Midnight: A Foxvalley Thriller (First Draft)✔

Chapter XII- The Last Stand

May 28, 8:12 P.M.

Outskirts of Foxvalley, Colorado

The storm the people of Foxvalley awaited finally dawned upon them. The wind echoed deafening whistles through the trees in the night. Rain toppled down from the sky onto the forest floor. It rained only a couple days ago, but once again, more descended upon the sleepy small mountain town. the frequent storms began getting uncomfortable to the townspeople. Last week a storm appeared out of nowhere, not even on radars, the same night the deputy and the Johnsons vanished from the face of the Earth. The rain washed away the blood stained along side the town welcome sing. It wiped a smudge of blood off of the white letters reading, "The True American Dream Town." The headlights of an incoming patrol car shined through the night. Rain droplets danced to the asphalt below in front of it's blinding headlights.

Deputy Gregory pulled the car off to the side of the road. The windshield wipers rolled over, swishing off the water droplets as they collapsed on his windshield, but the wiper's feeble attempt to clean the windshield only ended with it drenched again from the never-ending rain. Gregory hunched over, and unbuckled his seat belt. "This is it," He announced to the others. He opened the door to the wet world waiting outside. "This is were Mr. Becker says he seen the mountain lion."

The other doors of the car sprung open right after he slammed his closed. Haylee stood up out of the passenger seat beside him. "Common, like I told the Sheriff. There are no mountain lions in Foxvalley anymore. Sure, Mr. Becker claims he saw one, but he wasn't even supposed to be driving that car. He has frequent hallucinations from a brain injury he suffered from at a young age. Most likely he saw a rock and thought it was a mountain lion, or he saw nothing at all," Haylee said. The rain drenched her hair, it flopped down along her sides and looked glued to her neck in the rainfall. The three hunters occupying the back seat said nothing, only stood outside the car with large rifles and shotguns. Clave Wittman, the shortest and chubbiest of the hunters stood up out of the car last. He slammed the door closed behind him. A large Remington pump action rifle strapped around his back. His fat face looked like that of a Rottweiler. His nose and mouth scrunched up close to each other. He squinted his small eyes in the falling rain.

The tallest of the hunters' name was William Becky. His slender, long arms stretched down just above his kneecaps. His lips remained hidden under a think layer of grey beard. A camouflage jacked cover over him, but of the colors white and grey rather than green and brown, which would've been more useful in such a dense, lush forest as this one.

The last hunter stood more muscular than the other two, taken by the name Johnathon Cobalt. His black hair glued to his forehead beneath the rainwater. He looked heavier than Clave, though that weight might've been purely muscle. In his right hand he hoisted a double barreled shotgun. His eyes smushed close together as rainwater poured down his face, dripping from his large chin. A slope beside him descended into the depths beside the state road. Trees stood, erect in the ground, stretching up hundreds of feet into the sky. A flash of lightening sliced through the forest, lightening their faces for a quick moment. They started to trudge through the dead leaves into the abyss of darkness below.

Another flash of lightening illuminated the world around them. Gregory led the way through the dense overgrowth of tall weeds and branches of trees. Sometimes he maneuvered over the occasional overgrown tree root in his path. Brambles scratched at their legs, slicing through their skin as they continued through he darkness of the darkening forest. All five of them pulled out their LED flashlights. Five bright blue cones of illumination blasted through the denseness of the restless forest. "Woah!" Johnson cried in surprise, his foot slipped in the mud. He landed with his rear end in a deep hole of a strange shape. It filled with mud that rippled from the body that fell in it. The group stared back in surprise as he descended into the hole.