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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/spnsuperfan1 on 2024-11-07 06:00:51+00:00.

Well, Halloween sucked. So much so, that it’s taken me a couple days to physically recover, but more on that later.

If you’re confused, you can read my first case here.

I gotta be frank with ya, it felt like I was a chicken running around with its head cut off for most of the day. Being a rookie and working the busiest day of the year was not a fun experience.

And it definitely didn’t help that my Halloween started out on a pretty rough note. My barista asked me out on a date.

Yes, that’s a bad thing. I don’t date. Not since…

There’s this little coffee place by work that I liked to stop at before my shift- Conner’s Cafe. It’s quaint, cozy too, with a good rustic vibe going on and dim lighting. For some reason, it also reminded me of home. Chicago. Probably why I frequented there so much. That, and they gave me a good discount when I wore my blues.

The staff were all genuinely friendly and welcoming to me too. The coffee itself didn’t taste half bad either, so I quickly became a regular. Maybe a little too regular given the events that were about to occur.

The bell chimed above the door as I entered the shop. It was pretty empty in there. Gauging by the state the dining room was in, the morning rush had just cleared out, granting the employee’s a bit of respite before the inevitable lunch rush.

“He did it!” The barista manning the counter shouted at me with wide eyes, pointing to his co-worker behind him. I’d come in wearing my uniform.

The accused looked at me like a deer caught in headlights before dropping the stack of cups he’d been holding in his hands and booking it to the back.

A smile spread on my lips as a soft chortle escaped me. My cheeks pinked up immediately and I covered my mouth in embarrassment, giggling something fierce. The barista joined in with a hearty laugh as he bent down behind the counter and picked up the discarded cups.

The rabbit, his name is José. Don’t worry, he didn’t have any active warrants out for his arrest or anything, he just went out back to take his smoke break. Albeit in a very dramatic way.

The kid behind the counter was Noah. He was young, in his early twenties. He looked like an E-boy with his singular earring and that mop of curly brown hair atop his head, which usually covered up his brown eyes. In addition to his uniform green apron, Noah wore a headband with fuzzy wolf ears on them accompanied by a pair of fingerless gloves with paw pads drawn on the palms. Draped around his shoulders was a fake sheep’s pelt. He’d dressed up as a wolf in sheep’s clothing for his Halloween costume. Clever.

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for wasting all those cups?” I asked, stepping up to the counter to order.

“Nah, it’s fine,” he answered, chucking them in the trash bin, wiping imaginary dust off his hands. “Our seasonal cups are about to come in anyway, so these ones won’t be missed. What can I get for ya, miss? The usual?”

“Yeah, but could you add two shots of espresso please? I’m going to need it.”

“Ooh four shots of expresso, huh, what’s the occasion?”

I covered my mouth, yawning. “I’m working a twelve hour shift today. Twelve to twelve.”

Noah pressed his lips into a thin line, sympathizing with me. “Oof, yikes. I’ll get that coffee right out for you then. Wouldn’t want you to be off your game today, officer.”

“Thanks Noah,” I called out to him as he walked over to the espresso machine, “‘preciate it!”

A second later, he came back, placing my large cup of steaming hot supercharged coffee on the counter. I went to pull out my wallet to pay, but Noah waved me off. “It’s on the house,” he said with a glimmer in his eye and a dopey grin.

I smiled back, shrugging my shoulders and picking up my drink, not saying no to a free coffee. That’s when I noticed something written in sharpie just above the paper sleeve. The note read: Will you go out on a date with me?

My gaze flashed from the cup, to Noah, then back to the cup again. He stood there patiently, smiling like a puppy, eagerly awaiting my response.

“Oh, uh,” I let out a nervous laugh, gripping the straps of my purse for dear life, “no.”

The smile fell off of Noah’s face as he looked down at me, heartbroken. I didn’t want to kick the puppy, but I had to.

“I-it’s not you,” I blurted out, awkwardly waving my hands at him. “You’re great, really. A little young, but great! What are you, like twenty, twenty-one? You’re like five years younger than me!” I sucked a gasping breath for air. “It me, that’s the problem. You don’t want to date me. All I do is hurt the people that get close to me. I don’t mean for it to happen, it just does. But, yeah Noah, you’re great. Awesome, even! Best barista I’ve ever had, truly.”

As you can see, I like to word vomit when I’m uncomfortable.

Not giving him any time to rebuttal, I whipped my wallet out of my purse and haphazardly threw a five dollar bill across the counter, then ran out the door- all while abandoning my coffee in the process.

Great. Now I can never go back and show my face there again. That’s what I get for getting too comfortable. Should’ve known my safe place wouldn’t stay safe for long, stupid.

Guess I’ll just have to suck it up and stick to a certain chain coffee shop with a mer-person on the logo.

Now that I’m thinking about it, is their mascot a mermaid or a siren?

Ugh. The thought of sirens sent a shiver down my spine.

My throat is feeling a lot better, by the way. It’s still stiff and is a little bruised, but at least I can fully turn my neck again. Being able to keep my head on a swivel is pretty vital for the job after all. Never know when something might jump out at ya.

When I got to the precinct, everyone on our side was bouncing off the walls it was so hectic. Officers were bringing people in left and right. Our holding cells were packed full, the intake line stretching across half the precinct. Every time someone answered the phone, dispatch had a new incident for them to respond to. And as soon as the phone hit the receiver it would just ring again.

I set my things down on my desk, eyeing the coffee machine like a hawk. If I were going to survive this shift, caffeine needed to be flowing through my veins. Since it was Halloween, we had no clue which calls actually pertained to the supernatural and which ones were just humans being human. So that meant we just had to respond to all of them.

As soon as I stepped towards the kitchen, Dustin appeared out from nowhere and dashed all my hopes of acquiring a pick me up. “Rookie!” He called, slipping an arm through his black police jacket. The other followed and he adjusted the fabric so it rested comfortably on his broad shoulders.“No time for dilly-dallying, get in the car. We got ghouls to catch!”

A hefty groan left my mouth. I shuffled my feet forward a couple inches, my hand outstretched towards my lord and savior: coffee. Dustin called out to me again, causing me to flinch. With another huff and groan, I turned away from the source of my vitality and followed Detective Davidson out to his vehicle. I knew then that it was going to be one of those days.

Dustin wasn’t lying by the way. We’d been called out to a report of someone at the graveyard disturbing the graves. The groundskeeper caught the perp as he was sucking the intestines out of an old woman who was about to be lowered into the ground. After hearing that, it wasn’t hard to figure out we were dealing with a ghoul.

We classify ghouls as a type of vampire since they feast on flesh and blood, but mostly of the dead variety. You can think of ‘em as vampiric zombies. The classification is mainly because ghouls die just the same as regular vampires. Decapitation works best in most cases, but a wooden stake to the heart could do the trick too.

Here at WPD the last thing we want to do is end the life of a supernatural individual. Just like for us humans, supernaturals have the right to go to trial and let The Court decide their fate. Though, we are extensively trained to neutralize any threat if absolutely necessary, especially if that threat poses immediate danger to a human life.

Unfortunately, it was looking like that would be the case for this ghoul.

The groundskeeper had managed to detain him, but not unscathed, sustaining a gnarly bite wound on his hand. That’s when he called Winchester 911 and asked for an officer out to help him.

Getting that taste of fresh blood was like a shot of adrenaline for the ghoul. If he got loose, there was a very real possibility he’d kill the groundskeeper and eat until there was nothing left. Once a ghoul eats a live victim, the dead just don’t taste as good to them anymore.

We got to the graveyard just in time. As Dustin and I left his car, weapons drawn, the ghoul escaped from the groundskeeper’s binds and was trying to strangle him to death. The ghoul was an older, redneck looking man. His skin was pale and caked in dirt, human tissues, and viscera. The smell of death radiated off him.

“Help me!” The groundskeeper called out to us in a choked gasp.

Not wasting any time, Dustin drew his crossbow and aimed a wooden stake at the ghouls heart. I tensed, the groundskeeper was keeping him from a clear shot. The stake whistled as it soared through the air. My eyes clenched shut.

They opened again when the ghoul let out a ghastly cackle. Dustin had mis…

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