ZOOTOPIA: THE CALL FOR FREEDOM

Chapter 10 A MATTER OF TIME AND DEATH PART 2

Meanwhile, in another part of Zootopia, a familiar, gray, female ZPD officer was driving along in her ZPD cruiser. This officer was none other than Judy Hopps!

After being informed of what had happened the day before with that wolf and Nick Wilde having escaped, Judy Hopps was more than happy to accept the task of finding them and bringing them to justice when Chief Bogo had ordered her to do so. But after hearing about how that wolf and Nick Wilde had managed to escape the ZPD, Judy knew that she couldn't underestimate either of those two.

Judy had managed to get some leads from some prey animals, who had informed her that they had seen a ZPD armored prison transport truck that had matched the description that the ZPD had told them to keep an eye out for that had seemed very suspicious. From this, Judy now found herself at a familiar gas station, which was the same one that Kane and Nick had been at yesterday!

Judy looked around the outside first and then found the prison transport truck behind the gas station. But she found that there was no one there and that the only thing there was there was the discarded muzzle that Nick had been forced to wear after being arrested yesterday.

Judy cringed at this, knowing that this could only mean that Nick was no longer wearing it and he and that wolf were going around doing who knows what. Still, Judy had a job to do and she called and reported this to Bogo.

"Well, at least we know what became of that truck now," Judy heard Bogo's voice on her phone. "Now, look around and see if you can find any clues that can help us find that stupid wolf and Nick Wilde!"

Judy then went inside the gas station and saw the male deer cashier at the front counter. Judy went up to him.

"Hello, sir!" Judy greeted the male deer cashier. "I'm officer Judy Hopps of the ZPD. Have you seen a wolf and a red fox called Nick Wilde here?"

The deer cashier didn't say anything and just stared at Judy. "Sir, not to be rude, but I just asked you a question," Judy Hopps said, but the deer cashier still didn't speak.

The deer cashier wanted to say something, but he couldn't. This is because Kane had done things to him that had really messed him up in his head.

Kane done these things in a way that they only bothered him when he talked about Kane or Nick Wilde. The deer didn't like how these things made him feel and so, this is what had prevented him from reporting what he knew about Kane and Nick Wilde to the ZPD before.

"Sir, you must say something! this is a serious matter!" Judy Hopps warned the deer cashier as she pulled out her pawcuffs. "If you don't say anything, I'm going to have to take you down to the station for interrogation. Don't think of lying to me either as I saw the prison transport truck at the back of this gas station and-"

Suddenly, the deer cashier, unable to take this anymore, grabbed a gun that he had on him and aimed it at his head. The deer cashier knew that he would surely crack by the ZPD's attempts to interrogate him at the station and then he would be filled with those terrible feelings of unbearable pain and dread that he wished to not experience ever again!

He would do anything to never experience that kind of pain and dread again! For him, there was only one way to do so!

Seeing what the deer cashier was about to do, Judy gasped and tried to stop him, but it was too late! The deer cashier pulled the trigger and his head was blown to bits and he was killed instantly!

Judy stared in horror and disgust as she looked at the lifeless deer cashier's bloody remains! She then rushed to gas station's bathroom and threw up in the toilet.

Once relieving herself, she went outside the gas station, called Chief Bogo and informed him of what had happened. Chief Bogo told her that he would send some officers to investigate the area and for some medics to come and take away the deer cashier's body.

It took Judy half an hour to get over what had just happened before she then slowly began to make her way back to her ZPD cruiser. But before she could reach her vehicle, she then noticed that aside from that prison transport truck in the back, there were no other cars parked at the gas station.

For Judy, this was odd as she knew that there were no houses nearby and it was too far to walk and the deer cashier must've had some means of transportation to get to his job and his home and back. She then asked some nearby prey bystanders if they knew anything.

One prey animal, a female cow, told her that she and some other people had seen the prison transport drive over to that gas station and park there and that the wolf and Nick Wilde had both come out of it and it was the wolf who had taken the muzzle off of Nick before they both went inside that gas station. She went on to say that she had heard some noise coming from inside there, but she had been too scared to go inside and investigate or even say a word about what had happened when the wolf had come back out having stolen a bunch of stuff from the gas station and put it into the deer's car. She then concluded that a bit later, she had seen the wolf and Nick get into the deer cashier's car and drive away in it from the gas station.

Judy had asked the cow if she had seen the license plate number on the car and she nodded. The cow showed Judy a picture she had taken of the license plate number on the car and Judy quickly wrote it down on a paper with her carrot pen.

"Thanks for your time! This will be a big help to me and the ZPD!" Judy thanked the cow lady before she got back into her vehicle and drove off.

What Judy and everyone else had failed to notice was that hidden in the dumpster in the back of the gas station, was the dead, bloodied and lifeless corpse of the gas station's moose manager, whom Kane Karter had stabbed to death with his own horns and killed yesterday!