The Marked One (Cont.)

He was awoken suddenly by a blood curdling scream. Looking around it seemed most of the other homeless people who were there had gone elsewhere. Raising an eyebrow his eyes darted around rapidly, knowing he heard a scream. "He.. HELLO!?", he stammered slightly at first before shouting out against his better judgement. Shortly after there was a low hiss, which caused the man to jump to his feet albeit tiredly. The fire in his barrel was beginning to go out. Thinking quickly, he stuffed it with trash causing it not only to reignite but to burst forth with a glorious blaze of light. As the fire began to roar he drew his pistol, "I warn you I'm armed!", he shouted again scanning the perimeter created from the light of his fire. There was silence in response and he could see nothing beyond the light of the flames. It was still night time and the rain still hammered away on the over pass, making it hard to hear much of anything as he stayed on alert the rest of the night until sun up.

Chase kept his fire going until the rain stopped early the next morning. As he did so he watched the vagrants who occupied much of the spot before seemingly just appear out of nowhere. Crowding around the same spots they each did yesterday. However, there was another crowd forming nearby. People gasping and crying. Seeing this, Chase decided to investigate and made his way to them. Pushing past a few people, before he came to a stop seeing a female body on the ground with large chunks taken from her neck. Another female sat next to her sobbing softly, "Ashley...." She murmured obviously friends with the deceased. He sighed a bit deciding it'd be best not to prod her with questions right then and instead opted to speak to someone nearby. However, as he was about to, Ivan showed up breaking up the crowd.

Ivan looked at the scene and shook his head in dismay before approaching the crying woman. "Cindy look you cant stay here. Go be with your friends.", He spoke lowly as she slowly nodded to the old man before getting up and walking off. Then Ivan rose turning to Chase who wore the same look of concern.

Chase was about to say something before Ivan cut him off simply raising a hand and motioning for Chase to follow him. Ivan lead Chase to a spot deeper beneath the under pass which seemed less occupied. And it was for good reason, as Chase came to the realization that they were in a make shift cemetery. "This is a more private spot for us to talk...", Ivan spoke somewhat low as Chase could feel an immense sadness washing over him. Ivan raised an eyebrow, "Are you ok?", He asked unsure whether or not to worry about the young man.

Chase nodded a bit regaining his composure, "Residual energy overload...", He muttered slightly seeming to fight back tears. "I don't know how anyone here passed. But one of these people died a death so tragic the earth wept for them.. And continues to weep for them...."

Ivan nodded a bit surprised, "Well yes... But that's not what I brought you here to talk about... These attacks have been happening for some time now.... We've tried getting the police involved but they do nothing... I'm barely managing to keep our sick taken care of with a few of my friends so I haven't been able to really investigate this myself... Seems like some kind of animal to me though.", Ivan explained seeming uncomfortable about that topic as he quickly changed subject back to the situation at hand.

Chase blinked a bit as he recalled the state the body he saw was in, "You cant be serious... That doesn't look like any sort of animal I've ever seen... Tell me about the other deaths.", he asked inquisitively recalling the wound the woman had being to precise for a simple animal attack. This was one swift attack that ended her. Typically in animal attacks victims sustain multiple wounds, she had only one. But Chase was getting ahead of himself.

Ivan thought back to the other killings, "They were all found the same way, with their necks mutilated. Some were found the next morning, others.. Not so much...", He explained, "I've been telling everyone I think it's animal attacks in order to try to keep them calm but truthfully.. I've no idea what could be doing this..."

Chase stroked his chin deep in thought, "Alright... I'll look into it for you...", causing Ivan to look even more surprised. "Wait, really?", he asked in response. Chase shrugged a bit, "Sure I've played video games before. I know a quest when I see one." Ivan now tilted his head in utter confusion before Chase spoke again, "Listen, I'll take care of this for you. You keep doing what your doing and taking care of your people alright?", Ivan nodded somewhat at a loss for words as Chase then turned and walked off heading back to where he had seen the body earlier.

Upon returning Chase was somewhat glad to see the body was still there, only covered in an old dirty blanket so as to not upset people until they dug a spot out at the cemetery presumably. He knelt down next to the body before lifting the blanket from over her head. It smelt putrid though that didn't bother him. What bothered him was the shiver that went down his spine as he looked first at her face, then to the wound on her neck. They were definitely claw marks... But why? If it were an animal wouldn't it have gone for the bite to deal a killing blow? "What happened to you?", Chase spoke softly, "I want to help..."

Shortly after he felt a familiar cold on the back of his neck and then quickly pulled out his voice recorder turning it on, "Are you here? If you are can you tell me what happened? What did this to you?", He fired off questions for a few moment's before stopping to play back his recording. He shuddered immediately hearing three responses, A drawn out, "Yessss.", and shortly after, "I died...", followed by, "It was a man..."

Chase lifted an eyebrow, "A man?", He looked back to the body now noticing that though she was covered in blood herself, there was almost none pooled beneath her. "The... Hell?", He muttered. Shortly after this realization he was approached by two homeless men, "Hey uh.. Mr. Stevens? Ivan asked us to come collect the body for burial, Are you done here?", Chase snapped from his thought shifting his gaze to the two men with a nod, "Er.. Uh.. Yes. I don't think there's anymore evidence on her that will help the investigation...", with that he then began to look at the ground around her. The earth was soft from the constant raining every night. He looked a bit closer spotting foot prints in the mud leading away from the body and began following them, though their stride was impossibly long for any normal man. After a hard twenty or so minutes of tracking through the grassy areas beneath the over pass he eventually came to a stop at a main road. Being in town he pulled his jacket collar up somewhat to kind of hide his face. Across the street from where the tracks ended, there was what looked like an old run down bar. The windows were boarded up, the door blockaded. This must be where the killer was hiding. He figured it would be somewhere close. There were other buildings either way down the street all as derelict and broken down as the next, but Chase was drawn to the old bar for some reason. Approaching it he tried to see if he could see anything through the boarded windows but to no avail. They were sealed tight and he let out a sigh before next inspecting the large double doors which were chained shut.

Looking around to see if the coast was clear he reached into his coat pocket pulling out his lock picks, going to work on the padlock. After a moment or two of fiddling the lock popped and then he moved on to the deadbolt. This one was a tad more tricky and tedious though he still managed to get it to unlock. Putting his picks away, Chase drew his pistol before popping open the door as quietly as he could. As he did so, He peeked in seeing it was dark and decided it was in his best interest to find some light. There probably wasn't any power inside either. He thought for a moment before deciding to pull out his phone and turn it on. The battery display read ,"27%", causing him to let out another short sigh as he activated the phones flash light function before proceeding into the building and closing the door behind him.