fire watch - episode 003 - The Delilah fire mystery

part 20 The tower break in

They began walking together.
As they walked, Tom asked "are you sure you're okay?" she nodded "Yeah, I'm fine, my nose just really hurts... I'm sorry if I scared you back there, it's just... how do I explain this, I've had a lot of anger in me for a long time, and it didn't feel good to get any of it out, it just feels exactly the same" Tom nodded "I can understand that, I felt the same way when I came back from the army, it felt like I went to the war without anger and no matter what I did it never went away, and came back with it, however you need to find some way to control that anger because you can't fight people, it won't help" "I will try to, I think I'll do that through art, I don't want to fight anyone ever again, it just doesn't help, but I feel like this is going to bite me in the arse somehow, I just don't know how yet"
They got back at the tower.
When they were close, Delilah had made her nose stop bleeding. She looked up at the tower then frowned. Tom looked at her "what are you frowning at? Are you okay?" she pointed "look, the light is on in the tower" he looked in his area of the tower seeing the light was indeed on, he frowned "okay, so?" "Well, I turned it off I swear on my life I turned it off, I always turn it off before we leave" Tom looked a little scared, but he tried not to because if he's scared then Delilah would be scared, and he didn't want that to happen "Delilah, stay behind me and be ready for anything" "why?" asked Delilah with a small shake in her voice still looking at the tower "just, trust me, I was in the army and after being in the army, you have no idea what to expect, so we need to be very careful"
They went slowly up the stairs.
Oswin radioed "what's going on?" Delilah grabbed the radio "shh" Oswin whispered "what?" "We think someone is in our tower right now" "oh shit, well go have a look and if anything bad happens, then please tell me your full names it would be a little strange to just write Tom and Delilah" Delilah frowned "write Tom and Delilah on what? What are you talking about?" "Oh your tombstones" Tom nodded still looking worried "thanks, Oswin you're the best, and my name is Tom Carter, Delilah is Delilah Amoura Carter" "wow, nice names, do you not have a middle name" "no, I don't" Oswin replied "neither do I, I couldn't afford one" Delilah sounded a little more worried "guys can we get back to the fact someone might be in our tower right now" Oswin agreed "yeah, sorry just trying to lighten the tension a little" "that's fair" they finally got to the room. Tom kicked the door open looking around seeing no one was inside, however the room as torn to shreds. Sheets were pulled off the bed, the desk was overturned, books and food were thrown everywhere even on Delilah's level her paper and pencils were on the ground outside. Her laptop had been opened, but she had a password because she wasn't an idiot, so the person couldn't get in. Tom seemed angry "what the fuck happened in here?!" Delilah looked around asking "why would someone do this? What for?"
They radioed Oswin saying.
"Some fucker broke into the tower and just fucking wrecked the place like everything is everywhere!" "Wait, really?! What the fuck?! Okay, do you have any ideas of who could've done this?" Delilah replied "well, those girls at the lake, they could've done it" Oswin thought for a second then replied "okay, wait let's think about the facts and evidence here, the way they ran off from you, in my opinion there's no way in living hell they could've got to the tower and wrecked both rooms and escaped in that time even if they managed to run at peek Zurm speed it's just not possible for them to have got there, you would've got back way before then. Someone else must have done it while you were down there, meaning they were probably watching you from the bottom waiting for you to leave, but why would someone do something like this? Do you think there are other campers out there you may have pissed off for any reason? There must be something"
They thought for a moment.
Delilah eventually said "maybe that man we saw on the mountain a few weeks back, remember? I don't know why, but he came into my head, possibly he watched us and wanted something here, I mean looking around it looks like someone was looking for something" Oswin paused thinking "oh yeah, okay, I remember now, no one managed to find anyone like that, so maybe they are out in the woods still. Okay, I will put out a 9-17 on any man in the woods and have him questions. I'll also put out a 10-13 on those girls because we need to find them. Are you both okay?" Tom nodded "yeah, we're fine. Could you just remind me real quick, what do those call out numbers mean?" "Well, basically a 9-17 is an unidentified person out there, and a 10-13 is a combative person walking around. Now how are you feeling?" "We're okay, it's just figuring out why this happened to begin with" "yeah, and we'll figure it out, trust me, I want you to feel safe out here, I really do"
Tom smiled radioing back.
"yeah, well just point me to the nearest gun closest and 15 hundred cases of ammo, and I'll be safer than the Pope in his little car" "yeah, not a good idea. A few years ago the forest service got rid of all guns in the forest" Delilah frowned asking "why?" "They figured giving someone infinite amounts of alone time and a gun... not the best idea, but I can get a gun if needed but only in emergences like if a serial killer is on the loose or something like that, of course only I know where the gun is, the forest service don't even know that it exists" Tom smiled "what about grenades?" "I'll see what I can do. For now clean up everything and go to sleep, it's been a hard day on the both of you" they started cleaning everything, Delilah was looking through the cupboards looking worried "this just isn't adding up, the facts are contradicting themselves" Tom looked at her "how?" "Well it looks like the person who did this was looking for something, they tore this place apart to find it however nothing is missing, and why leave the light on?" "Maybe they saw how broken everything was and figured it was pointless to turn it off if it's like this" "yeah good point, but why do this? What was the person looking for" "I don't know the important thing is they didn't find it" "we hope" when everything was tidy they went to sleep not feeling as safe as before locking their doors just in case. Delilah looked out the window for hours before falling asleep, although it was dark she could have sworn she could see things moving outside, her mind didn't immediately go to trees because she was paranoid.
The next day it was day 65.
They both started looking for people who could have done it however they got nowhere. Because they were out in the middle of nowhere they didn't have cameras, and they had no evidence of who it could be, so there was nothing they could do. However, Oswin decided her area was safe, so she decided she would help them, it was mainly just walking around asking people if they saw anyone because there wasn't much else to do. They actually had a lot of fun just exploring the forest. While they were walking around looking, Oswin said "okay, I have a list of every single person who has entered and none of them fit the description you have of the man on the hill and who might have done it to your tower, so we haven't got anywhere with that. However, they're still looking for the women, we managed to figure out their names. They are called Lily and Echo, they have been seen however that was before they assaulted Delilah, they were causing a lot of problems before that, so they were already looking for them; all they have to do is find them and arrest them, it won't take long, they're not exactly trying to hide" Tom mentioned "we didn't really give you a detailed description of the man we saw, how would they find him?" "Well, you said a man who was tall and strong, and no one like that has been here alone for over a year" Delilah said "well, maybe they've been here for a while" "maybe, I could maybe get a list that goes further back, but we better get back to the towers, beers and wolves will come out at night, and they love to randomly kill hikers" Tom nodded "yeah, we really don't want to end up on the wrong side of an angry bear" Oswin agreed "yeah coming from experience I can tell you no one should deal with a bear there is basically no survival, it's so fucking dangerous" Tom nodded "well yeah it's a bear, people who think they can fight them are morons" "people have come out here before thinking they can fight a bear, someone actually died right in front of me thinking they could fight it" Delilah looked disgusted "Jesus that must have been horrible" "it really was, we were standing about 50 feet above, yelling for the man not to do it, the man punched the bear in the face, so it pushed him down put its jaws around his head, and it honestly looked like if you put a watermelon in a hydraulic press and turn it on just crushing it so easily, and then he was dead" "Jesus Christ"