Chapter 32: why do bad things happen to good people?

We all went shopping at the supercenter on Saturday. John needed clothes for school on Monday, so we all bought clothes, we had fun doing it. Elisabeth got a few fancy dresses to show off to John. We gave the supercenter conniptions; they had several people watching us, all the shifty foxes in the store. They confronted us after about ten minutes. The management blanched when dad, mom, Genie, Susan, and I show our badges and threaten them with a discrimination lawsuit. We were left alone, but they still watched us from a distance.

We have gotten no further at finding Carl; it's like he fell off the face of the earth. None of the serial numbers for the bills have surfaced; what's he doing with the money? by our estimates, he has over fifteen million dollars. We recovered just over five-million dollars from all the robbers. We found out that there was only going to be one more job, then the robbers were going to disappear. They all thought they had enough to live out the rest of their lives in comfort.

The bike patrols went well; they teamed the "grounders" with the "flyers," which worked out well. The first chase that happened was caught on camera and played on media outlets. The overall chase count went down dramatically. With one watching from the sky, how could they possibly get away? After watching the video, most when the cops put on their lights, just pulled over and took their lumps.

Come Monday, Elisabeth and John just walked to school; they bantered back and forth but knew better than to do public displays of affection. But there were several who watched them closely. One watched them from a distance, with a stern look in his eyes. After they had gone by, he dials his phone and speaks softly to the person on the other end.

John fits right in with school work, his knowledge was given to him from Elisabeth, and she had been hiding the fact she didn't need to go to school, she could have passed her grade twelve, but she didn't know what to do with her life, so she went to school till she could figure it out. On the other hand, John was the teacher's pet; he had the correct answer for every question asked. Eventually, they stopped asking him and moved on to the weaker ones.

Later on, Friday, as they're walking home, they are confronted by three individuals who came out of the alley. "Well, what we have here, boys, the freak, and the teacher's pet." "Dudley Bearsden, what do you want"? The brown bear and his wolf buddies sneer at her. "Why freak, why don't I pull your ears off? That would improve your looks." "Just try it, Dudley; you'll find out how defenseless I am." "Naw, I'm not going to hurt you; he is." He points behind her. Both John and Izzy look, but no one is there. They turn back just as a couple of fists plant into their muzzles. They go down. The two wolves jump on them both and proceed to hit them about the face.

John barks with anger and goes savage on them. He manages to get the wolf off of himself by breaking his arm. He then turns to the one on Izzy. He strikes him and breaks his muzzle. He is ready to go after Dudley when he is tranked. Izzy is tranked as well by the same wolf who had stood up behind them both. They are both lying there when the wolf picks them both up by the scruff of the necks and whispers into their ears, "give my regards to Darwin when you see him." With that, he throws them into the street right in front of a bus.

The bus slams into them, and they fall and are rolled under the bus. Both their arms and tails are broken, there isn't much blood, but they are trapped under the bus. The driver calls 9-11 and gets an ambulance there. He looks under the bus and sees them. He shakes his head and thinks, "they're goners for sure." He looks over to the alley he is beside and sees three wolves running away and a brown bear standing there with his paws to his muzzle and a shocked look on his face. "Hey, you, stay right there." Dudley comes out of his shock, looks at the driver, and turning, starts to run as well.

We are just starting our afternoon patrol; we had switched it up today. We weren't sure why; it just felt right. We feel both John and Izzy scream; I was convinced that anyone in the area heard them as well. Just before the scream stops, we pinpoint it to a couple of blocks away. I hit the lights and siren; Susan hits the accelerator. "ZP-18 to dispatch, 10-17 to the accident scene on dogwood and 10th". "WHAT, how did you know"? ZP-18 contact detectives Wilde and send them over as well". "Roger ZP-18 is there a reason"? "Roger dispatch, our sister Izzy and John have been hurt in an accident." "10-4 ZP-18 sending them now". Susan rounds the corner. We come to a screeching halt in front of the bus. "Dispatch ZP-18, 10-64, two victims, also 10-23, 10-76, and 10-32 for crowd control. "Roger ZP-18".

I run to the front of the bus and look down. I crawl under as far as I can; I can reach them both. Both have a concussion, some broken bones, bruises, cuts, and lacerations. I crawl back out and look at Susan. We can hear the ambulance arrive. We link and pour power into a stand to lift the bus. Susan crawls underneath; with both of us using power, I grab the bus's bumper and lift it. There are gasps from all the people watching. Susan crawls out from under the bus, dragging both John and Izzy. The clapping starts as I drop the bus and collapsed to the ground. The EMS come out of their shock and help both John and Izzy. Susan rolls over to me and gives me enough power to stand; we are both shaking as we stand up. The clapping begins again.

Mom and dad show up as the ambulance drives away. They rush to us. "Daniel, what happened"? "Dad, John, and Izzy were tranked and thrown under the bus." "Your sure they were tranked"? "Dad, I have been tranked enough to be able to feel it; someone just tried to kill my sister and brother. Go, dad, they are on the way to the hospital right now; Susan and I got them out from under the bus". Dad asks us if we're sure we think back, yes. They jump back into their car, and with the lights and siren going, head for the hospital.

We secure the scene and wait for forensics. We take witness statements as we wait. Two other offices show up and do crowd control. While forensics does their job, we search around and find several shops with CCTV cameras that could have possibly seen what happened. All the shop owners gave us copies of their cameras for the last two hours. We note the jam cams in the area. We are as thorough as we possibly could be. When we have all that we can gather, we remove the crime scene tape, thank the bus driver for his patients, and get into our car and drive to the hospital.

"Good evening Zootopia I'm Peter Moosebridge," "and I'm Fabienne Growler Our top story tonight is a question, Does Super mammal exist? We have a shaky video of the impossible. Earlier today, a couple of kits crossing the street were hit by a bus. The driver, when asked, said they flew out of the alley in front of his bus. We believe it's a sketchy story, but that was only part of the story.

As you can see by the video, the attending officers did the impossible, one crawled under the bus and the other one lifted it. We know adrenaline in time of stress can do amazing things, but he lifted the front of a city bus for gosh sake, and he's just a small fox. The other officer then proceeded to drag the victims out from under the bus. He dropped the bus, and proceeded to do his job just like it was nothing to lift a bus".

"Wait a minute Fabienne…. I just received an update" Peter lifts one hoof to his ear. "The kits he lifted the bus off of were his sister and brother. The officer's names are Daniel and Susan Wilde; their parents are Nick and Judy Wilde. Wow, that's a couple of names I haven't heard in a long time. His parents are the cops from the night howler incident. Heroism must run in their family. We wish the family well and hope the kits are not too badly hurt. Now for the rest of the news…".

Susan and I arrive at the hospital; Davis meets us at the emergency entrance; he takes us to a private waiting room. The whole family is in this room. We all get in a pile and hug each other. "Davis, how are they"? "Daniel, I won't lie to you; they're not doing well. They both have broken arms and tails and several deep gashes, but the worst injury was their heads being hit by the bumper. I had to give them several pints, each of the artificial blood. When I got them stable, they were rushed into surgery. They will be putting shunts into their heads, setting the bones, and stitching the gashes closed. All we can do now, family, is pray". Bonnie sniffles, "Does anyone know a good prayer"? "I know an old one," I say. I get an affirmation from the whole family to say it, so I begin, "Our Father who art in heaven…".

After a few hours of waiting, we all fall asleep. Susan and I may have had a paw in that. There comes a knock on the door, just after Two-AM. Davis jumps up and answers the door. "may I come in"? asks the surgeon. Davis motions him in as we all wake up. "well, it's been touch and go; they both died twice on the operating table. We have done all we can for the moment. If they make it through the next twenty-four hours, they should survive, But I'm sorry everyone, they are on ventilators at the moment, and I fear they are in comas as well. We have done everything we can at the moment". "Can we see them"? asks mom through her tears. "Yes, you all may, but only three at a time please, and no more than five minutes for each group."

Mom, dad, and grandma go first, followed by the rest of the family, Susan Bonnie, and I go last. They are lying on their backs with their tails down between their legs. Their tails are in removable splints. Their arms are cast, and they have bandages everywhere. Their heads are surrounded with bone stabilizer cages to keep their heads in the right shape, and they are wearing neck braces to keep their heads immobile. I go and lay my paw on Elisabeth when I seem to get sucked into her mind. Susan grabs my arm when I stop moving, and she gets sucked in as well.

We witness their last moments of consciousness. We watch the wolves beat on them, and John break the arm and muzzle of those two. John gets a good look at the perp that tranks them. I try to memorize that face. But when he said, "Give my regards to Darwin when you see him," that just made me see red. We watch the bus come at them and feel their pain as the bus runs them over. Susan and I come back to ourselves, "Thank you, Izzy, John, we'll do all that we can." As our final gift to them before we leave, we push their beds together and gently put their paws together; it just felt right to do so. As we go, we ask the ICU nurses to leave their paws together, they may not be aware of anything else, but they would be aware of each other. The doctor hearing this makes a note on their charts to do so.

We all take our leave of the hospital and head home. Peter loads up as many of the family as he can in his car, mom and dad, Susan and I take the rest in the cruisers. We park the cruisers in the VIP section and head into the lobby. Wallace is staffing the desk. Wallace looks at dad, "If I could ask, how are they? I just heard about it on the evening news". Dad sighs, "They're doing as well as can be expected, Wallace, but we just don't know at the moment, if they make it through the next twenty-three hours, they should be out of the woods." "That's good to hear, would you mind if I pray for them"? Dad shakes his head no, as we all proceed to the kiosk.

When we show up at the precinct the next morning, we head directly for Chief Bogo's office. Before we can knock, we hear the word "Enter." The chief looks up at us as we enter and shut the door. "Daniel, Susan, I didn't expect you in today; how are they"? "they're doing as well as can be expected sir, if they get through the rest of the day, they should make it." The chief's face falls, "so what are you doing here? You should be at home with the rest of your family". "chief, we are here to start a task force; we want the bastard who did this." "And who would that be"? "That would be the wolf who calls himself after a movie character, "Don Corleone."

"SCAT Daniel, you don't pick small ones, do you? How do you know he's behind it"? "Elisabeth, while in a coma, showed us the last few minutes before the accident. The wolf that tranked them told them to give his regards to Darwin. Darwin was the son of the Don, and we're sure he's behind it". "You know we need real proof, don't you"? "Yes, sir, hence the task force. We have had a friend look into his past exploits, and we need to start putting it all together". "All right, when would you like to do this"? "We would like to start tomorrow at nine." "Do you know who you need and want"? "Yes, sir," I say as I hand him a list. "This is not complete, but it will do for a start." "Right, I'll get this started; as for you two, take the rest of the day off, be with your family. I do want your report on the incident on my desk sometime tomorrow". "Thank you, sir," we say as we exit his office.

We spend more time in the hospital with them; they appear to be a little better than this morning. Mom and dad spent the rest of the day in the hall, looking in on them through the observation window. We drag them home for supper. After supper, we inform mom and dad; they are on the task force. When they find out who we are investigating, they jump up and tell us they are ready to go. We ask them to sit down; things don't start to proceed tell nine in the morning. They sit down, but we can tell it's hard for them; they want that bastard too.

"Welcome, John and Izzy, good to see you again." Says the comet who stopped in front of them. John is just trying to take it all in. "Are we dead, Ockny"? "No, you are not dead, Izzy." "Are we dying"? "Only if you want to pass on through the next veil, but I thought you wanted to learn"? John speaks up, "Sir, where am I, and who are you"? Ockny laughs, "I've forgotten you haven't been in front of me before. I am the judge, jury, and executioner of souls, and this is a representation of the weight station. I weigh the souls that come to me and pass them on or throw them to the far reaches of the universe to make their way back to understanding. This is what your limited minds can comprehend".

"I judge all souls, and I find the soul in front of me pure." "Soul sir, as in singular not plural." "Well, yes, Izzy gave you half of her soul, so the two of you are linked; you are one soul." "But how is that possible? And what is a soul"? "I forgot you are new to this. A soul is the life essence of all living things; it allows you to learn and grow. The soul is the spark, and life is the oxygen, and living is the fuel source that allows you to grow. Some burn brightly throughout their whole lives. While others burn hot and fast and burn out quickly, and some never burn at all". "So, which one are we"? "Ah, that's the question, isn't it? Do you both wish to learn"? John looks at Izzy; they talk for a few seconds and turn back to Ockny. "We wish to learn they say together." Good, will you make me the same deal as Susan and Daniel did"? Again, they look at each other, Izzy tells the agreement as she knows it, and they agree. "Yes, Sir, we do; what will we be learning"? "You will be learning the ways of power the same as Daniel and Susan, but you will be learning other things as well, so shall we begin"?