"You know Joe, there's something I've been wondering about for a while now." Peter Griffin asked. Tonight was one of many nights he and his friends Joe Swanson, Glenn Quagmire, Cleveland Brown, and for the first time in a while, Brian, the family dog.
"And what would that be, Peter?" Joe responded before taking another swig of his Pawtucket Patriot.
“I can’t remember the last time you told us anything about what it’s like on the job, y’know, being a cop.”
“There isn’t a whole lot to talk about, I mean, Quahog is a much more law-abiding city than you might think, it’s been a while since I saw any action.” He said.
"Oh come on! It can't be that boring! How about we break out the camera vests again so me and the boys can watch you on patrol!"
"That sounds kind of boring Peter, he just said almost nothing happens." Quagmire chimed in.
"I bet it will! That's the way luck works around here, nothing happens until we expect nothing to happen. Then it does!"
"You bet it will?" Cleveland said, raising an eyebrow.
"Peter, I don't think that's a good idea." Brian said in a dismissive tone.
"Shut up Brian!" Peter snapped back. "You're such a debby downer. Yeah, I bet something will happen while we're watching. Fifty dollars says yes. If you win, I pay each of you fifty dollars, if I win, each of you pays me fifty dollars, how's that?"
"Ah-" Brian started. If Peter lost, that would be two hundred dollars lost, but then he remembered that he had said 'each' of them, which meant that he was included. So instead of trying to convince Peter to stop, he just let him keep digging his own grave. Fifty dollars is fifty dollars.
The others' eyes lit up for a moment. "Ah, come on, Joe!" Quagmire exclaimed. "Fifty dollars! You can't turn that down!"
"Fine." Joe replied, readjusting his wheelchair. "I'll get the vests, go out on patrol tonight, and come home fifty dollars richer."
"All right!" Quagmire said. "You ready, Joe?"
"Yep." He said, readjusting his body cam.
"Are you ready Peter?" Cleveland asked looking over his shoulder. Peter was typing on a laptop and in a flash they were shown the feed from Joe's body cam.
"Ready to get fifty bucks richer?" Brian interjected.
"Oh, you just wait." Peter said, "Until I get two hundred dollars richer!"
"Alright, well, shift's about to start. See you guys around." Joe opened the door to the Griffin residence and left, the sound of his wheelchair rolling down the sidewalk lingering for a few moments after the door closed behind him.
"What's going on down there?" A voice called from the second floor. A few moments later, Lois revealed herself, coming down the stairs.
"Hey Mrs. Griffin!" Cleveland said. "Peter made a bet that's going to make us each fifty dollars richer!"
"No, no, Lois, these guys just made a bet that's going to make me two hundred dollars richer!" Peter shot back.
“They all just made a bet that Joes shift tonight would have some action in it. If there is, Peter wins, if there isn't, we win." Brian said, finishing what Cleveland and Peter were about to say. Lois walked down the stairs, probably to start dinner for the night, and didn't pay much attention to the group's latest shenanigans.
The group's eyes went back to the laptop screen where they saw Joe continue down the sidewalk before a police car pulled up beside him. One of Joe's colleagues, a newer officer named Stanton, stepped out from the other side to get Joe's wheelchair as he got in, before getting back in the driver's seat.
"Ready for tonight's shift?" they heard Stanton ask. He was a younger man, with a fairly standard build and auburn hair. He bore a slight resemblance to Patrick, Lois's older brother.
"If by that you mean riding around town for hours doing nothing, sure." Joe replied in a monotone voice.
"Yeah! Fifty dollars here I come!" Cleveland exclaimed.
"It's not over yet Cleveland." Peter replied.
"It is for Quagmire and Brian." He replied, motioning to Quagmire, who was sleeping on the far end of the couch, and Brian, who was sleeping on the floor in front of it.
"All right Stanton, let's go back," Joe said.
"Oh come on!" Peter cried in fear.
"Alright!" Cleveland said.
"Wha- who said alright?" Quagmire said, waking from his nap.
"Did we win?" Brian said, jumping back onto the couch.
"Yeah, we did!" Cleveland replied.
"Fine, let me get my wallet." Peter said before reluctantly starting to get up from the couch. Just before he did, however, something happened.
"Officer Swanson, Officer Stanton, we've got a possible Code five-hundred taking place about five blocks from your location-"
"Alright!" Peter yelled.
"No, no, not alright!" Quagmire said.
"What's a Code five-hundred?" Brian asked.
"I think it's a code for a break-in." Cleveland replied.
"What do you say, Officer Swanson, you want to take this one?"
"Are you kidding me, let's ROCK!"
The camera shook a bit as the police car made a hard U-turn to head to the address they had been given while the guys were either hating life or rubbing each other's noses in it.
Peter ran to the bottom of the stairs. "Hey Lois, guess what! I just made two hundred dollars!"
"That's great Peter." She called back in a unimpressed voice.
"No it isn't!" Quagmire yelled from the couch. "It could still be a dud!"
"Yeah, this isn't over yet Peter!" Cleveland said.
Officers Stanton and Swanson drove up to the address, a fairly modest cyan home with a second floor and a separate garage a few feet from the main house.
"Control code ten ninety-seven, we are on scene." Joe said into his radio, rolling his wheelchair down the long sidewalk that led to the front door. "Police! Anyone there?"
They waited, nothing.
"Stanton, go around the house and look for any signs of foul play." Stanton did as he was told, leaving Joe to try the door again.
"Nope, nothing, no broken windows, all doors are locked, house seems secure." Stanton said as he came around a corner.
"Then what the hell was the call about?" Joe asked impatiently.
"Apparently a neighbor called, said they heard some noises and then what sounded like screaming and a struggle." Stanton said.
"Well, if there are no signs of forced entry, how the hell is that possible?"
"Medical event?"
"Maybe, radio for EMS." Joe replied, putting a hand to his chin.
"Dispatch, we need EMS for a possible code thirty-five hundred."
"You want to do a forced entry?" Joe asked.
"Yeah, go ahead." Joe moved his wheelchair a few feet to the left, giving Stanton room as he kicked in the door.
"Police! Anybody in there?" Joe yelled again. "All right, you go up and check, I'll stay down here."
The eyes of Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland, and Brian remained glued to the screen as Joe's camera reflected his current activity of searching downstairs. It was quiet, the only sound being Joe's wheelchair changing pitch as it moved from the living room carpet to the kitchen tile. Just then, a loud scream came from upstairs, followed by a loud roar and deafening static before ending with a single gunshot.
"Officer Stanton!" Joe called. "Are you okay?" Silence, except for a low, rumbling static coming from upstairs. Joe rolled over to the stairs, only to mutter, "Shit," after realizing there was no way he could get up there.
"Control, this is Officer Swanson, I need immediate backup, something happened to Officer Stanton upstairs in the residence and I can't reach him," Joe said into his radio.
"Officer Stanton! Are you..." Joe started, only to gasp and jump back as something was thrown down the stairs. He quickly realized it was Stanton, disfigured, obviously dead, and with a strange glitch-like substance covering his body.
"Oh my God!" Joe cried. "Stanton?"
A low, distorted growl came from Stanton's body before something happened to him. His eyes shot open, wide and pupil-less. His body began to lift off the ground, making the sickening sound of bones cracking and flesh stretching beyond what it was ever meant to do.
"Stay back!" Joe yelled, drawing his gun. Now he began to notice more of the strange substance, which seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. One puddle in particular stood out, expanding before more began to emerge from it, slowly building itself into a person like Play-Doh. It turned out to be the homeowner when it was finished manifesting from the ground, a young woman who looked to be in her twenties, a brunette with dark black hair, wearing a bright white t-shirt and blue jeans with holes in them. The darkness stood out against the plain white shirt, endlessly flickering and seemingly in motion along it. Another figure quickly followed, a man of about the same age wearing a gray shirt and shorts. There was a very obvious bullet hole somewhere along his jaw, the pieces of shattered bone hanging low from his face, held to his body only by the darkness.
"I said stay back!" Joe yelled at his three opponents before firing a shot at each of them. His standard nine-millimeter seemed to do little to no damage, simply putting holes in each of them before ceasing to exist. Joe quickly drew his baton, just in time for the woman to lunge at him. She hit the camera, its feed fading to static.
"Oh my God!" Quagmire cried.
"Joe!" Peter yelled before jumping off the couch and running upstairs.
Peter ran back downstairs, a gun now in his right hand. Lois quickly followed in a panic.
"Peter! What's going on?" She asked frantically.
"Joe's in trouble! Come on, guys, we have to save him!"
Joe managed to catch the blow of the woman who had lunged at him just in time with his police baton, knocking her back to the ground in front of him. Next came the man, and Joe put two more bullets in each of his eyes. He began to fall backwards, finished with an uppercut from the baton. He fell to the ground, lifeless, but only for a moment. Within seconds of hitting the ground, he began to stir in much the same way that Stanton had come back to life. He slowly stood up, his face almost completely obscured by the darkness to hide the bullet holes. An exclamation mark hovered over everything, and even though he was blind now, he still seemed to know exactly where Joe was, slowly but surely making his way back to him.
"Shit, does anyone remember the address Joe's dispatch gave him?" Peter asked frantically. They were strapped in and ready to go, Peter and Cleveland both with handguns, and Quagmire with his father's shotgun from his military days. They had everything they needed.
Except the address.
"I remember it!" Brian yelled from the back seat. Peter quickly handed his phone to Brian, who punched the address into maps and handed it back to Peter. Peter glanced at the phone before placing it on the dashboard. "Let's go." he muttered to himself before he pulled out of the driveway and put the pedal to the metal.
Joe began firing again at the two oncoming Corrupted, this time aiming for areas he knew would slow them down, realizing that killing them was not an option. He aimed for joints, tendons, and major bones in their legs, eventually reducing them to piles of flesh and corruption, using only their arms to keep moving.
According to their map application, the time it should have taken them to reach Joe was eight minutes. At the rate Peter was going, they'd make it in four, maybe three.
"Uh-oh, Peter, look!" Cleveland called from behind. Peter looked in the rearview mirror, only to be greeted by flashing red and blue lights-
Cops.
"Peter, what do we do?" Quagmire asked from the passenger seat.
"Let them follow us, we're going to need all the help we can get." He replied bluntly. As if to emphasize his point, he quickly shifted gears before doing a hard drift into the next right they were supposed to take, a scene straight out of the Fast and Furious movies, nearly flipping the car in the process, and considering none of them were wearing seatbelts, it was a miracle they survived.
It had taken almost all of Joe's ammunition, but he had finally defeated his two opponents and watched with sweat pouring down his face as the two homeowners seemed to melt into the corruption-covered ground, never to be seen again.
He quickly looked around, but because of his wheelchair, he couldn't see behind him without moving it, so he couldn't see his corrupted colleague rising from the floor in that exact position.
Joe was about to move his wheelchair to look behind him when it was pulled out from under him. He hit the ground hard and turned around to see Stanton in a similar state to the two homeowners. With only one bullet, his baton, and his taser left, he desperately looked around for anything that could help him.
His saving grace came in the form of a kitchen sink, located in the kitchen a few feet from his current position in the living room. He used his last bullet to shoot the faucet clean off, water gushing from the broken pipe. He fought Stanton off with his baton for a few seconds before using it to push him toward the sink. Finally, he pulled out his stun gun and hit him right in the chest. The plan worked perfectly, the combination of water and electricity causing a cascading effect that made Stanton's corrupted form flail around on the floor for a few seconds before collapsing, lifeless.
Joe breathed a sigh of relief and allowed his upper half to fall to the ground. His bulletproof vest had saved him from any major injuries, but his legs, arms, and face were still covered in small cuts and bruises from clawed hands during the struggle.
"Indistinguishable"
Joe shot up at the sound of stirring again in the kitchen. With considerable effort, Stanton regained consciousness, more of the darkness moving to cover and take over the function of body parts too damaged to do anything.
"Oh, come on!" Joe yelled. His taser and gun out of ammo, the only thing he had to protect himself now was his baton as his former colleague attacked again, this time to finish the job.
Just then, the door burst open, revealing the shapes of Peter, Quagmire and Cleveland.
"Hey you!" Peter shouted, Stanton's head making a disgusting crack sound as his gaze shot towards Peter.
"Say cheese." He finished. Quagmire emerged from behind him, quicking aiming and firing his shotgun. The final corrupted finally fell to the ground, its head having been obliterated by the cluster of buckshot, leaving the guys to do nothing but stare as it sank into the ground in a puddle of corruption like the other two.
"Say cheese, Peter?" Joe asked with a neutral expression, unimpressed.
"It sounded better in my head." Peter replied in a similar tone. "H-hang on, I can do better." He said, putting a hand to his chin, forgetting about the darkness that still lingered over the various surfaces of the room. "Say hello to my little friend? No, Quagmire was the one who killed him..."
"Uh, Peter?" Cleveland asked.
"No, no, hang on for a second, Cleveland. I got it! T-"
Before Peter could finish, two more cops burst through the door, both going for Peter.
"You're under arrest!" One of them yelled.
"Wait, wait!" Joe called. "This is all a big misunderstanding. So let's all just calm down-"
Before Joe could finish, the house shook violently before a tidal wave of darkness exploded from the top of the stairs.
"What the hell?!" Quagmire shouted.
"Come on Joe, we gotta go!" Peter yelled. He threw the two stunned cops off him before quickly helping Joe back into his wheelchair and running with him back to the car with the rest of the guys.
"Peter! What happened--" Brian started when they got into the car, only to be cut off as the roof of the house was blown off by the tidal wave of corruption.
"Oh my God!" Brian said at the unfolding scene.
"Floor it Peter!" Cleveland yelled.