Chapter 2: What lurks in the shadows.
Waking up with a hangover sucks. Especially when your then reminded of the horrible mistake of your life that occured before the drinking. It all adds up to become a shitstorm that repeatedly slaps you in the face with a wet sock.
I tried so hard to get up but I just had no strength in me, I had a migraine with the force of an oil rig drill, along with the fatigue of a marathon runner. To say that I looked like a 25 year old dumpster fire would be a insult to the fire.
"Ugh dude what the hell happened last night? Why is my head pounding like a sailor on shoreleave?" Johnny asked which made me chuckle but I soon regretted it as me moving like that tossed the boat around way to much in my stomach and my body took over as I jumped up and with a hand over my mouth I firehosed his living room. The hand only turned out to be a funnel in which I could direct the noxious bile.
"HURGH oh fuck that's not HURGH." Johnny started to speak but soon turned around and ran for his bathroom and before long I soon heard the same sounds I was making.
I felt bad for doing that but that just added to the pile of complaints my body had at the moment. It took me and him a solid hour just of either hurling or resting in between.
"This is bad man, not only did you redecorate my living room but you damn near turned my place into a toxic waste dump with the smell alone. So how about I leave before I puke again, go get some breakfast and coffee, and you can clean up your mess sound good?" Before I could answer he was already out the door while putting on a clean t-shirt and spraying some cologne.
I could only sigh as I forced myself to get up and acrobat my way over to the windows to open them. It didn't do much exept allow the wind to blow through the house and take away some of the humidity.
Before turning away from the open window I noticed something, A scratch going down the window right in the center. I looked outside on the ground to see if maybe something had dropped from maybe a nearby tree or maybe was thrown but the ground just outside was clean. There were no trees near the window for a branch to possibly do that, but what I did see made me rub my eyes a few times in the hope that it was just my hangover playing tricks on me.
What was there caught in the brush below the window was a pretty large tuft of hair. and in front of that was a couple of footprints... well better yet I would say they looked like animal tracks. From watching the discovery channel alot I had a basic knowledge on what prints were around urban areas, and this was most definitely not a mountain lion or bear or any kind of animal that was supposed to be in my neck of the woods.
These were large wolf prints. I mean big like my foot only measured up to about 3/4ths and I wear 13 sized shoes. I whipped out my phone to take a picture but it was dead, which that took my mind off the bizarre tracks and reminded me that I still had a living room of vomit to clean.
"UGH, just shoot me now." I said outloud to the world as I walked back in to hurry up and clean before Johnny came back. I threw my phone on one of his chargers and grabbed a mop to get to work.
It took me an hour before I heard Johnny pull up and open the door. Thankfully I had gotten the worst of it out of the way and the smell was a bit more bearable now.
As he walked in he flinched from the smell. "Good god, did your insides die last night? that smells worse than this morning man."
"Shutup, It only smells like that because you've been gone. It's way better than it used to be, did you bring me coffee like you said you would?"
"Yea yea here, Extra sugar and cream just like ya like it."
"Sweet." I said before taking the first sip and enjoying the feeling of soul nourishing splendance of that first sip in the morning.
"Your an idiot, Let's hurry this up, I wanna go check out what was in the woods last night."
That reminded me of what I saw earlier.
"Mmm, oh yea I gotta show you something come with me." I waved to him to follow me as I showed him the weird stuff by the window along with the scratch that was on the window itself.
"Hmm, that's weird, do you think a mountain lion or a bear came up to the house in our sleep? That's pretty scary to think of, maybe we should let the police know."
"I mean yea we could, but I should tell ya that these are the tracks of the animals around here. These are wolf tracks man, they are canine tracks atleast. Plus look at this tuft of hair in the bushes and the scratch mark, I'd say whatever it was, was leaning over this bush and actually looking inside the house."
As I said that I realized where the window looked in on... It was the couch where I had crashed out on last night. If I lined up the scratch mark to the couch then it would go across exactly where my head would have been at. As shiver ran down my spine as my mind took over and started coming up with horrible things that lurked in the darkness and ate men without knowing what happened.
"Dude, quit being such a scatterbrain, You watch all this stuff and now you think you are some master tracker? Let's just call the police or better yet animal control and get them out here. They would know better than a couch potato like you."
Taking a deep breath to calm down I nodded. "Yea, I guess your right. Haha man ya gotta admit without me knowing all this useless knowledge you would be bored."
"I'm bored just looking at your dumb face. Now let's go clean up the rest of your puke before the people get here."
It took a few hours before the Animal control guys got to the house but by that time we had everything cleaned up and I had taken pictures of the area just to have proof in case something were to happen to the scene.
A utility truck pulled up with the words ANIMAL CONTROL decal on the side in big blue and gold lettering. It had a few cages along with a big one in the back. Out of the truck stepped two men who wore matching grey Jumpsuit with the names Tony, and Paul written on them. As they got closer I saw that what looked like bulging areas on their suits were actually padded spots, I guess to help protect in case of some of the more dangerous animals.
"Hey, are you the guys who called about the animal prints outside your window?" The man called Tony asked.
"Yea, that's me, I'm the owner of the place. My friend here was cleaning up after a hangover and saw some weird tracks just outside this living room window over here." Johnny and me then led the men over toward the window and I showed them the pictures of where the hair was and the foot prints. They first saw the window with the scratch mark before we even got over there and I saw as Paul got a quick look of worry on his face.
Tony squatted down to get a good look at the paw print and before long he rose back up and pulled out a phone and tapped a few numbers and letting it ring while on speaker.
"Hey Tony, hows that call about that wild animal going?" A female voice asked over the phone.
"Yea, Uh Christine? Why don't ya go ahead and call over to Jack and Robby, have em meet us over here. I think we got a possible large canine. I'd say it was a wolf but I haven't heard of anything, and the zoo hasn't reported any missing animals have they?"
"No sir they haven't, let me go ahead and call the other guys then I'll call the zoo."
"Sounds good, thanks Christine."
He hung up the phone and then looked at us.
"Well, guys? It looks like we have a possible predator within city limits. I'm calling over a couple guys and they are gonna do a quick sweep of the area and look for other signs. If the search comes up positive then we will move forward with tracking it down. But it could take a few days until that happens, so in the meantime why don't you guy head out and go grab some food or something? We will take some more pictures and get back to ya when we leave, The office has your number right?"
"Yea I left it with the lady over the phone. Um do you guys think it's dangerous to stay here until you catch whatever it is? I mean it was looking right at where I was sleeping last night?" I asked with a bit of a shaky voice. I was honestly scared at the idea of something watching me while I slept but what scared me more is that besided these prints.... nothing else was around. No other prints leading off somewhere else was seen.
"I assure you sir, if it's hostile to human life we will catch it."
They went back to their trucks to wait for the other team and me and Johnny left to go eat and get our minds off the possibilities.
It was late at night and me and Johnny were at a bar hanging out with our other friend Blake before we got a call from the Animal control people.
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"Yes sir the two civilians have left the property..... No sir other than the hair, the prints, and the scratch, nothing else was found... Yes sir, we are conducting a search now. Team 1 is on site and Team 2 is heading into the woods nearby as we speak..... Yes sir, Hourly reports as usual." Tony then hung up the phone.
"What does the boss want?" Paul asked.
"Same ol' same ol'. He wants hourly reports called in and any signs of the shifters activities covered up."
"You know we are going to find the missing people right? What do we tell the guys who called it in?"
"We will say that we found evidence of a feeding site but nothing substantial. We will just give them the basic bullshit."
"Sounds good.... Now let's go eat I'm starving."
The two men in the utitity truck was then seen driving down the street.
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