His captor rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Gonna be nuked, huh? I'm 
sent out here just to end some desert rat who's gonna just get nuked 
anyway? That's good. | should be honored." His grin fell off instantly 
as he pointed his pistol at Rashaun's head. "I ain't no fool, and you 
ain't no fed. Now, tell me what's going on before | gotta kill you." 


Agent Washington looked past the gun in his face to his belongings. 
The seal on the case remained intact. Good. Amnestics still 
available. “Okay, yes, I'm with a group called the SCP Foundation. 
Friend. Not here for the law or the drugs. Take what you want, but 
we need to get out of here now.” Urgent. 


No way was this guy going to steer the situation. He grabbed Agent 
Washington by the shirt. “I ain’t never heard of the SCP Foundation. 


Why are you here?” 


“| was here to evacuate the people using this shack. This is a Class 
4 containment zone, and we need everyone out for their safety 
before nightfall. What time is it?” 


El Conserje squinted, looking first at this strange “agent,” then at the 
twisted body pile. Suddenly, he recognized that if this guy before 
him hadn't killed them... “Madre de Dios...” He twisted Agent 
Washington around and undid his cuffs. 


In turn, Rashaun jumped forward and grabbed the radio and 
switched it on. “Control, this is Mr. President. Mr. President calling 
in.” 


The radio emitted a static burst and a woman spoke. “Prez, where 
have you been? You missed the check in window. Status?” 


“Alive, with one other. Requesting evac.” 


“Negative, Prez. We’d get to you after sunset. Hold position and 
come back in the morning. Do not drive out. | repeat, do not drive 
out. Stay away from any vehicle or road.” 


“Acknowledged. Staying put.” 


“...Stay safe. 973 only manifests on the road. Y-You should be fine.” 
The radio went silent. 


Rashaun's companion watched the exchange in confusion. “What's 
973?” 


The agent swallowed and gestured towards the festering heap. "The 
thing that did that." 


"| know that, but what did that?" 


Rashaun sighed. "There's a legend of a crooked cop that lives out 
here. Died forty-plus years ago. Full of hatred. And during the night, 
he patrols this section of highway, just waiting for someone to 
speed, drive drunk, something. Waiting for someone to screw up. 
Then, he comes out of nowhere, chases them down, and," he points 


towards the former occupants, "does that." 


The hitman grimaced. "A ghost? A ghost did all that? | ain't never 
heard of a ghost that violent. That's, like, pure hate. | mean, I've 
killed plenty. I've seen the sick shit the lords will do to make sure no 
one fucks with them. But this? That's so... useless." 


"Yeah." 


The hitman extended his hand. "Hector. Hector Ochoa. Let's get 
through the night." 


The sun had set, and darkness fell rapidly. The sky was clear, and 
the full moon lit the landscape across the dust and rocks to the 
horizon. All still, punctuated occasionally by a coyote's howl. In the 
clarity of the dark, a pair of headlights appeared on the distant road. 
Hector tapped Rashaun's shoulder and pointed it out. The agent 
looked out at the vehicle and reached for his radio. 


"Control, this is Mr. President. | see a car on the highway. Reporting 
possible civilian breach." 


"Negative, Prez. No civilians have attempted to access the 
containment area tonight." 


"Vehicle is approaching our location. Has an evac been sent?" 


"Uh... Negative, all our cars are accounted for. Aren't you a >static< 
ways from the road, though?" 


"Affirmative. Hard to tell how far away the car is, but it's heading in 
this direction." 


"Oh god... Prez, that's none of us. >static< Probable >static< cover. 
Repeat, you have to >static< RUN FUCKER" 


Rashaun dropped the radio and stared at it as he tried to get his 
breathing under control. It kept broadcasting, as a man's voice, 
cocky and cracking, cut through heavy static to say, again and 
again, RUN FUCKER. 


Hector pointed urgently at the dropped radio. "That's the ghost?" His 


face hardened as Rashaun nodded. The hitman swallowed a prayer 
and replied, "Listen, | knew going into this that it was designed as a 
death sentence for me. First, | was going to get all shot up by some 
meth heads just walking to this lousy shack. Then, you tell me this 
whole place is gonna get nuked. That was good. | coulda taken 
being nuked. But now, the only reason I'm still alive is because we're 
being hunted by a dead crooked cop who got to my target first? No. 
That makes no sense. Not gonna happen." 


The agent stooped to pick the radio back up. "A lot of things don't 
make sense. My whole job is all about things that don't make 
sense." He looked out at the approaching car. Still over a mile away, 
its lights flashed red and blue across the desert plain as it veered off 
the road and started across the flat, rocky terrain. 


The radio crackled, "DON'T THINK | DON'T SEE YOU." 


Hector grabbed Rashaun by the collar. "What are you doing? We 
gotta do something. You say you know this guy? How we supposed 
to fight a ghost?" 


Agent Washington seemed to withdraw into himself. "There are few 
accounts of someone surviving an encounter with SCP-973. 973 
keeps to the road and punishes all offenses found by the target." 


"Keeps to the road, my ass! That fucker's coming right here!" 
Pointing to the bodies, he added, "He was here yesterday!" 


"We should be safe as long as we don't break any laws..." Rashaun 
wasn't sure he was convincing himself. 


Hector snorted as the cop car approached. "Don't break any fucking 
laws? You might be some fucking angel, Mr. President, but | kill 
people for a living. | ain't licensed for this gun. /'m an illegal. I'ma 
fucking walking crime who's about to have a meter of broken glass 
shoved up his ass. No." 


Rashaun snapped out of his adrenaline-addled reverie. "| gotta get 
you out of here. Quick, in the car." 


Hector rushed into following him out of the shack, arguing, "But you 


said speeding won't help!" 


Sirens pierced the air as the aged police car sped the last distance 
towards the two men. Rashaun pulled out his key fob, and watched 
confusedly as it slipped from his grasp and flew forward while he 
suddenly sprawled out on the dirt, Hector tackling him. A second 
later, the police car, swerved slightly to ram the other car at full 
speed. The night exploded with the sounds of crunching metal and 
shattering glass. The rental rolled and bounced with the energy from 
the now stopped and only partly dented police car. 


The radio crackled, "YOU WON'T BE NEEDING THAT WHERE 
YOU'RE GOING, BOY." 


The pair scrambled up from their place in the dirt while the white 
late-70s Ford Mustang's door opened. A sleek black boot trod firmly 
on the ground. A tall figure stood up. His outfit was khaki, blending 
slightly with the landscape. He adjusted his belt and stretched out a 
crick in his neck. A faint red light appeared to glow behind his 
Aviators. He pulled a baton from his belt as he swaggered forward. 
His mouth, topped with a handlebar mustache, curled up in a sneer 
to reveal pitch blackness within. 


The radio reported, "NOW, ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS THE 
EASY WAY, OR THE HARD WAY?" 


"The hard way, pinche poll!" 


Two shots struck the cop. One in the shoulder, one in the jaw. 
Hector squatted tensely, coiled like a spring, a smoking pistol in 
each hand. A step past him, Rashaun turned slightly, one eye on the 
door to the shack, one on his erstwhile partner. 


The cop did not so much flinch as flicker. Like a flame's twist, like a 
line of static on a frame of film, his wounds glowed red and adjusted 
out of focus, two spots of patchy uncertainty on his otherwise crisp, 
diabolic countenance. He grinned broadly and continued his 
approach, baton slowly twirling in his hand. 


Rashaun grabbed Hector by the shoulder and pulled him back into 
the shack. He upended a table and barricaded the door. "What do 


you think you're doing?" he chided. "It's a Class 3 apparitional entity! 
Its physicality only shows minor degradation to integrity from attack!" 


Hector stared lost at the agent. "It what?" 

"It - It's a ghost. You can't shoot a ghost." 

"| kinda just did." 

"Yeah, but it didn't slow it down or anything." 
"| did something. What about you?" 


The shack rang out like a bell, as the corrugated metal wall dented 
inward. The blows struck again and again, until the tip of the baton, 
looking raw and fraying bits of red glow, poked through a hole where 
the wall buckled. 


The radio crackled, "YOU SHOULD'VE RUN, FUCKER." 
Hector squeaked, "What? How? This guy don't give up!" 


Rashaun replied, panic and the autopilot of urgency encroaching on 
his voice, "Initial containment attempt resulted in the death of nine 
personnel but determined that the SCP was not invulnerable and 
could be damaged. Night ended in successful dissipation of entity 
with a nine day lag time between apparitions. Entity preferably 
attacked personnel with a criminal record... especially those with 
violent felonies and moving violations..." 


Hector pulled up a pair of closed paint buckets from under the 
bodies. "So if you're the goody two-shoes you act like, it's only after 
me, got it. Serves me right. | Know, you try to do the right thing, but 
time comes, you gotta break the rules to follow them, and bam, they 
got you." 


The wall groaned and shrieked as SCP-973 slowly tore it away. His 
hands grasped and bent the sheet metal like stiff cardboard. 


Rashaun looked at Hector's activities. "What's this?" 


"Maybe we can't shoot him, so how about we blow him up?" 


".,.Maybe we can." Rashaun looked around the debris and bodies, 
moved some plywood boards and found a gas generator. He 
checked the fuel gauge, and hauled it up by the buckets. "This has 
got to be the worst meth lab ever. An accident waiting to happen. My 
chem teacher would have my hide if | tried anything like this." 


"| need a wick or a fuse or something, something to get the fire out 
fast," Hector commented. He winced, made the sign of the cross, 
and reached for what he needed, pulled deep into one of the 
corpses. A long cotton towel was extracted, slick and sticky with 
putrefying body fat. Stuffing one end of it into the generator's gas 
tank, he stuck the other end in one of the buckets and Rashaun 
revved the engine to start burning. 


The shack's wall gave way and SCP-973 stepped through the 
breach. The generator sputtered and smoked and rumbled. The two 
men picked up a large piece of plywood and bull rushed the cop, 
barreling him over as they scrambled back out past him. The 
apparition punched through a section of the plywood and grasped 
Hector's ankle as he passed. The hitman cried out as he kicked 
against the vice grip, pulling his body free not so much through his 
own strength but as his foot slid out of a section of a layer of his 
skin, suddenly burnt and decaying from the policeman's touch. 
Rashaun hefted his partner's weight on his shoulder as Hector 
hobbled as fast as he could from the shack. 


Not waiting for safety, Hector fired at the bucket through the hole in 
the wall. SCP-973 stood to stare at the two men as the bucket 
punctured, its contents splattered, the towel caught fire, and the 
entire shack, coated in unvented grime, exploded. 


Hector and Rashaun flattened against the ground as the flames from 
the shack lit the landscape. Bits of shrapnel cut into their backs, 
leaving a collection of searing slices in their wake. They rested, 
pulling themselves up slowly, looking back at the wreckage. 


"That looks like it did it," Rashaun said, helping Hector up on his 
feet. "We did it!" Rashaun and Hector hugged, ignoring the shards of 
agony in their backs. 


The radio replied, "ASSAULTING A POLICE OFFICER GETS YOU 


BIG TIME, FUCKERS." 


From the wreckage shambled a distorted, flaming form, glowing like 
an ember and dissociating like static. It moved slow, walking, 
swaggering. It swung a baton, glowing red and wavering, in 
whatever its hand was now, as it approached. 


"| can't outrun him!" Hector called, limping painedly. "Just go! It's me 
he wants anyway! I'm supposed to die tonight? Okay." 


Rashaun snarled. "Hell no. My job is protecting people from things 
like that. I'm getting you out of here!" 


"How? | can't run. You can't carry me all the rest of the night with 
that on our tail." 


"I'm stealing his car." 


Rashaun dragged Hector to the passenger side of the police car, its 
flashers and engine still running, and jumped into the driver's seat 
as Hector got himself seated. The car smelled of death and cigar 
smoke and semen, like dread stabbing their nostrils. In the rearview 
mirror, the eldritch being broke into a run, closing the gap between 
them. Without waiting to shut the doors, Rashaun stomped the gas 
pedal. The car belched a sulfurous cloud of caustic exhaust, and 
dashed forward. The doors pulled themselves shut with the sudden 
acceleration, and its occupants held on tight as they pulled it out 
away from the shack, toward the road. 


The crimson broken glow shrank in the rear view mirror. The car's 
police radio came alive. "RUN FUCKER. RUN FUCKER. RUN 
FUCKER." 


Hector pointed at the radio and laughed through the pain. "That's all 
he can say, now. | think we beat him. How long we gotta outrun 
him?" 


Rashaun, focused on the drive, replied, "He's gone during the day. 
Probably sunrise and we'll be fine. Or if we get out of the range of 
the effect. We should just drive out of here, now." 


The car felt horribly dilapidated, as if it should break down or 


SCP-1001 is incapable of digesting hard tissues completely: the 
bones of its prey are gradually excreted through channels near the 
top edges of the caudex. Once excreted, these bones are invariably 
picked up with one of the object’s leaves and moved to a location on 
or beneath the soil surface surrounding SCP-1001. The object 
arranges the bones in complex patterns which are demonstrably 
useless for water capture and, being primarily subterranean, do not 
aid in attracting prey. Their resemblance to the Nazca 
[DATA REDACTED] and the devotional mandalas of SCP-[DATA 
REDACTED] have led Dr. Glastonbury to hypothesize that they may 
be representational or even [DATA REDACTED] anomalous effects. 


At the time of its discovery by the SCP Foundation in 18 , 
SCP-1001 was located at the center of a roughly-circular bone 
pattern 18 m in diameter and 8 m deep, 7% of which was 
composed of human bone. Nearby native tribes professed religious 
fear of the object and were providing it with regular human 
sacrifices. The sacrificial ritual, as finally divulged to Foundation 
interrogators, required attendant priests to escort the sacrifice 
toward SCP-1001 along a strictly-delineated “avenue” later found to 
correspond closely to certain features of the subterranean bone 
pattern. Deviations from the pattern were said to be punished by 
capture and consumption of the attendants as well as the sacrifice, 
but a successful ritual resulted in only one person being taken. In 
rare cases, a priest would be directed to move a particular [DATA 
REDACTED] provided in return with an unspecified gift, or even 
push back the date of the next required sacrifice. Oral histories state 
the ritual to have been originally demanded by the tree itself, [DATA 
REDACTED] “spoke in the voice of our [DATA REDACTED]. 


« SCP-1000 | SCP-1001 | SCP-1002 » 


explode at any moment. The police lights continued to flash, painting 
the night desert in reds and blues. Rashaun kept to the task of 
getting as much distance between him and the shack, and out of the 
range of 973's effect. 


"Hope you didn't lose anything important back there," Hector mused. 
"What do you mean?" 


"You had that locked case. Left it back there when we blew up the 
shack."