The sun was setting low over the rural country side of a small city in eastern Ohio called Tall Oaks, the final rays of the sunlight illuminating the tall trees where they city got its name as well as the fields of wheat with a golden glow. Couples were settling down in bed to spend time on their social media sites, elderly folks would be sitting down to watch the news and farmers were putting their livestock away for the night to keep them out of reach of predators. But not all life in the city was settling down to say good night to the day as the sun was changing shifts with the moon. Some were, in fact, just getting up to go to work and where the tall buildings made up the actual city limit, there were young folks getting ready to head to clubs or bars with friends to have fun. One being was stirring in the night as well, driving down one of the tree and field lines roads with the radio blaring from his truck's dashboard as he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, his bangs being blown by the wind coming in through the rolled down window where his arm rested. The voice on the radio sang of a man trying to help his lover who was struggling with his own life because they were the one that saved him first. Thirty-six year old Leon Kennedy was fresh out of the Division of Security Operations and looking to pick up on the career he had left behind at the age of twenty as a property restorer that he had two years of experience doing.

The anti-bioterrorism group was good for someone who wanted to be a hero, but Leon knew his days were limited on how much he could do. He had finally decided he had enough money to purchase a house outside of Virginia and try to bring it up to livable standards. He had heard of a property that was up for sale after its previous owner had abandoned it eight years prior so he figured that would be a good place to try and lay roots. He had lived in Florida for a while, but the busy cities and southern heat just weren't good for his pale complexion and anti-social ways. As he stopped at a four-way, his gunmetal grey eyes turned to look at the clock that read 6:27 and then at the GPS above it to see how much longer he had to go before he got there. As he looked at the miles left, a black nose of a canine pushed through his fringe and touched him on the corner of his eyes, making him sputter and laugh. He looked at the dog that it belonged to in the seat next to him. Ricard was his one year old blue brindle Greyhound that his best friend had given him for Christmas before he left D.C. Leon was an avid runner with a lot of stamina who would go for miles without stopping and his friend knew he needed a dog that could keep up with him. He reached out and scratched the large dog behind his ear with a smile, making his blue leather collar jingle.

"We're almost there, keep your spots on," he assure his panting companion. Small truck, makes a big dog uncomfortable. "Only another mile to go."
He flipped on his blinker and took a right, his lights came on by themselves as he finished the short drive to the house off of the main, down a good length gravel driveway. He put the truck in park and leaned both arms on the steering wheel to look at the two story house in his headlights. The windows were boarded up, the screen door was off of its hinges and there was enough vines over-grown on it to make a good backdrop for a Tarzan movie. If that wasn't enough to be unappealing to anyone who happen to pass by, the grass was tall enough to reach Leon's truck door and that was pretty impressive since he drove a red Ram 2500. The blonde raised a brow and looked at Ricard who raised his ears when he noticed his master looking at him.

"Well, let's go have a look and see what the damage is inside," he told him as he turned the engine and lights off, grabbed his mask from the console along with his gloves and his old earpiece that had a flashlight on it.

He unfastened his seatbelt and put the mask around his neck for now, getting out of the truck with a whistle so that his partner got out too. It was almost amusing that a dog as tall as Ricard could disappear in grass, but that was the case in this yard. He closed and locked the doors before heading up to the porch as he withdrew the keys from his pocket while turning on the light on his ear piece, noticing that it was so quiet that he could hear Ricard roaming through the grass. The agent had sent him the key in the mail, refusing to meet him on the property for reasons she wouldn't disclose with him. As he reached the door, he carefully moved the screen door and took note that it had been opened so violently it had come off of the hinges at the top and middle. Whoever had come in - or gone out - had been in a huge hurry or very angry...maybe both. He looked up at the doorframe and noticed that the weather had done some damage to it and the once nice dark oak finish was now turning a rather nasty shade of brown/gray but it wasn't something he couldn't take care of easily. He was about to put the key into the lock on the door when suddenly Ricard's bark filled the night air and caused him to jump, his hand missing the lock. His knuckles hit the cold door knob and he hissed, shaking his hand before looking over his shoulder where his canine friend stood barking towards a large oak tree.

"Ricard, get your skinny ass over here and quit that barking," he told the dog with a brotherly tone. The dog didn't move but did stop barking and he noticed that the race dog was very focused on one spot near the trunk. "I wasn't aware that greyhounds were part coonhound. We don't know how close our nearest neighbors are, so get over here will ya?"

After a drawn out second, the dog finally joined him so Leon opened the door before pulling the mask up over his face and looked around the first room he stepped into.

It appeared to be some sort of entry way and the stairs leading up to the second floor were right across from him. There was a small table where he could see a spider hanging in a web attached to the wall. He narrowed his eyes in discontent before going through the archway to his left and into the bigger room. His light caught the wall across the floor where there was a large bookshelf, covered in cobwebs and heavy coats of dust with a few nic-nacs remaining on it. He stepped across the foyer and the boards gave a loud creak under his boots but Ricard just trotted passed him like it was nothing. He looked around so that his light was illuminating the room and saw a coffee table situated in front of a couch with chairs on either side of it. The large rug on the floor had minor damage that could be repaired but the paintings on the wall made Leon stop in his tracks.

If it wasn't for the evidence of pests and time passing by, some busted parts of the walls like someone had attempted to vandalized the place, this house would have been a time capsule. He noticed his partner slink around a corner so he closed the door, locked it and followed after him to see what he had found.
The dining room.

He reached for the light switch on the side of the wall, sliding it up to try and turn the lights on but nothing happened. He groaned and closed his eyes, bowing his head. Dumbass, he thought, the fuses are most likely busted since this place hasn't been occupied for eight years. He returned to looking around the room, the wooden floors didn't seem to have any damage except the normal wear and tear of foot traffic and slight scuffs where the chairs at the table would slide in and out. Signs that someone lived here, basically, he thought as he walked around to the other side of the room before giving pause to look up at the light fixture that was hanging above the table. To his surprise, he was staring into the elegant hanging crystals of an antique chandelier, something that he hadn't seen since his grandmother was alive. That wasn't the only surprise he found in this room as he looked towards the towering piece of furniture against the left wall and discovered a bureau, also of antique origin.

He moved closer to examine it, running his fingers over the intricate details on the sides and the knobs of the drawers before taking in the frosted glass doors. These things all told him that he was looking at something that wasn't made by machine: This was made by hands that cared about what they did. He noticed the next room was to his left and was just about to step into it when a loud thud behind him made him turn quick, reaching for the knife he carried on his leg.

Ricard looked at him from the corner with his tail between his legs then he noticed the dog had bumped into one of the chairs and knocked it over.

He exhaled as he moved his hand and looked at the canine, debating on the way this place was making him feel. He had never been this jumpy when it came to going anywhere before, not even over seas, but he figured it likely had to do with the fact that he was always in the city where he went and this house...wasn't. Nowhere close to that, as a matter of fact, and he wasn't even sure where his neighbors were located. He noticed the way Ricard's eyes were glowing in his light and chuckled.

"Looking kinda spooky there, Ricard," he told the dog who wagged his tail now that he realized he wasn't in trouble. He had no idea how much he'd hate having said those words later. "But I don't think you'd make a good ghost; you're a little too noisy."

He stepped back over to pick up the chair and finally examined the dining set more closely to find that it had the same intricate details as the bureau, which made them a set. Something odd he did notice however was that there were a lot of scratches on one particular corner, as if someone had always put something down there with a sliding motion. He reached into his back right pocket and took out one of his gloves, slipping it over his hand and secured the wrist. He ran his hand over the top of the table to get a better look at the wood under the thick coat of dust, which made him smile as Ricard sneezed. He examined the scratches more closely and decided he knew that what caused those had been a gun holster, much like the one he carried when he was a cop. The owner must have been in law enforcement or some such employment. Aside from the scuffs, the table was still in great shape and very solid, hand made just like the bureau and now he wondered why anyone would just up and abandon something clearly as valuable as these things were.

That was fine though, he had no intent of selling these pieces of furniture and could restore them with enough time.
He finally returned to the door he had intended to go through a bit earlier and opened it to find that it was the kitchen. He was just about to head inside when a loud cracking caused him to say every swear word known to man and jump back when the ceiling tiles came crashing to the floor and shattered. The large grey dog behind him whined as if he had been scared as well. Leon caught his breath and looked up, the light showing him that this was probably the worst room so far. The ceiling was a wreck, one part of it had already fallen down and the new piece that fell left even more fissures in the tiles but that wasn't the only thing he noticed. The window over the sink was shattered and glass was everywhere in the sink and on the counter but there was a board over it to keep anyone from getting any ideas about coming back in.

Well that explains how the looters got in, he decided as he looked at it from where he stood. But that didn't sit right with him either because he noticed that nothing really seemed to have been taken.

He looked at the appliances and noticed that while most of them were decent, they were slightly out of date for the year of 2013. The calculation of how much they would cost to replace was pretty much instant so he turned his attention to the tiles on the floor but quickly looked away before the black and white pattern burned a hole in his brain. The counter tops were granite - which was something that was actually pleasant to see - and were still in good shape but the faucet needed to be changed. He didn't dare step back in, though he could see things that had most likely belonged to the last owner lying on the counters. That feeling in his gut was back: Something had happened here that had been very sudden in nature. As he was looking at the fridge something came to mind that made him swallow hard. If the furniture and such was still here then so was the food...and he was going to need a stronger mask.

He dared to lean around the doorframe and look to see two other doors on the left side of the room. He guessed one was probably the basement, which meant he was going to have to go through here tomorrow to get to the fuse box and the other was most likely a pantry. He would check both of them out the next day but with the ceiling crumbling like it was, he didn't dare go in when he could barely see so he turned away from the doorway. Ricard followed him as he went into the room adjacent to the dining room and found it was a sitting room, less formal than the parlor he had seen a few minutes earlier. The tv was in this room and there was a vase of dead flowers on a small bookshelf underneath a broken mirror. No surprise. He looked at the tv then at the bookshelves as he walked through and his light caught something that drew his attention away from everything else. He reached out and moved the spiderwebs and took the figurine in his gloved hand, brushing off its face with his thumb.

It was a religious piece. He thought it looked like the figurines of Mary his mother used to keep around the house, but he couldn't figure out why this one wasn't very much like the ones he had seen as a child. He gently placed it back on the shelf and continued to look around the room before he realized that there were picture frames missing from the walls. Apparently that was the only thing that the person who had owned this place valued enough to take with them when they abandoned it so abruptly.

"Well the downstairs needs a little work," he thought aloud, seeing the walls were peeling so he tried to push the paint back into place but to no avail. "Let's go check on the second floor, R."

With a slight bark from his companion, the two of them ventured back through the dinning room, through the parlor and into the entry way toward the stairs but Leon grabbed Ricard and made him stop as he knelt down. The door was open, he could see the last bit of daylight peeking into the room. He knew he closed that and his heart began to pound so hard it echoed in his ears as he reached for the knife on his leg again and pulled it outof the sheath this time.
Ricard sat down. He left his pistol in the truck but that didn't mean that he wasn't trained to use the blade just as well. If there was one thing he could thank his ex-boyfriend for, it was being a blade freak and teaching him to use one.

(Funny how he never actually ended up using one on him.)

He learned a long time ago to not get overly excited. Slowly he stepped into the door to look around, examining the porch to see if there was any evidence of another person. The only footprints he saw in the dust were his own and Ricard's pawprints beside them so he turned to look at the stairs and listened intently for a moment. Ricard wasn't reacting except to look at him as if he had lost his mind while scratching at his shoulder.

"Yeah fine, you win," he told him, having a pretty good idea what he was thinking as he stood up and shook, scattering another cloud of dust into the room. Apparently it settled on his fur after his encounter with the falling chair.

He put his knife away, stepped in and closed the door. Looking at it more carefully, he noticed instantly that the latch had stuck when he turned it too far. Ricard was right to give him that bewildered look. He was getting paranoid in his old age. It was just because he had turned the knob too far when he opened it that it hadn't latched when he closed it. He sighed and popped the latch loose and closed the door again before proceeding upstairs with his partner on his heels. Oddly the stairs didn't creak like the floors did and he wasn't surprised to see a runner rug like the one downstairs in the parlor going along the hallway to his right. The owner clearly had money and very good taste, he thought. He opened the first door he came across and found a wall directly in his field of view, which was a bit of a surprise. He turned left and the surprise changed to awe, mixed with a deep pitted sadness.

The room had a very large window with a seat below it and there were art supplies scattered around the room. Paints, canvases, fabric and only a few pieces of furniture. The room looked like it hadn't been touched for an even longer period of time than the rest of the rooms, judging by the fact that the white sheets were grey and moths had obviously chewed them to hell and back. He walked over and examined the small bed situated directly across from the easel and if it had not been worn down over those ten years, it would probably have been quite comfortable. He rubbed at the side of his neck as he looked at the items around the room and the air grew heavier with sorrow, but he brushed it aside. He went to a door near the left corner of the room and it lead into a bathroom so he stepped in and began a mental list of all of the details he would have to change. That toilet was atrocious, he thought, which made him smirk but it quickly faded when he heard Ricard whining. He turned to see what was going on and found him scratching at the base of the window seat.

"R, knock that off!" he hissed, walking over to him, leaving the door open to air out some of the mustiness, and leaned over wrapping his arms carefully around the dog's large barrel chest and pulled him away. As he did, he noticed the greyhound's claws caught something that looked like a piece of cloth. He knelt down as he furrowed his brows and picked it up to study it closely. It didn't look like much; just a piece of pale blue satin but the edges looked exquisitely stitched by hand very evidently by someone who was immensely experienced with a needle. Ricard seemed fixated on it and licked at it tentatively a couple of times. "Okay, okay, I'll keep it with me. Weirdo."

He folded the cloth up carefully, placing it in his back left pocket which seemed to satisfy his canine friend so he stood back up. The closets he checked were also full of supplies, including some sheets of different colors and patterns for the bed across the room. This must have been where guests stayed if they came over. Maybe the previous owner painted other people ... on the bed. That thought made Leon's eyes widen slightly as a deep blush spread across his cheeks and he quickly closed the closet. He suddenly felt very awkward. In fact he felt more awkward than he had when he confessed to his high school girlfriend that he was bisexual. He very hastily left the room, cheek clicking for his partner who followed him instantly. He proceeded into the actual hallway and opened the first door on his left as the heat finally dissipated from his cheeks.

It was a very spacious linen closet which made him thankful he had his mask on, because it was probably full of stale air. This closet - much like the last - was still full of blankets and towels but these didn't seem as..American for a lack of a better term, as the last ones. He reached out with his gloved hand and lifted the sheets one by one to look at the patterns on them. Being from the Peace Corp, he was able to deduce that these were Hispanic patterns stitched into them. The only two quilts that were here appeared to have been made by hand and were untouched by time. Moths however seemed to have enjoyed the buffet of the towels and spiders were clearly very much enjoying the dark. Leon drew his hand back quickly when one scurried across the front of the shelf above his arm and he groaned. Useless little bastards, he thought as he turned away from the door, leaving it open to air out just as he had with the last few.
He looked down the hall and noticed a couple of light fixtures on the wall, one on each side to be exact. The bell-flower look of the glass and the golden bases were similar to the light fixtures in the sitting room and finally it hit him. The owners of this house had themselves built and hand picked everything for it so that things were properly matched and in place. That made things even odder to the ex-agent as he looked over his shoulder toward the studio behind him. He proceeded to the second door, the one on the right and opened it to find the master bedroom. The room was decorated in good taste, no thanks to time or the invading pests of course, along with the peeling paint. The mahogany headboard matched the night stand and bedside table.

The chewed curtains looked like they may have been maroon at some point to get a similar match. Time had faded them and they were now a bizarre grey/red sort of bleached out color. Ricard squeezed in and sniffed around the room but didn't seem to take much interest in anything like he had in the studio. Leon felt a little bad looking into this person's life since most of the places he had restored were always empty, but he was this far in so he went to yet another closet and opened it. There were a lot of clothes in this closet, but they were all well organized. He looked through the semi-formal clothes and noticed that pretty much everything was men's, but there were a couple of dresses kept in plastic that looked like they'd been put there in hopes of keeping them from getting messed up.

(It had worked.)

The brilliant sea blue of one and the shimmering white sequins of another stood out in the dark of the closet even though the plastic dulled their shine and it made him smile. He decided that the owner of the house must've been a man who didn't have a wife, but maybe a girlfriend who left a couple of things there. He decided he would pack these up safely in a storage unit in case the owner came back looking for them. He went and opened the bathroom door but didn't bother to look inside; he didn't want to see another one of those bizarre toilets like the one in the studio. He exited the room to head for the last door that he had seen on the left side of the hallway at the end but as he stopped in front of it and reached for the knob, he suddenly got the feeling that whatever was behind the door wasn't something he would be able to do anything with. He had never gotten that feeling before. His ambition was quick to over ride that thought and he opened the door, shocked when a cold gust of air came billowing out. To his amazement it was strong enough to move the fringe that hung over his eyes. Ricard whined loudly multiple times from behind him and then the greyhound bolted down the stairs.

He turned his attention back to the room. When his light caught what was inside, a deep chill rushed down his spine that left him horrified and his heart dropped to his stomach. This room felt very grey compared to all of the other rooms in the house. There had been some attempt to give it life judging by the nice bed, smaller than the one in the master bedroom but bigger than the one in the studio. The window was draped in silk curtains that had long been pulled closed hiding the light from outside. He could scarcely get his heart to come back to his chest when he saw the wheelchair off to the left side of the bed and the wooden chair that was right next to it. That familiar deep sense of dread quickly overwhelmed him and he left the room hurriedly, slamming the door shut behind him. He realized he was shaking and breathing harshly as he stared at his hand clutching the door knob so hard that his knuckles were white. His initial sense of this room had been correct: he wouldn't be able to do anything with it.

Something made him not want to fool around with it and he wasn't going to argue with that. He practically ran downstairs, calling for Ricard to follow and the dog made no argument as he bounded out the door behind his master and Leon put him in the truck. He opened the tool box on the back and dug through the things he had in it before he finally found a lock set and his screwdriver. Without his companion, he went back inside and attached the hasp to the door and frame and then put the padlock on it quickly. He backed away from the door and put his hand up to his mask as a rasping cough came from his throat; he suddenly felt very sick...

He decided to leave and head for the hotel hoping for a good nights sleep. They could come back tomorrow to start working on the house. He hoped that he would feel better.