth. “She can’t drink milk, Gutierrez! She’s too busy swallowing dip-fluid!”
Singh rolled her eyes. After every mission, her APE straw would be full of that disgusting bile because of her dipping habits. While the rest could wait until the rest of the mission to smoke something, Singh always needed her fix of nicotine.
“Maybe take a break from it,” Kang said. “All things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial. First Corinthians chapter six, verse twelve.”
And, of course, Kang said this while deep in some book. His current read was something called The Coffin of Tears. Whoever wrote it must’ve been just as much a pretentious asshole as him.
But unlike the rest of the team, who sat together and snacked on cheap town pizza, Yang was on the other end of the room with a phone in her hand. “So what’s this about?” she asked. “Something unsuccessful?”
“On the contrary.” Lieutenant Bates, Command from the raid, sounded a whole lot softer when he was on a normal phone call. “You’ve been on a good winning streak. I actually tried relaying the unit for a commendation, but–”
“But what?”
“But the chief was… unhappy when he found out how you operate,” Bates replied. “His main point was how you chase the demons by yourself, or chase them into your teammates rather than just charge them with the whole team.”
Yang scoffed. She banged her fist against the wall, to the scared surprise of her team. “The chief is traditional. He treats this like we’re SWAT fighting armed crooks. But last I checked, a terrorist couldn’t rip through concrete like paper.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re trying to use your team to corner the demon, rather than play cat-and-mouse. But if you’re gonna do that, you can’t just chase them by yourself. Simply put, five guys isn’t gonna be–”
“Yeah, it’s not.” Her voice was stern, just as harsh as her days as a Marine Corps sergeant. “I was at Wade’s closed-casket funeral. I had to hold his mother as she cried on my shoulder. Do you think that was easy?”
The whole team was looking at Yang as she continued the phone call, all while Bates remained silent for a moment. “Look, you need a new member. I’ve already put in the paperwork for fresh meat. You’ll have to deal with him. Bye.”
Bates ended the call, as Yang kept the phone to her ear for a couple more seconds. Part of her was glad he ended the call—it saved her plenty of breath.
“Pizza, sar’nt?” Gutierrez offered the slice with his usual grin.
“No, I’m not hungry right now.” Instead, she pulled a Cuban cigar from her bag and a lighter inscribed with a red mahjong emblem. “Call me if something happens. I’ll be outside.”
Yang shut the door behind her. The slam was deafening. The rest of the room was silent, as they simultaneously stopped chewing. “Damn,” Singh finally said. “I guess that’s more for us.”