"This used to be a funhouse..." (The Zonky)

The darkness enveloped the thick brush around them. The whispers of wind in the night sky kissed their skin and left a chilling sensation. Despite the warm atmosphere that warmed the state of Arizona, the only warmth here tonight was the pyre built in the center of friends, each of them standing at a different angle from the other, the three points of a triangle, the three amigos in a stand-off. The fire crackled and popped as the sticks of gopher wood burned and popped, the oblong box atop the pyre remaining unphased by the flames as the three stood there, watching with fierce intensity.

The fire burned for hours that night, needing no assistance in staying alive. Before long, the young woman walked over, folding her black cotton zip-up around her midsection as she averted her eyes, trying to pick her words very carefully as she stood by the blonde haired boy in his late teens. Before long, the dark skinned male in black clothing meandered over, minding his own business, but having the audacity to make the first move. The large dark-skinned male put his arms out, putting one around the girl and the other around the smaller adolescent, pulling them tightly and letting out a sigh.

Tonight there were no words that could do justice to the feeling in the atmosphere. The darkness was, different. Tonight the darkness had a feeling of weight, a burden that each and every one of them would bear. A grating boulder that dug into their shoulders, grinding on their shoulders and filling them with a looming sense of consequence. The darkness out here was not the true terror of the woods this night. The true darkness was what lay within them.

The fire died, and the ashes were left behind. The dark skinned man took his leave, with the girl at his side, leaving their friend with a sympathetic look. They took to the path, the moonlight offering little on this night. The stars were hidden behind the veil of leaves, the rustling shaking and shuffling. But of all the noise in the night that they heard. The sound of a man screaming, was the last they had heard.
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  2 Days later
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Gilbert, Arizona. This place may not have been a small town, but it certainly began to feel like one as you reached the suburbs. The Pup looked out the window and sighed as his cheek rested fast in his hand. The primary means of transportation for the Pup had been a bus, or a "trolley" as the people around him continued to talk to their little boy in baby talk. It made him want to drive a pencil through his eye. Slowly. He glanced over his phone, looking in the messages where he saw that his handler, The Hound, was going off to deal with some investigation that required a bar. Being under twenty-one it wasn't likely that he'd be able to join him. That was fine enough as it was, he had other things that he was going to investigate.

A seventeen year old kid went missing in the woods. He was last seen with two of his friends buying gasoline at fuel-station with his buddies. Now typically it could have been chalked up tot he fact that they probably skipped town, or went on a bender of a weekend. But it was Tuesday now, both of the people he was last seen with were at home and they gave testimony to the police that they heard screaming, but the boy never came back to the group. The body looked like it had been chewed on from what the news report said, but nothing caught The Pup's interest until he heard the fact that just earlier today, the body of 17 year old Lanon Hardy was "missing" from the coroners office. Now he was one for adventure, so this was what he made his personal goal. He was going to find that corpse. What would he do then? Who knows. Probably poke it with a stick. That's something the little bastard would do...

Reaching up, The pup pulled on the string and it let out a jingle. the trolley pulled off to the side and he walked up to the front, handing over his ticket and stepping down into the street. It was a little odd for some people to see  a young boy traveling the city on his own, but it wasn't like he cared what people thought of him. In fact he wanted them to call child protective services at this point. Being partnered up and handled by Flynn was a curse, and it was just getting heavier and heavier by the day. Now he was doing impulsive and reckless things, like that stupid girl from the vampire movies in the second movie, who should have totally realized that her werewolf friend and her vampire boyfriend were low-key just using her to get to each other while disguising it as a mutual animosity.  At least that's what that internet review said about the books.

"So...at the edge of Rip-Ripa-Rip-ar-ee-an... Riparian Preserve?" He mumbled to himself, attempting to phonetically work out the name scrawled on the piece of paper. He pulled on his leather jacket and walked on, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he began to walk the sidewalk a bit. After a little time he found himself at the Riparian Preserve, a nice little...park. Okay to be truthful he expected there to be more trees...and less Cacti. He began to walk the path, looking over his notes of the victim's friends comments regarding their story in the woods, after a while of exploring he found that the area wasn't even under investigation. It was just...there, in public sight. With a sigh, The Pup would take a seat on the ground by a cactus, a heavy sigh letting the worries and anxieties of the busy morning leave in one, calming breath.

....only to return with the following inhale...

Seth stared at the TV screen as he watched the news from H4H's main office in Louisiana. When the reporter said that a body had been stolen, he was immediately suspicious. He had dealt with necromancers before, in fact; he had dealt with so many ridiculous things at such a young age, Seth was surprised that he hadn't simply lost his marbles. Still, if he was dealing with undead. He wanted to go prepared.

Seth had recently managed to get ahold of some weaponry that was probably illegal for a person his age to get ahold of. He took the Semi-Auto winchester 20 gauge shotgun out of his gun vault, along with the glock 20, Uzi, and the AR-15. He put them all in an athletics bag and shoved them in the back of the van. He put a note on Darwin's desk saying that he'd be back soon. And that there was a possible Z-Outbreak.

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1 day later
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Seth sat in the van driving through the Riparian Preserve. He was searching for any signs of a Z outbreak. These kind of things tended to go from bad, to worse in a matter of days. So he would need to contain this thing fast, and - hopefully - without any civillian casualties... yeah, right.

When he rounded the corner, Seth saw a kid sitting on the ground, all alone. Strange. Seth pulled the van off to the side, and put - most - of his gear away. He kept his glock holstered on his hip, just in case some Z's came from somewhere. He walked over to the kid and knelt down next to him.

"Hey, kid. You haven't seen anything... Weird around, have you? Specifically... Any rotting brain hungry people around?" He asked, thinking it'd be worth a shot. Kids tended to be more open about monster activity than adults, their minds not yet hardened to the ways they thought the world worked. Maybe the kid had seen something.

The Pup sat there on the ground, minding his own business and wishing he had the same abilities as his handler. Being able to experience the past right about now would be pretty badass. The boy sat and let the sun shine on his face, feeling the warmth as he leaned back and sighed. He had no idea what he was going to do now, but he knew he needed to figure it out. He looked out to the road and watched as cars passed, some stopped and some parked. He didn't notice too much except how someone got out of a van and started walking the path a bit. He also couldn't help but notice as a strangely familiar sight could be seen across the street. It looked like there had been police involvement over there for some reason.

The boy wasn't much older than him. Old enough to be an older brother maybe, seeing as he was driving he assumed he was at least 16. Of course incompetent cops that didn't do their jobs was a recurring theme everywhere else in the U.S from what The Pup knew; Why would Gilbert Arizona be any different? He was a perceptive type, noting that the slightly older boy had a gun on hand once he began talking and squatting down next to him. He looked to the guy with furrowed brows and a very, very alert look on his face, highly suspicious of this kid. The older guy had asked if he had seen weird around, which made the Pup shift uncomfortably. Then he stated specifically rotting brain hungry people. Suddenly he just let out a very relieved sigh.

"O-ohoho. Okay. That-that's not the direction I thought this was gonna take. I was totally waiting for you to ask me if I wanted candy, I should go to your van." He said as he seemed to relax. "No thanks. Fool me once, right?" he said with a heavy sarcasm, an exaggeration to play into the joke a little though he shifted around and pulled his legs in, crossing them as his hands came down and clasped to the bottoms of his pant legs, turning his attentions to total fixation on this foreigner.

"Uh..no. No zombies. The only brain-eating infection around here is the stupidity of people." The Pup said as he looked around, shaking his head in a feigned disappointment in the human race. He cleared his throat and looked back his adolescent compatriot. "But it looks like we're here for the same reason. But... I didn't think of zombies. I just thought creepy cultists. My investigation lead me to that conclusion, anyway."