"We're clear, no one in this room either." Mark grumbled into his earpiece.
"Damn, they must have known we were coming. At least we have free reign to search the place."
John and Mark turned over furniture, slashing couches and breaking open cabinets. This morning they had gotten a tip about a drug ring running out of a residential home. There weren't any grounds to this claim, but the location was interesting enough to warrant a thorough search. Tattered rainbow flags, a sprawling garden overrun with mint, and only a handful of cars for the estimated dozens of occupants.
"Still clear out here, none of the neighbors have taken notice of our presence and no one has come by the house."
Tobias lurked in the car outside, tinted windows providing some protection from the harsh daylight and unfriendly stares of an older couple walking past. Now he was wishing they had gone in undercover. Their sharp suits and black Cadillac made quite an impression, but now that his team was essentially just looting the place he felt badly overdressed.
"Anything of interest?"
"Not unless you count an entire bookshelf full of puppygirl smut. Who would have known it was such a richly produced genre?"
Tobias smirked, "Stay on task. Narcotics and manufacturing equipment only.
John continued to rummage through the house. "Found a bong and some weed, but looks like the legal stuff. Might be able to get them in on that anyway."
"Stay on task, the cops can clean up later. Any minature cleanroom equipment or solvents?"
John emptied out another spice cabinet onto the floor, shattering bottles of brown liquids. "Not unless they've started smuggling vanilla. I think this place is clean."
Mark's voice crackled over the radio. "John you should check this out. The yellow door in the small bedroom under the stairs. There seems to be-"
"Mark, you cut out out. Do you read me?"
Silence. After a few uneasy seconds, Tobias cut in. "What's going on in there? I don't see Mark's comms or vitals."
"Mark cut out. I'm going to check out his last location."
"Like hell you are, I'm calling for backup."
John turned his earpiece down to the lowest volume. "What's that? You're hardly coming through. I'm going to check this out."
John found the bedroom that Mark had described. Inside was only a small desk under a loft bed, and narrow yellow door tucked in the corner. Tobias’s indignant shouting continued in John's earpiece. The door was ajar, John slipped through the gap and was swallowed by the too deep darkness of the closet. He stooped down and was nearly crawing as he pushed through velvety mounds of clothes, and the chatter in his earpiece cut out.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Tobias stared at the vitals monitor as John disappeared completely and he was left alone with the car.
Luke was sinking into thick, thick mud. He felt disoriented. He knew he was rummaging through a closet only seconds ago but now all he could see was vines and mud and slime. What was he doing in a closet? It doesn't make much sense now that he tried to think about it.
Ribit. An enormous croaking sound roared from behind him. He spun around but nothing was there but more mud and slime. Thick bands of sunlight poured down through the canopy, giving a stinking warmth to the boggy ground.
He slogged away from the source of the sound, towards the nearest vine. His hands found purchase and he held on for dear life. He wasn't sinking anymore and let out a deep sigh.
Riiiibit. The croak sounded again. This time Luke was sure that it was some kind of toad, but he couldn't see any living thing around him. Luke started to shimmy up the vine when he spotted something moving in the mud.
"Holy jesus fuck what the hell is that?!"
The giant toad blinked open sleepy slimy eyes as it emerged from the mud. He slouched forward to fully bathe his back in the springtime sunlight, grateful for the season as the ample warmth brought him more into wakefulness.
"Oh my god shit shit shit!" Luke was crying now, quietly.
Gentle morning light hazed down through a thin fog as crickets hopped among grasses and wildflowers. John stumbled and tripped and softly fell into a patch of thick and cushiony grasses, laughing with delight. He started to close his eyes, and then startled awake. Something was wrong... He looked around, looking for... what was he looking for?
"Hello? Is someone there?" He said, answered by the stillness of the fog and a grasshopper landing on his suit pants. He remembered he had just been talking to someone moments ago, but now he was completely alone. He searched around on the ground, then watched with wonder as a spider scurried out of his sight with fiendish dexterity. He found his own footprints where he had tripped over a clod of grass, but nothing else. No indication of how he got here. Suddenly he flailed, startled, tugging at something in his ear.
"Oh, just an earbud." he said, relieved that there weren’t any malicious bugs trying to wig their way into his ear. He still couldn’t quite piece together what had happened or how he got here, but he honestly couldn’t care less. This meadow was beautiful, and he was surely here for a reason. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe he was dead. These thoughts gave him no trouble as he admired a bullthistle, brushing his finger along its purple fluffy down with all of the tenderness and care of a new lover.
"Gone?"
"Yes! Gone. Disappeared. Vanished. One ignoring orders, too, but that’s not exactly news. I need backup, I need backup immediately."
"Understood. I’m dispatching a rescue team to your location."
"E.T.A.?"
"Seven minutes. Now can you give more information about this disappearance?"
"What more can I tell you? I... We’ve got company. I’ve got to go."
Tobias slapped close the phone and watched as two people approached the house and one of them made a rude gesture in his direction.
"Fucking cops. I can’t believe they have someone watching us again."
"Wanna go bust out their windows?" Silas said with a mischievous grin.
"Fuck no. Someone’s in there and they would shoot us before we even got close."
Silas and Brick walked in the open door of their house, then stopped. The house was torn to shreds, the floor littered with broken glass and wrecked furniture.
"No fucking way..."
"Let’s get out of here." Brick said as they turned to make for the door.
A guy in some fancy suit was coming right at them. "Don’t run. We’ve got this place surrounded."
"Bullshit, come back with a warrant, pig." Brick yelled as they slammed the door shut and turned the lock, hands shaking.
Silas was frozen with fear, while Brick clenched their fists hard and breathed heavily.
A stern voice came from the other side of the door. "This is the FBI. I have two men that went missing inside this house minutes ago..."
Missing? Brick’s thoughts raced with fear. Federal agents gone missing in their house. They were in deep shit.
"...and we have a team on the way to extract them. If you have any information about their disappearance, withholding it at this time will be considered obstruction of federal law enforcement."
"Maybe if we ask we can just leave? Go crash at Susan's or something," Silas wispered.
"No way, they're gonna detain us until the missing pigs are found. And I get a feeling that's not going to happen any time soon. Also, I bet Crazy Earl is still in the basement. If we do try and run we have to get her too." Brick wispered back, feeling increasingly trapped.
Sirens blared in the distance. Brick started to completely lose their cool and Silas felt a moment of bravery. "Let's go to the basement and look for Crazy Earl, if we're going to hide out that's the best place to be anyway."
"Bet." Brick replied. The two of them snuck into the basement while a dozen police cars raced through red lights and stop signs to converge on their location. The heavy metal door of the basement banged shut behind them as they descended into the basement.
John was having a nice time. Like a really nice time. The pale fog wisped about as he lay in the grass, little skippy bugs plucking around. What were those called? Grasshoppers? Grass hoppers? Ha! They hop in the grass. Astounding. John closed his eyes again and felt like he was sinking, sinking deep down, impossibly deep into the rustles of the grass. When he opened his eyes, he was in some kind of forest. He looked up, the fog was still there. The grass... the grass was way up there. Or it looked like grass. Grass the size of trees. Or trees that were grass? That's unusual. He looked around and saw beasts of all kinds, lumbering and skittering and wriggling. The deep loam of the forest mounded up around the leafy grassy tree giants, pushed loose by their fierce emergence from the ground as the beasts rummaged around the understoory.
Brick crept around the unfinished basement, careful not to knock over any of the fabric dividers that filled the place. They had gotten lost in here before and none of this was helping relieve their panic. Closed in spaces reminded them of a tomb. And not in a cool aesthetic way. Silas, meanwhile, moved around with ease, more comfortable in the dark than in the light.
Loud banging sounded overhead, followed by a loud crunch as the front door caved in. They needed to be quick. As bootsteps pounded from above them, Silas located Crazy Earl. She was sleeping, sleeping like a baby as their house was invaded. Did she really sleep through the whole raid?
"Earl, Crazy Earl, wake up, we're totally fucked!"
Crazy Earl lay still as death. Were they even breathing? Were they actually...
"Shit dude... dudette... dunk? Is dunk good or is that offensive as shit?"
"Who fucking cares the FBI and a truckload of cops are busting up our house! Help us hide or escape or something I'm just really scared." Brick was trying to keep to a whisper but their choked sobs made it difficult.
"Fuuuuuuck," she pondered, "maybe... ah no way. What if? No..."
Silas stared at them with rapt attention, gesturing for them to fucking get on with it.
"Yep alright that all adds up. The cops fell into fairyland. We should probably go in after them, or at least hide out there until this blows over.
Silas stared into the middle distance. Brick's fearful sobbing turned into wet rage.
"Blows over? Blows over??" Their scream whisper was getting to be more scream than whisper. "There's no fairyland, asshole. If you don't have any better ideas I'm just going to hide in the corner until someone comes in here and shoots me. Fuck." They stomped away, completely given up on stealth as the commotion upstairs grew louder.
"Suit yourself." Crazy Earl yawned, grabbed some mostly full bottles of water from the floor, and went to get a stepladder.
Silas remained frozen and Brick pounded their fist into the floor in the corner. Crazy Early serenely collected the stepladder and set it on painted lines on the floor. She stepped up and pulled open a previously hidden panel. A rope fell down; she climbed up, her feet fast around knots in the rope. Brick turned just in time to see her feet disappear through the ceiling.
Brick made their way over to Silas and shook them back to reality. "We gotta follow her. In spite of what I said, and fairies or not, I'd rather be playing grandmas-in-the-walls with her than down here like rats in a trap.
Silas took shallow panicked breaths as Brick squeezed their hand. Brick wrapped them in their arms and held on tight. Silas shook for a moment, took one deep and even inhale. "Let's go then, I don't have any better ideas."
The raid was going shit. Tobias watched the chaos as small town cops busted down walls and tore apart rooms. The sheriff oversaw the whole ordeal and gave orders, but he had no idea what he was doing. No one knew what they were doing but the stakes were to high to address that right now. Tobias didn't have any suggestions on how to improve the situation so he kept his mouth shut.
A pair of cops pried fruitlessly on the basement door. Most of this place was old plaster walls and cheap modern doors, but the basement door was an antique. A relic. Studded steel and multiple locks, it would have felt more at home in a bank than here in some stoner flop house. It was even surrounded with brick walls.
Another team started on the floor, bashing floorboards and shredding trusses with some kind of oversized jigsaw. The cops were certainly prepared for demolition, he had to give them that.
At this point, Tobias was certain one of three things had happened:
One, they fell through the floor into the basement and immediately lost radio contact due to some metal in the building or something.
Two, they went through this door. Tobias highly doubts this, they didn't even mention it during their sweep so it seems unlikely they'd go through it without mention.
Three, they had magically disappeared. Obviously ludicrous, but it started to seem more likely by the minute.
The young faced cop finished his sawing and rigged up a rope ladder to descend into the basement. Him and the two at the door huddled close for a moment and Tobias could have sworn he saw them drawing straws. The bravest (or unluckiest) of them went first and started his awkward descent down the ladder.
Light poured in from a hole on the other end of the basement. Brick and Silas scurried up the rope and pulled it up behind them. The sounds of chaos surrounded them, and they squeezed in tight between splintery strips of wood curled over with plaster. There was only one way to go, and Brick shimmied along with Silas close behind them. The walls shuddered and dust stirred as the house was demolished around them. Wide-eyed and silent they continued they voyage to who-the-fuck-knows.
They came to a hole in the wall. Brick shimmied quickly past to avoid being caught in its revealing glare, wishing and wanting that no one would continue battering this particular wall. Silas followed behind, ducking through the spot of light and wincing as another bang! rattled through the house. Up ahead the path grew darker before ending in a rough pile of clothes. Standing in the moldering fabrics, they could reach out to touch jackets and scarves and dresses on uneven racks.
Smash! Right in front of Silas, a sledgehammer crashed through the wall and sharp light poured into the cramped and doorless closet. Someone peered through, not noticing Brick and Silas as all three pairs of eyes were fixated on the scrawled writing on the opposite wall:
Walk on, walk in.
Think of somewhere nice.
But if your heart is crooked,
prepare to pay the price.
The sledgehammer rammed into the wall again, tearing a much large hole in the wall. Silas grabbed Brick by the hand and pulled them into the folds of the clothes hung up before them, crossing the path of the cop now peering into the closet.
"They're in here! Close in, now!" he shouted, vaulting through the hole and reaching to grab them. But he only groped at empty clothing and ended up bumping into a solid wall at the other end of the racks of clothes.