THE WAY IT WENT DOWN: THE WEIGHT OF THE WATER

The attacks began on 4/22/16 at Prince and Greene St at 10:45 PM. The first victim was a teenager, Javier M. Calhoun m. 13 YOA. The boy was walking back from Genovese drugstore and "something fell on him" from an overhang. Witnesses saw the boy run into traffic with something dark on his back. He was struck by an Uber vehicle, taken to Mt. Sinai via ambulance, where he briefly regained consciousness. He claimed to have been attacked by an animal approximately the size of a raccoon, with "human teeth".

Bite marks on Calhoun's neck match this assertion.

Calhoun died later that night from internal injuries. Oddities. Calhoun was missing his right eye, even though he was not struck by the vehicle in that location. Claw marks indicate something pulled the eye out of his head. Testimony was poorly recorded on cellphone and was nearly incoherent. Calhoun claimed the animal was saying something to him.

6/12/16, 8:22 PM two blocks away at W. Broadway. Next victim, Aaron S. Webster, an infant, 4 MOA. Mother was in the living room of a two bedroom apartment folding laundry within fifteen feet of the child. Warm night. Windows were open. Boy was asleep in a child carrier on bed. Suddenly the door to the bedroom slammed. "But there was no one there," witness claims. A moment later, as the mother rushed to the door, the door was locked from the inside. By the time the mother smashed the door down, the baby was gone. Left behind on the bed were three split human finger bones, the marrow scraped out. The mother was sedated and has been committed to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center (voluntarily). 

Child was never found. Scraps resembling child's clothing recovered near a water outlet pipe at Franklin Street Station (fluid typing was a match).

9/10/16, 9:05 PM, W. Broadway and White St. 5th Precinct Officer Patsy Sherburne responds to a call for assistance at the corner. There, 1st Precinct Officer Dwight Marcovich is attempting to remove Evan S. Burke 66 YOA—a known indigent—from a sewer opening. The man is caught, legs in, in a sewer hole. He is screaming. Much of this is captured on video.

When the officers pull him clear, most of his lower legs are gone. He bleeds out before the first ambulance arrives. Marcovich fires several shots into the open manhole. Sherburne reports "dozens of human eyes looking back" at her from the dark.

We respond.

10/02/16, 6:54 AM. It is reported as a water main burst, and technically, it is. We just never mention we're the ones who caused it. Four train stations are shut down, and because we hold off the repair crews (calling in a few favors) the water rises as high as your ankles, covering six blocks for ten hours. It was Abby's idea. "Let's see if they can swim..." she said. We already knew they only went out at night.  

Two days later the first specimen comes in. Recovered by Animal Control and Welfare, the drowned corpse is three feet long, twenty-two pounds, and has many external features similar to a large rat. But its face is a distended and warped human face. Its teeth have mercury gold amalgam fillings popular from the later 19th century (replaced in the last thirty years by composites).

The cover up is easy enough. Pensions are dangled. The cops and animal control guys just shrug and walk away. It's New York, after all. Not their problem.

"You think we got them all?"

We'll see. Now, the team gone home, I sit in the hotel watching Home Hunters and wait for the call eating take out. Every once and awhile I look at the phone and think "how many of those things would it take to move a fourteen pound baby?" I think "could it speak?" I think "what was its name?"

How did it become this...thing?

"Dozens of human eyes looking back."

I try not to think.