The hands on the clock face crawled by minute by minute, yet looking outside, time seemed to have frozen over the land. A dense, impenetrable blackness covered everything; even the headlights seemed unable to cut through it.
"Damn it, it's half past one." Jay rubbed his face. "How long did I sleep?"
"One hour, Captain."
"Your turn, Otis. Both of you get some rest. Maybe soon we'll be… huh?"
He looked out the side window. A few points of light appeared on the road leading to Arkham.
"Wake up, we have company." He grabbed the walkie-talkie. "All units, attention. Vehicles approaching Arkham, two of them."
He glanced inside. All the police cars were dark and silent, hidden behind the perimeter wall. He grabbed his AR-15, quietly slipped out of the driver's side, and set up the rifle over the hood, observing stealthily.
The approaching cars suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and shut off their engines about a hundred meters from the gate. Silhouettes seemed to move inside, but they immediately slipped into the nearby woods.
"The hell? What are they playing at!"
Jay waited a moment, but the figures didn't re-emerge. He glanced back at the pitch-black area behind him. He quickly lowered his rifle, crouched low, and prepared to creep forward for a closer look.
The moment he lowered his head, a soft poof sounded, and something whizzed past the scalp at the back of his head.
"Shit! Damn it! Fuck!"
He rolled behind the assault vehicle, shielding himself with the tires.
His forehead and back were drenched in cold sweat. His heart hammered like a rapper on a drum kit, golden stars spun before his eyes, and his limbs twitched uncontrollably.
This was the closest he had ever come to death. If he hadn't happened to lower his head to move, a split second later, that bullet would have gone clean through his skull.
"Damn it! Damn it!"
He couldn't hear anything for a moment. After thirty seconds, he calmed down and shouted into the walkie-talkie: "Keep your heads down! They have night vision!"
"Shit, Gordon, do we have any of that gear?"
"No," Gordon's voice, slightly agitated, came through the radio. "Only SWAT has those. I'm coming to support you."
"Don't!" Jay quickly poked his head out. Outside was still pitch black; he couldn't see anything. He patted his body. His tactical vest was loaded with useful items, but he'd need to call Superman to throw anything over a hundred meters.
"I really hate this stuff." He pulled out a mask and put it on, reaching for his waist. Suddenly, footsteps sounded behind him; Gordon was decisively moving up.
He glanced at the object in Jay's hand, illuminated by a police flashlight, and his eyes widened immediately.
"You guys get issued thermal smoke grenades?"
"What's strange about that? You can buy them if you pay for them."
That obvious answer slightly broke Gordon's composure, but Jay waved him off, climbing up to peek outside. "Don't worry about the details. I'll see if I can get closer."
The wind wasn't strong. He stepped back two paces and hurled the thermal smoke grenade with all his might over the assault vehicle.
The cylinder hit the ground with a dull thud, followed by a continuous hissing sound. A bright white flame suddenly ignited in the darkness but was quickly swallowed by a wall of billowing gray smoke.
"Get ready!"
Jay looked back to signal Gordon, then started running, bent low. He'd barely gone a few steps when the gunfire opposite them erupted like firecrackers, bullets hammering against the assault vehicle's steel plating like a sprinkler.
"Holy shit!"
Jay twisted around and ran back. This round of shooting wasn't accurate; it seemed to be suppressing fire, but stray bullets could still kill.
Just as he reached the car and prepared to slide beneath it, his side felt as if it had been struck violently by a baseball bat. He stumbled and crumpled to the ground.
"Ugh!"
He grunted, falling backward. His throat and chest felt blocked, making it impossible to breathe.
Then his collar tightened, and the sky above him began to move. Someone was yanking him by his body armor, dragging him behind the vehicle, and then a strong beam of light shone down.
"Hiss… Hah… Don't shine that in my face! Are you trying to blind me! It's on my stomach! Hiss, hiss!"
Air flooded his lungs and windpipe. The suffocating feeling vanished, and pain began to spread, making him gasp uncontrollably.
"Stop yelling! I know you're not dead with that robust voice!" Gordon ripped open the straps of his body armor and peered beneath, then shouted angrily, "You actually have ceramic plates in your vest?!"
"Nine ninety-nine on Temu, free shipping!"
"What the hell are you babbling about!" Despite his anger, Gordon shone the light on the cracks in the ceramic plate. "Lucky. A 7.62 round, but you should be okay. Without this plate, you'd be dead."
"Cap… Captain!"
Hearing the commotion, Otis and Albert scrambled out of the car. Seeing Jay lying on the ground, breathing raggedly, the expression on Otis's face gradually turned fierce. He quietly slipped away from the group and disappeared behind the vehicle.
"Gordon, something's not right… Ugh, hiss, hah!" Jay groaned. "They're not pushing the attack; they're stalling us. They must have another objective… You need to check… with Cobblepot's people…"
"Maybe," Gordon nodded. "Arkham is hard to assault, but we can't easily leave either… Huh? What's that sound?"
A sudden, rustling tide of sound arose from the darkness.
At first, it sounded like handfuls of sand scattering on the ground, but it gradually intensified into the sound of thousands of sheets of sandpaper grinding the dirt, interspersed with the snapping of dry branches and short, high-pitched squeaks.
Finally, it coalesced into a dense, suffocating roar, like massive pythons slithering over rocks, rushing toward the woods opposite from all directions.
Gordon saw nothing, yet for some unknown reason, his stomach involuntarily tightened with a primordial instinct of revulsion, and goosebumps rose all over his body.
He tightened his grip on his shotgun, but through the heavy smoke wall obscuring the sky, all he could see were muzzle flashes suddenly flickering constantly in the woods, mixed with continuous cries of alarm.
"Something's biting me!"
"Get off! Get off!"
"Get them away!"
Automatic rifles and submachine guns flashed wildly in the smoke, hysterically spraying unseen enemies. Bullets screamed, tearing through the air, hitting the sky, slamming into the dirt, and a few ricochets pinged loudly off the police car armor.
"Agh! Ah~ They're crawling under my… Agh!"
"Fire! Fire!… Don't throw the grenade! You idiot!"
——————
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