Come Home

Roxee

"You're getting fat Conner."

"Urgg," the beat and bruised man moaned.

"You can't keep relying on your big sister to save you every time you get in a mess."

"I didn't get in a mess I was attacked. I appreciate your compassion Rox."

"Maybe you should have been paying attention to your surroundings."

"You know what, I can get home on my own." He made it 3 feet before his knees gave out and he was on the ground.

"On your own huh? Well, you seem to have this under control, I'll see you at the house."

With a loud groan, Conner got onto his hands and knees and began crawling home. An hour later he made it to the edge of the property and was met by Fredrick.

"You had to insult her didn't you?" he laughed. Leaning down, Fredrick helped Conner off the ground and acted as a crutch as they walked into the house.

Silently laughing, I walked back into the forest to figure out what had happened to Conner. A mile away from the highway, I saw signs of a struggle; scratched trunks, snapped branches, leaves with small blood spatters. Following the trail of disturbances, I found more blood and pieces of clothing and fur and soon, a foul odor hit my senses. It was light at first, but as I kept going it became almost overbearing.

I'm startled by a movement in the brush ahead and jump behind a tree to poke my head out to observe. A long brown nose appeared out of the bushes and sniffed the air. Realizing it could probably smell me, I started to back away from the area slowly until it felt comfortable coming out. The nose was soon followed by a large, fur-covered face and the chubby brown body of a bear. He's practically covered in blood and a piece of clothing is stuck to the fur on his face. Once he had completely left the bushes, it only took a few minutes for the bear to wander off deeper into the woods and out of sight. Slowly, I approached the bushes until I'm directly in front of them. Pushing through, I'm led into the small opening by the stench of blood and it doesn't take long for me to find the source of the foul odor. A corpse is lying on it's back in the middle of the opening with large paw prints on his chest and blood surrounding his mouth. His clothing looks ragged, but I don't think that was the bear's doing. To his right is a pile of black fur and past that was a tree with faint blood scrapes and ripped t-shirt material on it.

Approaching the man, I check him for any form of identification but find nothing but a set of car keys. A few feet away from the body behind a tree, I discover a cell phone and a circular device that swashes around when I move it. Doing one final sweep of the area, I headed back to the house and let Fredrick know that I found some things. Sending me to Conner's room, he tells me he'll join us when he's done interrogating the girl.

"How was the walk home?" I ask the moment I enter Connor's room.

"I know you were in the shadows laughing at me."

"I didn't laugh until you got home safely Conner," I said rolling my eyes as I sat down next to him on his bed.

"Gee, thanks for your consideration. That really makes up for the fact that you let me crawl home after being attacked."

"Hey, you said you didn't need me so I let you prove yourself right."

"Did you at least figure out what happened?"

"Well, it looked like either the man or a bear attacked you and the other intervened for some reason. The bear was just leaving when I got to the area where the attack must have happened but I'm not sure why he was still there."

"I'm thinking the man drugged me and maybe managed to do the same thing to the bear?"

"There weren't any syringes or anything like that around the area that I saw. I did find this weird device that could be a sedative administrator, I suppose. Fredrick should take a look at it before one of us breaks it though. What do you remember?"