Foxvalley Chapter 10 re-edits

CHAPTER 10: THE MISSING FBI AGENT

May 28, 10:11 A.M.
Foxvalley, Colorado

A cool breeze sliced through the small town of Foxvalley, buried in a gap between two high, snowy peaked mountains. Red and white lights blazed down the state road through town. A loud siren rolled over the peaks of the trees from the valley below. Henderson’s patrol car fled down the street. The few cars, even out driving during this time, pulled off at the side of the road. Some people even stood outside their cars with worried looks on their faces. A few disappearances, a death, an explosion, and now another tragedy. It scared the town’s residents to death. They existed in a small town now infested with sirens and flashing lights. Henderson could remember how the town used to be one of the quietest ones around.

Some of the town’s people stood outside on the porch of their houses, watching in terror as the patrol car shot by. He arrived at the Richardson home. Henderson could remember coming into the Richardson’s home once at a very young age. It had been a dare to stay the whole night in the rotting building. There was a reason Henderson didn’t believe in ghost, or anything supernatural at all. The whole time that he had stayed the night in that supposedly haunted house he never heard, nor seen, no ghost. Instead the scratching of mice in the old walls of the decrepit house. It didn’t look much different now then it did when he stayed in it. The only difference was a few more holes in the windows from baseballs being thrown through them. Anytime Henderson saw it he couldn’t help but think, wow they literally got themselves a home run.

Ben stood outside on the untrimmed front yard of the house. He stood there, his eyes round with shock. His arms crossed over his chest. Deputy Gregory stood in front of him, asking him a series of questions. Henderson searched past them, up into the front living room of the house. The floor looked like it have been gathering dust for hundreds of years, even though everyone knew the Richardson’s home had only really been abandoned for about 60 years.

A thin white fabric covered every piece of furniture in the room. A sheet covered couch was stained from blood. A blue tarp covered a body leaning up against the couch. A puddle of dried blood snagged the wooden floor. Streaks of black slashed the walls and floors surrounding the body. Henderson knelt down in from of the body. He lifted a corner of the tarp. The devilish scent of death penetrated his nostrils. The smell overwhelmed him. He covered his mouth with his free hand, staring at the horrific sight below.

A man laid, his back leaning against the, now, scarlet painted sheet covered couch. His entrails hung out of an open cavity in his stomach. The mans head was tilted up towards the ceiling, his ice cold stare directed at a non-functional ceiling fan above them. A trickle of black blood through the corner of his mouth. His moist bloodied shirt was completely torn to pieces. Henderson rolled the tarp back over the dead body. The man looked so familiar to him, but he just couldn’t quite place him. Gregory stepped up to him, a clip board grasped in his right hand. “Uh, Sheriff Henderson…” he attempted to get his attention. Henderson glanced up at his deputy standing over him. He stood up off his knees in front of the dead body.

“What is it, deputy?” He asked.

“I asked Benjamin a few questions, but he doesn’t have much to say. He said he’d seen Harley here earlier, when they first found the body. Do you think Harley may have something to do with this? What do you think I should do?” Asked Deputy Gregory.

“I’ll a talk with Ben, see if I can get him to say anything else he may know,” Henderson answered, taking the clipboard from his hand.

“Okay, of and uh, where’s that FBI agent, I have seen him since yesterday. Do you know where he is?” Gregory asked. Henderson stopped directly in his tracks. He was so focused on everything going on, he forgot to get ahold of Budsworth. It had been at least a couple hours since he last saw him. He handed the clipboard back to Gregory.

“Here, you try to see if you can get anything more out of him. I’m going to head over to the library to check on Budsworth. Last I had heard he was there with Queens,” Henderson explained. Gregory nodded in acknowledgement, and retreated the clipboard from his hand. Henderson rushed out of the abandoned house, out onto the sidewalk along the road below. He stepped up to his patrol car, and opened the driver’s side door. The moment the door slammed the tires screeched. With a slam of the transmission, the car speed off down the road. He pulled into the library parking lot only a few minutes later. The library didn’t stand too far from the Richardson home. It was even built along the same street.

The door of the patrol car swung open as he stood up. He slammed the door closed behind him and rushed up to the front wooden double doors of the Foxvalley Public Library. When the door creaked opened, Henderson was taken aback by surprise. Books laid, scattered across the wooden floor. One bookshelf, on the far end, lied down over the library floor. All of its book flooded the ground around the fallen shelf. It wasn’t only the trashed library that troubled Budsworth, however. He rushed up to the librarian’s desk. A Newspaper laid sprawled out on the counter top. On the heading it read in black bold letters, “Death of man and girlfriend puts town in the dark” it was dated back in October 22, 1958.

Henderson heard about this. It was definitely before his time. Henderson only began working for the force back in 2002. Under the heading of the newspaper shown the old black and white photograph everyone saw of the FBI agent, hovering over a tarp covered corpse. Henderson began to turn back to search more, but something in the photograph caught his eye. The man standing in the center of the picture, standing behind a strip of police tape. He stood too far from the camera to tell all his facial features, but he did stand close enough to look familiar to Henderson. He looked like Budsworth, which made it all the more confusing, to be in this photo he’d have to be more than 70 years old. He couldn’t be more than 40 years of age.

A low moan arose from behind the desk. Henderson drew his pistol from his holster in a swift action. He aimed in at the room behind the desk. The one he and Budsworth investigated yesterday. He crept around the desk, holding his finger onto the trigger, ready to blast away anything that moved. “Who’s there?” He called into the room. Another low moan arose from behind the desk. It sounded as if it came from the floor, like it came from down in Queens secret basement room. Henderson opened the gate through to the other side of the desk. His eyes widened when he found Queens lying on the floor. It seemed as if he had been knocked out. A shattered lamp post scattered across the floor above his head. A large gash bled from on top of his head, but he seemed alright, and he began coming around. He opened his eyes, and held his hand up at the wad of bloody hair on the top of his head. He glanced up at Henderson.

“Sheriff, what’s going on?” He asked, “And why are there two of you?’
“Don’t mind about that right now. I need to know where Budsworth is,” Henderson ordered. Steven let out a shout of agony and took his hand away from his head, quickly. His fingertips were painted red from the blood on top his head. He glared back up at Henderson again.

“Who?” He asked.

“Budsworth, you know, the Federal agent. Where is he, and what happened here?” Henderson.

“Oh, the FBI agent. I know what you’re talking about, now. I remember bringing him back here and showing him a newspaper. It was that one there on the counter. Then he get a cell phone call, and that one Indian guy walked in through the doors. That’s all I remember, sorry,” Queens answered. Confusion overwhelmed Henderson. Why he was apologizing? He gave him more information he needed than anyone else did when they had a concussion. The Indian he spoke of must’ve been Hackshaw. It didn’t make any sense. Normally Hackshaw is more like the friendly hermit huddled in the Alpine Mountains. Lately he’s been a fiend. Henderson helped Queens up off the library floor. A small puddle of red when his head used to be.

“I saw the newspaper, and the picture. Why is there a guy in it who looks almost exactly like Budsworth in that picture?”

Queens glanced down at the newspaper on the counter, then back at Henderson. “Okay, follow me. I’ll show you,” He said. Henderson followed him into the small room behind the desk, which, as of currently, remained the cleanest room of the library. Queens opened the trapdoor leading downstairs. He grabbed a flashlight from a shelf beside him. A thin white beam flashed from the light down into the void of darkness below. They climbed down the ladder into Queens’ mysterious basement. It also looked untouched from the devastation upstairs. Queens reached up to a thin string hanging from the ceiling above him.

A naked light bulb, embedding into the ceiling, bursted on in a fit of bright white. It lit up the white walls of the small basement room. The light reflected off the metal bookshelves on the sides of the room. In the very front of the room ahead of them sat a large desk with a map of Foxvalley on it, under it rested another map, a map of the world. Red marks from a permanent marker marked across several places on both maps. On the world map several of the red marks surrounded the Foxvalley vicinity. On both sides of the desk stood file cabinets. On one of them, the top drawer remained slightly opened. The blue crystal wolf neckless, that gave Budsworth his wicked tattoo, hang down. It glowed abnormally, as if it could let off its own light int he dark.

“What do you do down here exactly?” Asked Henderson.

“I’m a librarian and a historian, Sheriff Henderson. I have as much of the right to know what’s going on in this town as anyone else. All the years I’ve been here I’ve known that there was something special about this town,” Queens explained. He rolled out one of the file cabinet’s doors, and pulled out a large thick red book. on the front cover it read, “The Mysteries of Foxvalley, and the 13 Hikaki amulets.” Henderson’s eyes widened in amazement accompanied by confusion.

“I heard that was the book Hackshaw burned,” Henderson pointed out.

“Not this one, he burned the library’s. I knew it’d happen one day, that’s when I stole his,” Queens explained. He plopped the thick book down on the desk in the front of the room. Henderson stepped up behind him. Queens flipped to the table of contents and began search through the various subjects. Henderson kept glancing around the intriguing room. He glanced back down on the desk as the map of Foxvalley. The map stretched out larger than any other map Henderson had ever seen of their sleepy hamlet, Foxvalley was no where close to being large with is 1,500 residents, which brought of the question, why would Queens need this big of a map? He begun to recognize all the locations that where circled by a bright red marker. One of them was the Johnson’s farm. Under the blood-red circle read,

Johnson Household:
Current date: May 25, 13:27 military time
On May 21 at 01:49 military time, Markus Johnson, the son of Henry Johnson, had gotten into contact with a law enforcement officer in Canon City to the south. Only a few hours later the entire family was found missing. I intend on going over there tonight to see what I can find out. All I can do right now is pray to God there won’t be too many police there tonight. It is my belief these disappearances are connected to the disappearances of past years.

“You went to the Johnson’s farm after everyone already disappeared?” Henderson asked. Queens nodded and pointed at the shotgun leaning against the stairs in the back of the room.

“That’s mine, I unintentionally left it there in the woods. The night you and Budsworth were out there I was going to grab it, but I wasn’t aware you guys were there until you caught Benjamin.” Queens explained, “I would’ve grabbed Deputy Mill’s pistol too, but I forgot I ever even touched it.”

“So, why was it stained with blood?” Henderson asked.

“Coywolf bit my arm,” Queens answered, raising the sleeve of his sweater, revealing multiple puncture wound on his arm. Henderson never noticed them before. Even when Queen was sitting in the Sheriff’s station through the night he never noticed it. Besides that, how true could Queen’s story really be. Henderson had never heard much about the supposed coywolf. He knew they were Eastern coyotes, but that only strengthened his suspicions.

If coywolfs are known to inhabit past the Mississippi, why would one be here. Not only that, but coyotes generally don’t attack people, and who’s to say coywolves are any different than that. Something about Queens’ coywolf story didn’t ad up. Too many loose ends.

The librarian watching him, know Henderson understood that, kind of anyway. He had to admit, it was kinda creepy for a librarian to be stalking him on an investigation. On the map another red circle enveloped the Foxvalley Bed & Breakfast. Under it in the same red marker it read,

Francis José:
Current date: May 28, 6:38 A.M.
Today I had gotten some bad news form one of my sources at the Foxvalley Bed & Breakfast. This morning Francis José, the clerk, was found dead. He had been shredded and ripped to pieces. Most believe it was an wild animal, but get this, our wonderful FBI agent, David Budsworth, was there that night. Ironic isn’t it, the man from a sixty year old newspaper stays the night in the B&B, and now the clerk is dead.

“How did this note get here if you were in the prison all night?” Henderson asked. Queens glanced over at it. Then he looked back up at Henderson.

“I wrote on a piece of paper to my source, and then he wrote it down there,” He answered. This answer really only sparked more questions in Henderson’s mind.

“Who’s your source then?” He asked.

“I’m not willing to give off that information,” Queens answered. Jesus, he was starting to sound as bad at Chris Holt up there on his isolated mountain dwelling. “Ah ha! Found it! I found what I was looking for.” He announced, flipping from the table of contents to the page a little over halfway through the book. On the top of the page it read, “The legend of the Hemorillias Vuliopes.”

“A Hemorillias Vuliopes? What the hell is that?” Henderson asked. The word just sounded completely foreign to him. To answer his question, Queens began to read from the book. “The Hemorillias Vuliopes, Jeez that’s a hard word to say, is a shapeshifting creature of the Hikaki Native American culture. It’s said to be the last living remanences of an enemy Native American tribe. The Hikaki Medicine man cursed them to turn into a savage fox beast every last day of the week. They would kill their families and be hunted by hunters. Some were even captured by other tribes and killed.” Queens read from the book. Henderson hovered over him. His arms were cross, and his face looked skeptical.

“So you’re telling me Budsworth is some sort of werewolf or something?” Henderson asked, “because it sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”

“Werefox,”

“Huh?” Henderson asked. Queens turned back to the book open on the table in front of him. He pointed down at a passage on the page.

“According to this they were more of a type of werefox instead of a
werewolf.” Queens answered. Henderson shook is head. He couldn’t believe this. This guys was even crazier than Holt was.

“I’m not going to listen to this crap.” He grumbled, and headed for the exit.

“Wait!” Queens called. He stood up from a wood chair he had been sitting on while reading the book. “I know it’s a lot to go on, but just think about it. José dies on Saturday night. Not only that, but he was savagely attacked by some type of dog. Sheriff Henderson, I know you don’t want to believe it, but I saw the video too. You may get your deputy to believe it’s a mountain lion, but it won’t work on me. You saw the video, I saw the video, Hell, the fox saw the video.” Henderson’s gaze drift over him in a hateful glare.

“Damnit! How do we even know that HE, out of everyone, is this werewolf creature?” Henderson asked. “Even though someone in a 60-year-old newspaper may look like him means nothing. Pinning something like this on him is foolish. You’re a crazy asshole who escaped the nuthouse and now you trying to wreck havoc in MY city!”

“God damnit! Do you really want to know why I know what he is?” Queens asked. He marched to the file cabinet, and pulled the wolf neckless out from the top drawer that was partly open. “This neckless, that’s how. It burned the fox into his shoulder. YOU saw it!”

Henderson ruffled his hands through his hair. Frustration burned from within him. This guy was crazy. “Okay, lets say you’re right. What if he really is this strange werewolf thing. Why the hell would the FBI let a werewolf work for them. Why isn’t he surrounded by death then?” Queens glanced down at the neckless dangling from his hand.

“What if you’re right,” Queens sighed. Henderson gave off a huge sigh of relief. Finally, he was starting to understand his point. “What if it’s something else.” He returned the book. The flame of relief that burned in Henderson’s chest was very short lived. Queens began flipping through the pages looking for something to do with the amulets. Henderson started exploring around the private basement room.

“So do you think this thing has to do with everything?” Henderson asked. Queens glanced back at him and shook his head. “So what weird supernatural thing kidnapped the Johnson’s?”

“The adults were sacrificed.” Queens answered, “When I was there I found a block of melted max, which means someone was out there doing some sort of ritual. I’m not completely sure what type of ritual it was, but I’m sure it was a summon.”

“What were they summoning?” Henderson asked. Queens continued to flipped through the pages of his thick lore book. He stopped on a page that read on the heading in bold black print, “The Legend of Trillius.”

“That’s it.” He stated.

“What? What is it?” Henderson glanced down at the book in front of him.

“Trillious is a big part of Hikaki tradition. It was a story about the end times of the tribe. It was a story mainly about fear, used to teach younger children of the tribe, that sometimes it’s better to take matters into their own hands,” Queens explained, he glanced up to Henderson to see the confused look on his face. He figured that he’d have to tell the story in a greater detail. “Four hundred years ago Spanish conquistadors headed north from present-day Mexico. At sometime the Hikaki found out after they destroyed the Aztecs. They were frightened of them, so they concocted a plan. Well, there Medicine man would be the one to come up with the idea. The medicine man was, as his occupation suggest, a healer. That’s not all though, the Native American medicine men were also known for using magic. The one in the Hikaki was known for being able to harbor the spirits of their Native American ancestors.”

“Okay?” Henderson began. Though he still thought it was only hogwash he was speaking of, but he was beginning to enjoy the strange stories. He figured they were always used for entertainment, as most books and stories, he still thought that and nothing would change his mind. Queens continued with his story.

“These spirits were supposed to be incredibly powerful. They began by simply,” Queens picked up the blue wolf neckless and placed it in Henderson’s hand. “Making a powerful neckless. This was the first one created. They made twelve more of them, they are somewhere scattered all across this land. I’m trying to get them all, but God knows I’m having a hell of a time trying to do it.”

“Why exactly is it so important you get all of these?” Henderson asked. Queens glare, facing the page, slowly turned to gaze into his eyes.

“If the wrong hands gets ahold of all of them they could destroy all of humanity, that’s how serious this thing is. They were invented for power and that’s exactly what they are, pure power. The Mayans even had a huge thing to do with the creation of the amulets. They invented something much more sinister. A staff, the staff of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal. He was one of the most successful leaders of the Mayan civilization. The staff was very similar to the amulets, but much more dangerous. With the two together it would be most dangerous.”

“So where is this staff of Ken, Kich, whoever located?”

“According to some Mayan writings it was banished to the future my the Hikaki Medicine man. The Mayans found out quickly how dangerous it was. I believe their calendar was a countdown to when the staff would come back. In other words, the end of the world.”

“But nothing happened the year of 2012.”

“Who’s to say someone doesn’t have it. Our only bet is to make sure whoever does have it never gets ahold of the amulets. Anyway, I think we’re straying away from the main topic. We were discussing Trillius, right?”Queens asked, returning to the open book lying on the table in front of him. Henderson, after a long moment of confusion, finally answered with a quick nod. What was this staff, and why of all people did Queens have one of the amulets? Where were the twelve others. He really had no exact idea why he was so interested in them. He didn’t believe they held any kind of power.

The story of them was just that, a story handed down for generations to scare the children. As Queens said, it was a story to teach offspring to fend for themselves without the need for others. Henderson stared down at the wolf amulet Queens handed to him. It glowed a brilliant blue in his hand. A warm feeling seeped from it. He knew it was only a crystal reflecting the light hanging front he ceiling, but he could help but wonder, was something really inside this thing? Something spiritual, beyond his understanding?

“You see, the Hikaki chief, Monteck Hitach had a pet fox by the name of Tiberius. One of the greatest questions about the Hikaki throughout all time was how did the Hikaki chief know the name of one of the eastern world’s most powerful leaders. Not only that, but the idea of Trillius is similar to a familiar story of eastern Greek folklore. Tell me, Sheriff Henderson, have you ever heard of the Teumessian Fox?”Queens asked, fixing his gaze up toward Henderson, standing behind him.

“Is it a Greek myth about a fox and a dog?” Henderson asked. He knew little about Greek mythology, but he new who the gods were, and some of what they did. (The naughty and the bad.) He paid attention in history as much as he could when he was in school. “What does that have to do with this Trillius.”

“Not only that it’s a fox, but a giant fox. It is just mythology, so who knows if it’s true or not. Either way, it was sent by Dionysus, the God of Grape Harvest, amongst many other things. The people of Thebes angered him from crimes they committed. So the god sent an oversized fox to terrorize them. According to the Greek mythology she could not be caught. In an attempt to catch it they got a hunting dog named Laelaps, who could always catch what he was hunting. This began a paradox of two animal basically running around in circles, before Zeus got sick of the show and turned them to constellations.” Queens explained. This still confused Henderson. Seriously! What did any of this have to do with this Trillius, or Budsworth’s the werefox.

“Okay, and your point is...?” Henderson asked blankly.

“Well our favorite Medicine man came up with the idea of defeating the Spanish Conquistadors with the Chief’s fox. He’d feed it the spirits of their ancestors. Messed up, right?” Queens asked before continuing with his story. “No one knows exactly how the Medicine man got the spirits into him. Either way his plan failed. The creature he created literally became ultimate power. It no longer was a fox, but a massive unstoppable killing machine. It devoured the chief and his family and fled into the forest. Every few nights she’d return and pick of the village’s people one-by-one. The medicine man had came up with the idea of trapping the beast and using a spell to cast out the spirits he had put in the fox. Unfortunately, his plan, once again, failed. The fox got out the trap and massacred the whole village, except for the medicine man, who ran away from his guilt. While out there, in the wild, he looked for a way to destroy the abomination he’d created. All he found was a way to cast it to another dimension. A dimension known as the void. It’s an endless, timeless cold place that has been used by humans very few times.”

“When?” Henderson asked, he right eyebrow askew. “When has human ever used it?”

“Time travel...”

“Bull, ya know, I think I’ve had enough of this.” Henderson, still his skeptical self, turned to leave. The trapdoor into the door behind the desk flapped open. Henderson popped out glancing around quickly. His cell phone in his pocket let out a ring, muffled by the weave of his jeans. He reached into his pocket and yanked out his flip phone. The screen flipped open and he brought it up to his ear. Queens was hurrying up the stairs behind him. “Hello, this is Sheriff Henderson.” He answered.

“Hello Sheriff, huh I just got a call, and well, someone said that they thought they had seen that mountain lion you spoke of,” Gregory answered. Finally they were actually getting back on track with the death of José. This was good news, but that also depended on how long ago the bear had been spotted.

“When did you get the call?” Asked Henderson.

“Only a few minutes ago Sheriff. The moment I hung up the call, I called you.” He answered.

“Okay, great. You get us a few guns and meet me at the library. I still have some extra stuff to get to here,” Henderson explained before hanging up the phone. He turned to Steven Queens, standing behind him. “It was a mountain lion that killed that hotel clerk, enough said. Now if you don’t mind, my deputy will be by to pick me up soon. Don’t tell anyone about what you just said. I think you should go by the clinic to get that looked at.” Henderson ordered, pointing at the place on Queens head that the lamp had gone down on. Henderson stepped out from behind the desk and up to the front door. Books still scattered across the floor. Passed the front door, the deputy’s patrol car pulled up behind Henderson’s patrol car.

He stepped outside through the front doors of the library. The front door of the patrol car opened wide as Greg stood up out of the front seat. “You can be the one to drive,” He called to Henderson, standing on the top of the stairs up to the front doors of the Foxvalley Public Library. He started his way down. He could, ever-so-slightly, see the three figures sitting in the back seat of the patrol car. Gregory must’ve brought some reinforcements or something.

Henderson hurried around the front of the car, back to the driver side door. He pulled the handle and the door popped out from the vehicle. The springs of the driver’s side seat swung as Henderson flopped down on it. He reached out and slammed the Car door, resulting the car to slightly shake. With a fit of exhaust fumes, the patrol car sped away, barely missing the sight of Benjamin stepping up behind it. He watched with almost a helpless gaze as they speed off to what could be their doom, leaving the sheriff’s patrol car there.

~~~Benjamin Karmin~~~
12:47 P.M.
Foxvalley, Colorado

Benjamin watched the patrol car as it pulled away down the street. Something wasn’t right. Not only did he see his own brother ripped in half, but his mother still hadn’t returned home yet. Budsworth was missing too. He hadn’t see him for most of the day, and even Henderson said he couldn’t find him. He came here to find him, but Ben never saw Budsworth leave the library, instead he saw only Henderson rushing out in a hurry. What if Budsworth is still inside? Well, that wouldn’t entirely make any sense, because if Henderson was really in a hurry like he Budworth should of gone with him. Henderson rushed up to the front double doors of the library.

The tall standing doors creaked open revealing a sight of horror. It looked as if a tornado whisked all the books from the shelves and tossed them across the room in separate directions. For some reason a newspaper hung over the side of the desk beside the front doors. The good news was Steven Queens stood in front of an empty bookshelves, setting the books back up in the bookshelves. He placed them back where they belonged. His gaze darted towards Ben as soon as he heard the front double door close shut behind him.

“Hiya Ben. For second there I thought you were Henderson, coming on up here to bother me some more. So what will it today Ben? ‘The Shining’? ‘The Hunger Games’? Oh, how about the infamous ‘It’? The town reminds me a lot of our own,” Queens said, holding a thick Stephen King book in his hand.

“No, I’m not here to check anything out,” Ben answered. Queens gave a small shrug in response and buried the book into the bookshelf.

“So why are you here, then?” Asked Queens, as he lifted another fallen book off the ground and buried it into the bookshelf along with all the others.

“I’ve been looking for Budsworth, last I heard he was here with you,” He answered. Queens glared at him for a moment, thinking about how familiar this conversation was beginning to get. Something told him that this conversation might end up like the one with Henderson, or maybe not. Ben seemed like one more likely to believe in this stuff than a law enforcement officer.

“I haven’t seen him,” Queens said. Ben wasn’t as easily convinced. The mess throughout the library said otherwise. He’s never seen the library like this. Sure thing, it doesn’t always look the nicest, but this was the worst he’d ever seen it. The slight rumble of thunder interrupted his thoughts. The news report must’ve been true about the impended thunderstorm. It was even supposed to be worse than last week’s storm, but not by much. Ben continued glancing around the library. The dump of books piling the floors kept nagging his mind about what really went down here. Surely these books didn’t just fly off the walls and flatten on the ground, things just don’t work like that.

“What happened here?” Ben inquired. Curiosity swelled up inside him.

“I’m not so sure. All I can remember was there was an intrusion, and whoever it was knocked me out and trashed my library,” Queens answered. Ben hardly could really pay any attention to him. He was too busy wondering why there was a strip of scarlet red blood leading from the top of his head down over his temple.

“Are you bleeding?” Ben asked. Queens reach up and touched the top of his head. He looked down at his red pained fingers. The newspaper flailed off the desk in front of the room, it slipped off and rolled to the ground, landing on the pieces of shattered glass below. It caught Benjamin’s attention. “What’s with the newspaper?” Ben asked, as he began heading for it. It was over, Queens knew it. Ben would definitely know he knew something about Budsworth’s disappearance the moment he saw the photograph in the newspaper. Benjamin bent down and picked the paper up off the floor. He read the heading, and the date. His eyes widened the moment he looked at the picture. “Mr. Queens, is it just me or does this guy in the back, here,” he pointed that the man in the back center of the black and white picture. “Look like Budsworth?” Queens looked at the newspaper, being held in Ben’s hands.

“Okay, I have something to show you. Follow me,” Queens ordered. Ben set the newspaper down on the desk in front of him and followed Queens into the other side of the desk. However the newspaper didn’t remain up their, as soon a Ben had already token a few steps away from it a small draft rolled the paper back onto the floor. Ben followed Queens into the small room behind the front desk. In the center of the room, the cellar door still remain wide open. He watched as queens descending down a small staircase into the small lit room underneath. As soon as Queens stepped off the stairs, Ben followed him down.

The room around him left him speechless. He’d never seen a room so secretive. It astonished him that of all the times he stepped into the library upstairs a basement room hid from his view. Ben always knew this town as secrets, but not to the extent that the librarian was even in on it. He never seen anything like it. It left his mind blank, his words caught up in his own confusion. Ben wondered up to the map laid out across the metal table. Why would the librarian have a map of the town? He wondered. These questions continued to swirl through his mind, the red marked circles around the various crime scenes only helped to fuel his curiosity.

Queens sat down in the medal chair in front of the metal table. Ben recognized the thick red book resting on the corner of the table, beside the map. “There’s a lot of things we don’t know about Budsworth, that’s for sure, but I have a feeling he’s a lot more than just some federal agent.” Queens went on to explain to Ben the same that he told Henderson. Fortunately, Ben took it better than Henderson did. He still didn’t believe it, but he stayed for the whole story and never interrupted.

“You know what, even if Budsworth is a werewolf...” Ben started.

“Werefox,” Queens interrupted.

“Whatever, I’m still going to find him. Even if, and that’s one hell of an if, Budsworth is some sort of shape shifting beast maybe we could find a way to stop it. Do you mind if I see your map,” Ben asked politely. Queens nodded and removed the book from it. He placed the book and his crystal blue wolf amulet back into one of the filing cabinets beside the table. Ben stared down at the map of the town below. “Do you think he could have been here with you when that guy came in and knocked you out?” Queens glanced back up at him trying to remember what happened. He vaguely remembered Budsworth being there, and a dark shadow busting in through the front double doors of the library. Unfortunately, the more he tried to remember the more he forgot, but he was sure he saw Hackshaw barging in. The way the shadow busted through the doors looked very similar to the way he busted through the doors yesterday.

“He was, and I’m pretty sure it was Hackshaw,” Queens answered. Ben’s eyes began to widen. The pieces seemed to fit together now. Eagle (Eagle was his Native American name) was worried about his hometown, and if knew of the newspaper, than he might think Budsworth posses as a threat to his hometown. He’d probably do what ever that was in his power to stop him. Including keeping him from knowing the past of Foxvalley. What if the past could trigger something in him? What if Queens was right, and Budsworth wasn’t no normal FBI agent. It would definitely cause chaos, especially in such a small town. Unfortunately, something about this theory that made finding Budsworth all the much harder. The only place Eagle could drag Budsworth off to would’ve been his house, but the wildfire took care of that last night. He must’ve hidden him somewhere else. Most likely on the outskirts of town. Ben didn’t even want think about what Hackshaw might being doing to him.

Ben skimmed over the outer parts of the map. A red permanent marker encircled a house along a road hanging off the side of the Eastern Mountains. Under it in the same red color it read, “abandoned shed,” could that have been where Eagle took Budsworth. He turned to Steven Queens. “What about this abandoned shed up here on the side of this mountain,” Ben asked, pointing toward the red circle on the map. Queens stepped up beside him, glaring down at the map in front of them.

“That’s it,” he answered, a tone of shock in his voice. “I know of it because I followed Hackshaw there once. I think it’s some type of secret hideout of his. I bet if he took Budsworth anywhere, it’s there.” A flame ignited in Ben’s chest. He was getting close to solving this mystery. All he could think about was rescuing Budsworth and claiming vengeance for the death of his bother by finding his killer. He was going to find whoever did it, and kill them. It felt like the only thing to finally put his bother’s to rest.

“Can you find a way to get me there?” Ben asked.

“Whoa now, I know how the sheriff feels about you going off and doing these things. Why don’t we just wait and tell him to go figure this thing out?” Queens asked, but Ben couldn’t wait too much longer. What if Hackshaw sat in his shed, cooking up knew ways to torture Budsworth. He began for the stairs, he stepped on the first step. His eyes spun to meet Queen’s again. He stood there for a few silent moments before speaking.

“Look, weather you’re coming or not I’m going, and you’re not going to stop me,” Ben explained before making his way up the staircase. Queens stood there for a while, thinking about what Ben just told him. Sure thing, he could get into a lot of trouble for letting Ben go, but if Ben went alone he could get into even more trouble if he got hurt.

“Damnit Benjamin, wait!” Queens called after him. He rushed up the steps, through the trap door to stop behind him.

“Like I said, you can’t keep me from going,” Ben stated.

“I’ll take you.”

“You will?”

“Yes, but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Try not to get us both killed, or arrested,” Queens answered. Before Ben could say anything else the sound of tires rolling on pavement pulled up in front of the library. Ben brushed past Queens to glanced through a window in the rear wall of the room. It overlooked the road below. An old black Lincoln car pulled to a stop in front of the building. The front driver’s side door swung open, and a man in a black suit stood up out of the car. His eyes were completely shaded by dark sunglasses. “Who is it?” Queens asked. Ben didn’t really know how to answer to that question. Queens, tired of waiting for an answer, stepped up behind him and peered through the window. “Oh God, they’re here” he muttered. Queens sped downstairs into the basement. Ben took another look out the window, confused about the librarians behavior. Why did he seem so scared of the people outside? It was as if he knew them somehow. Another man in black stood up out of the passenger seat. Benjamin still couldn’t figure out who they really were, but he could see a holstered pistol on one of them.

The way they were dressed actually seemed oddly reminiscent of the way Budsworth was dressed, but something told Ben these weren’t no normal FBI agents. They almost didn’t even seem lifelike. Their facial feature appeared plain, their skin looked like a worn down fabric. Someone grasped ahold of Ben’s arm, startling him. His head flashed to the side to see Queens grabbing ahold of his arm. The crystal blue wolf neckless hung from his neck, illuminating a dim blue glow. “Follow me,” he ordered. Ben followed him through he rampage of books, scattered across the library floor. A series of sharp knocks rang from the front double doors as the black suited men slammed their balled fist into the doors. The two of them rushed out through the back, Emergency Exit door. The Fire alarm rang through the bookshelves. Sprinklers hanging from the ceiling spurted on, raining water on the pages of the open books below.

A black polished show bursted the double doors open. Three of the black dressed men stepped inside, they held pistols out in front of them. Earpieces rapped around the right ear of each of the men. The first one to come in seemed more like the leader of the bunch. He rushed towards the back of the library. The back exit door busted open and he stormed out. Anger swelled up inside him, they arrived too late. The black truck was already rushed down the gravel road behind the library. A could of dust trailed closely behind. The other two men stepped out of the building behind him. He pulled a lighter from his pocket. He tossed it to the man standing behind him to the right. “Burn it,” he ordered.

“What if it’s in there somewhere?” The man asked, catching the lighter.

“I said BURN IT! It’s not in there, that son of a bitch took off with it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have sped away as quickly as it did. Now like a ordered, burn this place to the ground, unless you want me to burn it down with you in it,” the leader ordered. “You wouldn’t want me to do that to you, now would you?”

“No sir,”

“Than do it, before I do it for you,” he ordered again. The man with the lighter nodded. Their car pulled up behind them. Another man in black sat in the front seat. The man with the lighter opened the backseat doors, and pulled out 4 full jugs of gasoline. He stepped in side the library with them for a few minutes. No more than ten minutes later, he stepped outside with the jugs empty. He flipped the lighter, and flicked it though the open door of the building. The flame shot out from the lighter across the gas-covered floor. Within only a few minutes the building was engulfed in flames. “Good,” the leader gave a wicked smile.

~~~ Sheriff Abraham Henderson ~~~

1:17 P.M.
The outskirts of Foxvalley, Colorado

The patrol car slowed to a stop in front of the Hayley Leeway’s house. Henderson figured if they were going to hunt for a mountain lion, he’d need help from someone who knows animals, even if she was just a veterinarian. The passenger side door slipped open. Henderson stood up out of the passenger seat onto the gravel driveway outside, he slammed the passenger side door behind him, and made his way up to the front door of the house. He gave a few thorough knocks against the front door. After a few moments the sound of a lock fidgeting emerged from the other side of the door. The golden door knob twisted, and the front door slipped open, revealing Hayley standing on the other side. In her hand she held a large coffee mug. Steam calmly rolled over the top of the cup down the sides.

Hayley’s gaze settled on the sheriff standing in front of him. “Uh, hello Ms. Leeway. Sorry to intrude, but we could use some help with catching a mountain lion,” he stated. Hayley gave off a blank expression. She stepped away from the door leaving it open for him. Henderson stepped in behind her, carefully shutting the door behind him. “We believe that it’s what killed José,” he explained to her. Hayley sat down on a long white couch against the far wall of the living room. She rested down upon it and crossed one leg over the other.

“A mountain lion?” Hayley asked in a mocking tone, “you know that’s practically impossible, right? Not a single mountain lion has been seen in Foxvalley since the early twentieth century. Even if it was a mountain lion, they don’t just wander into B&Bs and kill the clerk and leave. It just doesn’t work like that.”

“We got a call that someone had seen it.”

“Henderson, this isn’t first time someone said they’d seen a mountain lion in Foxvalley, and it won’t be the last. They probably saw a coyote in the dark, and though they saw a big cat. It’s like it is with aliens, people say they’ve seen them, but it what they most likely just saw an airplane,” Hayley explained. Henderson reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph of the paw-shaped hole they had found at the Johnson’s farm. If it wasn’t a mountain lion then what was really in that video. Could it be related to this footprint. Surly it would be the same animal. What ever did this couldn’t leave a print like that. It had to have been dug, a red herring to set them off track with what really was going on. “What’s that?” He heard Hayley asked, catching his attention.

“Oh, a photograph of something we found at the Johnson farm,” Henderson answered. Hayley, with a curious look on her face, set the coffee mug down on the end table beside her, she stood up from the couch and stepped up beside him. Her eyes widened, looking down at the photo in his hand.

“Oh my God, is that real?” She asked.

“No, I think it was just some red herring to set us off track from what we wanted to do.”

“Let me see that,” she ordered, forcibly snatching it out of his fingers. She glared down at it. “How big was this?”

“Like 5 feet in width, why?” Henderson asked.

“Because, if this is a fake, whoever did it really knows what they were doing. It looks almost exactly like a fox print, but WAY too big. Good thing you have the FBI with you. If someone dug this it’d have to be someone who knows a lot about animals, foxes especially. They’d also have to be really good at measurements,” she explained handing the photograph back to him.

Before Henderson could say anything else a loud explosion echoed through the valley. They both leapt in the surprise at the explosion from outside. They stared each other int he eyes. Both their eyes wide, full of terror and confusion. “What the hell was that?!” Henderson asked before rushing to the window. His deputy, along with his men, stood outside their car, staring into the valley below. A pillar of black smoke reached up into the darkening sky. The front screen door flung open, as Henderson rushed out. He stopped on the edge of the cliff, Hayley hurried up behind him. They stared down into the valley below. The sound of a fire engine arose over the valley. Bright orange flames engulfed the library below.

The six of them rushed back to the patrol car and climbed their way in. The car pulled off the driveway on the road, back towards town. A firetruck flashed by ahead of them, rushing towards the burning building. They followed close behind in their patrol car. Henderson reached for the dashboard and flipped on the police emergency lights. A flash of red and blue emitted from the roof of the patrol car, showing a display of red, blue, and bright white lights. A loud siren arose over the forest. Within a few moments they pulled up to the source of the smoke.

The library laid as a pile of ruble between two houses, untouched by the fire. One of the firemen stepped out from the firetruck. He picked a sparking wire up from the sidewalk. The wire led up to the power lines towering above. “Looks like an electrical fire to me.” He stated. Henderson stepped out of the patrol car behind him. He looked into the ruble of the library in front of him. He knew the fire wasn’t really a electrical fire. Queens DID know something, something the government didn’t want him to know. The thing that costed his life in the end, The truth...