Late into the night when most of the town was prepping for bed, Debrah was pacing back and forth in her house, chewing the nails on one hand while the other one was clutching or scratching at her head. She was anxious about something, her eyes darting from side to side as she mumbled and whispered to herself. Finally, she stopped by a short dresser and looked at herself in the mirror, leaning close. "What should I do?" She asked herself. She leaned closer, her hands placed flatly in front of her for leverage. She examined her teeth, opening her mouth and tilting her head from side to side. A slow growl began to leave her mouth as she clenched her teeth until finally, she shouted in frustration, digging her nails into the dresser and leaving long scratch marks as she pulled away from the mirror.
She was panting for a moment before collecting herself and sighing, a solemn expression gracing her face. With no other words, she left the house, locking the door behind her and leaving the house in silence.
The next day, Ty was enjoying the peaceful morning in his room with some shows, happy that he hadn't awoken to a hot flash or nausea like usual. Eventually, he was joined by Abby who walked in with some breakfast. She was happy too, especially because Ty was doing better. "Not feeling sick today?"
"Nope. I guess the worst has come to pass, huh?" She nodded and the two ate together, watching the T.V. When a commercial would come on, Ty would browse for something else to watch in the mean time.
As a gameshow the two had been into went on break, he started browsing again until something caught Abby's eye. "Wait, wait, go back!" Ty did so and stopped on the news channel where the anchor man was speaking.
"...as of this morning, a protest broke out in front of the towns prison where the beast is being held. The protest started out peaceful but turned violent as it was divided down the middle, one half crying for the rights of the beast to be treated and not studied and the other demanding that the beast be killed off." The screen changed, showing the live footage of a group of people fighting. It almost looked like a mosh pit with objects being thrown around and all kinds of screaming and shouting being heard.
"Security tried to break up the fights but were unfortunately pulled into them, causing for the police to be called upon and try to put things under control." The anchor-woman next to the previous man said, her face solemn. Now the camera showed several of the cops pulling people away from each other, handcuffing several, and calming things down. Brandon appeared on screen, pushing a man in his thirties away from a woman who was screaming all kinds of curses at him. The cop in training ordered both to stop what they were doing, his arms outstretched to the sides to keep the two from getting close. He pulled out his radio to call in for more help to control and assist further. A battle cry was then heard as a third person from behind Brandon forcefully shoved him and sent him falling face first into the camera, at which point the screen just showed fuzz and static.
"How unfortunate. It would seem that our cameraman, David, had a young officer in training thrown at him, breaking his camera and injuring both him and the officer. Updates will be given as soon as possible." The woman continued, her and her co-worker looking at each other with wide eyes. The anchor man then cleared his throat and said quickly "For now, onto Becky with the weather forecast." On command, it switched to a young woman telling of the weather for the following week and weekend.
Abby shot up, staring at the T.V. in disbelief. "Can you believe this Ty?! People are fighting over what should happen to the beast and hurting each other over the disagreement! What...?" She sounded like she just couldn't understand what was happening.
"They're so violent. Don't they understand that they're not helping the situation either way?" Ty wondered, looking down at the ground. "If anything, they're making it worse for the police force and everyone else working at the prison." He looked up at Abby who was now tapping her chin with an unreadable look in place. "What's wrong?"
"I...I have a sneaking suspicion, a gut feeling, that this," She gestured to the T.V. that was now muted. "was started by somebody and not just anybody." At this, she headed to the door. "I'm going to go find out if my suspicion is right. I'll be back later Ty." With that statement, she closed the door and left, leaving Ty alone. He sighed and unmuted the T.V. where the weather woman was finishing up her segment.
"...and for any of you young kids out there who were planning to go trick or treating this year, I have some bad news for you. Unfortunately, this Halloween will be spent indoors since it will be showering all weekend, ranging from a light drizzle to a heavy downpour all until Tuesday of next week."
"Oh, what!" Ty almost shouted. He hadn't planned to go anywhere anyway, since Naomi was coming to his home, but raining on Halloween was just unheard of and awful. How was anybody supposed to go trick or treating? He sighed and changed the channel where it now showed that the game show was back from commercial. "Well, at least everyone at school has the option of going to Paige's party which will be inside...hopefully."
Abby arrived at the prison suited up, now able to see many people were being sent away or taken in by the cops, most likely due to violent acts. She scanned the area before she found Brandon leaning against one of the cop cars. He had his face down leaning against one of his hands, looking like he was trying to keep from falling asleep or was bored. "Brandon?" The agent called. He shot up, removing his hand and showing his face which caused Abby to freeze. "Whoa..."
Red and swollen, mostly around the eye, with light bruises already forming and small cuts sprinkled around that side of his face looked terrible and painful. Abby bit her lip, feeling bad for saying anything as she noticed Brandon looking down.
"Yeah, I know. It looks awful. I went face first into the camera and the lens shattered against my face." He turned and looked at his reflection in the window of the cop car. "I mean, at least I have a story to tell my buddies now."
She stepped closer and patted his back gently. "I'm sorry Brandon."
"Eh, don't worry about it. I mean, when I applied for this job, they told me I could get really hurt or killed if we faced any violent situations. This incident just proved them right." He shrugged. "Anyways, what're you doing here? This isn't anything related to your field of work."
"Well, I saw this happening on the news this morning and I have an idea of why this started. I feel as though someone may have spread word about the beast being mistreated and caused a dispute between the half that wants it dead and the half that doesn't." Abby frowned, rubbing her arm. "Questioning usually requires two people and since my partner is still down, I came to ask you to come with me."
Brandon gave a thoughtful look before nodding. "Yes, I'll come but who do you have in mind?"
"Debra Zonoumie." At the sound of the name, Brandon groaned and rubbed his eyes with a hand. Abby nodded in understanding.
"She's been bugging the police force, right?"
"That's an understatement. She's been asking everyone she can for information that isn't free to the public and demanding that she be allowed to see the beast just because she use to be a zoologist."
"Wait, use to?" Abby said, giving a shocked look.
"Yes." Brandon said. "Look, I'll explain on the way to her place. We can do the questioning there."
"You know where she lives?"
"Not by memory but I have a friend who knows how to get it. I'll call him rn." With that, the two were off in his car.
"So why is it that she use to be a zoologist? When she came to see Ty and me, she said she was currently a zoologist."
"Well, I suppose she wasn't lying. She still has everything she needs to be classified as a zoologist. She was just fired from her job because she's a nut case." Brandon explained.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, part of her job was to study certain animal mutations or evolutions that happened in nature. It's a good job but she took it a step further and started experimenting on some of the animal subjects that were held in the facility. She's studied biology along with zoology when it school and had enough knowledge to properly experiment and force mutations on the animals."
"She would experiment on the animals?" Abby asked, a look of disgust on her face. "That's pretty hypocritical of her considering that she came to our house claiming that the police were mistreating the beast. But why did she want to mutate some of the animals?"
At this, Brandon shook his head. "I don't know. I've heard different reasons claiming that she did it to improve on nature and the traits the animals already had or that she did it to create a new type of animal to profit off of or that's she's just some mad scientist who did it to see if she could. Either way, when she was discovered, she was fired on the spot and had her reputation just destroyed. As far as I know, no other animal facility will hire her."
"Wow, that's pretty creepy." Abby shuddered. Brandon nodded and the rest of the trip was driven in silence.
When the two arrived at the address given to them by Brandon's friend, they were both pretty impressed. She lived in a very nice house, most likely due to her previous job. It was a two story, nicely decorated and in a neighborhood that kids would go to just to get the full size candy bars. The lawn was nicely kept with lovely flower bushes that would make Petunia envious and inspired all at once and cute lawn ornaments.
"Hmm, you know, if I imagined what kind of place a person that sounded like Debrah lived in, I wouldn't imagine this. It's so lovely." Abby said and Brandon agreed, picking up a small lawn gnome that had been to his side.
"Yeah, but at the same time, she's not just a complete mad person. I'm sure she is partially normal, hopefully." He then approached the door and knocked loudly. "Hello!" He called. "Debrah Zonoumie, we have some questions for you!" There was no answer. Abby huffed, annoyed.
"Here, I got this." She said, stepping back and raising her leg, ready to kick the door in.
"Wait!" She was stopped by Brandon jumping in front of her and grabbing her leg. "We don't have a warrant to get in there! If we cause damage and break in, we'll be the ones to get locked up in a jail cell!"
"But how are we going to get in then?" The grossologist pulled her leg away, frowning.
"We'd have to have a proper cause or a warrant!" Brandon explained. "Look, she's just not home right now. We can return later on and question her then." Abby sighed and nodded. The two climbed back into the car and left the house.
"Oh, by the way, now that the beast is caught, are you going to be going to Paige's party?" Abby asked, remembering how previously, he'd been upset about not being allowed the day off.
"Yup." Brandon said with a big smile. "Since I was the one that caught the beast, they granted me the day off as soon as I asked. And now I get to party!" He pumped his fist happily.
"That's great. What are you going to be dressed up as?"
"A cop." He smirked. "Nothing scarier to a party than a cop arriving on scene. It'll be fun at first scaring people and then I'll just continue partying like everyone else." Abby laughed, already imagining how many people would freak out at the sight of a cop busting in to the party.
"I'm sure it will be fun." Now, back at the prison, Brandon met up and reported to his mentor about where he'd taken the car.
"Sorry sir. I was informed about another out-break of a fight but it stopped before I arrived so I came back." A lie but a small one. He hadn't been gone long and they didn't find anything so why tell that story.
"It's alright Brandon. We're done here anyways so we're going to head back to the station. Does your friend need a ride?" Abby shook her head.
"No thank you sir. I'm fine."
"Alright then." With that, Brandon and the officer drove off and Abby began her walk back to the gag lab. She could use this personal time to think.
Authors Notes: Thank you everyone for your patience with this story. My updates are slow because motivation and inspiration for this story are fickle, not to mention I don't always have time. But I appreciate all your reviews and feedback and do hope you enjoy. Thank you.