Fighting Harvest

Chapter Seventeen

What happened that night left a lasting mark on everyone that was involved, Starting with Jamie. When Jamie was given Clyde's phone and was tasked with calling the police, they did, but with their habit of rambling on it did take a while for police to understand the severity of the situation.

Jamie explained to the operator on the other end of the 911 call that they were simply out collecting snails for their soon-to-be snail farm. Exploring the woods late at night wasn't their brightest moment, but they did stumble across an abandoned building that was riddled with bear traps, explaining this to the operator did raise some concern, but Jamie continued their story. They had left for their safety and planned to go home, but stopped when they found Clyde entering a bar, and like a good kid, Jamie waited outside for them since telling the two detectives about their finding sounded like a good option. When the two confronted them, they explained everything they found and convinced the two to follow them into the woods to find this abandoned place, almost getting impaled by a makeshift trap in the process. Clyde took it upon himself to guide Jamie to safety as Anthony went deeper into the woods, finally concluding with the reason as to why they were calling 911 in the first place... Anthony and Clyde were in trouble.

With this information finally revealed, the operator sent out police to find where the two had gone, eventually needing armored vehicles to travel through the thick forest and a helicopter to guide them from above.

What the police found in the abandoned factory was quite puzzling, but together created a confusing story involving a strange mastermind.

The police detained the fighters who all expressed confusion as to why they were there, some admitting to killing their opponents but a few denied any possible claims of murder since they were unable to remember, but the evidence was clear that each fighter was guilty to some degree or another.

The fighters weren't the only ones caught, as onlookers were also questioned for their reasoning for being there, most answering with wanting to watch a show someone was putting on, some confessed to betting on the fighters like pawns, and a few ignored every question thrown their way only to be silent.

Lastly, the guards were soon detained as most of them were starved or held in major trauma, either physically or mentally. They seemed to only talk about a man named Hypno and how he was the one in control here, that they couldn't leave nor wanted to leave due to Hypno keeping them there.

Everything just seemed so odd, with every person they came across here telling a story they either forgot or made no logical sense, but the people weren't the only thing wrong with this place. The building itself wasn't all correct.

This place used to function as a factory, but since it was shut down and abandoned, someone renovated a majority of the place to shelter themselves and others. The main entrance looked to be a large storage room leading to many alternate pathways, but only a handful led to anything worth mentioning. Of course, the painted door that says 'enter' led to the viewing hall which overlooked the fighting ring, and another door led to a backstage area that possibly held the fighters before they were taken to the ring to fight. A few other paths simply connected to different parts of the factory, some in use but most led to dead ends or debris.

The viewing hall looked to be well decorated and also presented other branching pathways, which included the announcement booth. The booth reeked of chemical waste as exploring it gave officers major headaches and uncomfortable nausea, but within held nothing of use besides the many microphones and scribbled notes of fighter's names.

Alternative hallways led to many different rooms, which included a decently sized bedroom that had green and purple paint splattered everywhere, stickers even decorated the walls, and a queen-sized messy bed was also found in this room. A smaller bedroom was found that contained a twin-size mattress on the floor and books scattered around, ranging from cookbooks to simple stories, some pages were even ripped out and drawn on with pen but the images were unclear and told no narrative. A large near-empty room was also found, littered with twin mattresses all over the ground as blood stained the moldy wooden floor, this possibly held the starving guards since they had stated that they weren't allowed to leave.

Other than bedrooms, authorities found a disgusting-looking kitchen that contained leftover ingredients and human meat. From the looks of things, it seems like the person running this place was imprisoning, brainwashing, and feeding human meat to anyone unfortunate enough to stay there. Running illegal fighting shows to the rich who would more than likely keep their mouths shut, and the losers of said fights were reused in food to serve the rich and those imprisoned here.

This place was a nightmare to everyone involved, but Hypno was nowhere to be seen, as the only other things the officers found were Anthony's severed leg, the two injured detectives, Harold's dead body, and a dead officer.

As for Anthony and Clyde, they had been rushed to the hospital as soon as possible, being treated for their wounds. Anthony more so than Clyde.

Clyde was given stitches for the gash in his cheek, while Anthony had to undergo surgery to remove the infected flesh and muscle his amputated leg had, cleaning up his wound before bandaging it completely. Clyde was released from the hospital not even a day later, although Anthony was forced to stay due to his declined health, needing to be monitored as much as possible to ensure a safe recovery.

Clyde tried to stay by his friend as much as possible, but with his aged parents back at home, he couldn't spend all his time with Anthony. So during the day, Clyde would stay with his parents to help his brother take care of them, and then he would sleep at the hospital with Anthony who didn't mind the company. Anthony enjoyed the time he spent with Clyde during his stay there.

It took a week until Anthony was released, but a new problem arose. Anthony was unable to live on his own, as his apartment was situated on the second floor with no alternative way to reach it without using the stairs, and with his newly missing leg, it was impossible to live on his own. Clyde, being a compassionate guy, invited Anthony to stay at his house with his family, which Anthony reluctantly agreed to.

The house was quite small, containing a master bedroom that Clyde's parents lived in, a second bedroom his older brother stayed in, Clyde occupying the cramped office he turned into a bedroom, and Anthony taking up the living room's recliner. With Clyde and his brother's help, Anthony was well cared for, despite his stubborn pleas to do things on his own, only using crutches to get around from place to place since using a wheelchair seemed humiliating to Anthony.

Clyde continued to work as a detective, being promoted from an assistant to a full-time detective, supporting the family's funds greatly as Anthony was unable to work at this moment in time, leaving him useless.

With the trash bag murders now solved, Anthony and Clyde could sleep easy knowing they made the city a safer place, temporarily. Hypno was still unable to be found, so the looming threat he posed was still on the back of everyone's minds... literally... but this was the end of the case, unsure how many more Anthony and Clyde could solve before their time came.