Disclaimer:
~Big thanks to Enemyoffun for making this universe to play in.

Author's Note: Zee's story is still on hiatus, I've been stuck on what exactly to write for chapter 7, but it will be finished. If you have any ideas I will appreciate hearing them, so feel free to send me a PM. Here's is the third chapter of my DRU tale.

A very big thanks to my editor for helping with the edits.

Please comment on this, I enjoy them reading them and learning from them immensely.

Chapter 3

1981

It had been about a week since Cassie had overheard the information about the varlore being killed and the librarian, Mr. Atozota, had gone missing. Cassie was reluctant to ask her mother if she knew anything about what they were talking about. Rebecca kept trying to prod her into talking with someone, even her own mother who seemed to know a lot.

Cassie kept trying to avoid asking someone for help, afraid that it would make her seem unworthy of what she possessed. She was hoping that she would be let into the inner circles of the group that her mother belonged to, but she didn’t want to be thought of as the one who couldn’t figure anything out for themselves.

So, she and Rebecca, although it took a good deal of convincing Rebecca to help her, looked around town to try to find some clues as to who this person was and what he was doing in their neck of the woods. Cassie’s first suggestion was to check out Mr. Atozota’s place. If he was just missing, then he might have left some clue behind as to where he was going and if he would be coming back.

The two girls, after classes on Friday, rode on their bicycles over to Mr. Atozota’s residence, on the edge of the forest near the university. The house looked quiet and dark, as if only ghosts lived there now.

“I don’t like the looks of this, Cassie,” Rebecca said, as they pulled up to the house’s fence gate.

“Why? What’s the matter, Becky?” Cassie replied.

“I’m just getting a bad vibe from this place. Do we have to go in there?”

“I promise that we won’t go in there unless we see something strange or off, okay?”

“Okay,” Rebecca nodded.

Cassie and Rebecca approached the front door. Cassie rapped her hand against the front door, and cried out, “Mr. A! It’s Cassie from the university!”
No one answered the door right away, so Cassie decided to press her ear against the door to see if she could try to hear anyone coming. All she heard though was nothing but silence.
She tried the door knob for a second, and was surprised when it opened.

“Cassie,” Rebecca said, worryingly, “Shouldn’t we call the police? And not go in there? It’s breaking and entering after all.”

“Relax, Becky,” Cassie replied. “We can just say we were invited in or taking care of something for Mr. A while he was away, if we don’t find him here.”

As Cassie stepped into the silent house, Rebecca grumbled and followed her in. The inside of the house was dark, and there was a faint layer of dust on some of the furniture that was catching the sun from the outside. The house was decorated like there was one person living there. There were bookcases that were loaded with books along two of the walls. There was a couch, some lamps, and other things that a person would want to have in their living room.

“Well,” Rebecca commented, “it looks like he’s not here, we should go.”

She started to turn towards the doorway but Cassie quickly grabbed her. “Oh, no you don’t. We haven’t checked the bedroom or kitchen yet.”

Rebecca groaned. “Fine. Let’s just look and get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps.”

“All right,” Cassie replied, trying to calm her down. “We won’t take too long, I promise.”

The two of them began to walk through the house, in their search for clues to where Mr. Atozota had disappeared to. The kitchen looked rather bare, with some of the food beginning to mold and rot away that was out on the bench ready to be eaten. When they got to the bedroom, they found the same type of neglect that they had found in the living room.

“This is really strange, Cass,” Rebecca said, with a note of worry in her voice. “It’s like he got up and ran off, and didn’t bother to take anything with him.”

“I know, Becky,” Cassie replied. “It’s not like Mr. A to just get up and leave. He cares too much about the students at the university to just, leave.”

“True, but I think we should get out of here now.”

Cassie groaned and with a huff, “Fine, let’s go.”

The two of them left the house and closed the front door behind them. They left it unlocked, since that was the way they found it. They didn’t say anything until they were on their bikes and put a good distance between them and the house.

About fifteen minutes later, the two of them arrived at Cassie’s house. Her mother was out running some errands. Cassie and Rebecca both parked their bikes and crashed on Cassie’s mother’s couch.

“Cass,” Becky started, “I think something bad happened to Mr. A. It looked like he just got up and left and was in a big hurry for some reason.”

Cassie rubbed her eyes, and agreed, “Yeah. But, what would spook Mr. A into just leaving?”

“I don’t know, Cassie. But, I think we should tell our moms.”

“What?!” Cassie replied, shocked.

“We need to tell them what we know. Maybe it will help Mr. A.”

Cassie groaned. She didn’t want their mothers’ group to know about that they have been snooping around into business that they shouldn’t have been.

“Do we have to?” she groaned.

“What do you think?”

“Fine. We’ll tell them when my mom gets home, okay?”

“I’m going to hold you to that one, Cass.”

The two of them giggled and then headed upstairs to Cassie’s bedroom to get started on their homework.

------------------------------

7 October 2011

The three of us ran back across the beach, trying not to be the last and having to take care of those dishes tonight. I was in the lead, but just barely. Alex was right on my heels, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. I took a quick glance back, and saw both of the girls trying to run their hearts out to make it back in time. However, that’s all that I needed to do to trip over my own two feet and land face first into a beach full of sand.

“Watch where you’re going!” Alex yelled, as she blew past me.

“I hope you enjoyed your trip!” Jen teased as she ran by about a minute later.

I was laughing as I was spitting out sand that had managed to make its way into my mouth. I rolled over onto my back, and made a quick inspection of my body to make sure that I wasn’t bleeding anywhere.

Breathing a sigh of relief, as I found out the most damage I suffered was a bruised ego; I looked around for what had tripped me up. Sticking out of the sand was a box. I was curious about what this box was, so I fumbled for a bit and tried to fish it out of the sand it was partially buried in. When I finally managed to get the box out of the ground, I dusted it off and inspected it. I found that this box looked very decorated and small, like something that would be on a desk or dresser. There was still some sand sticking in the decorations, they would be tricky to get out, but it was probably nothing a good, wet rag couldn’t take care of.

I had seen a few boxes like this before, in my mother’s room or when I was at my grandparents one night when I was growing up. I thought to myself, ‘Who would want to bury this out here?’
I examined the box to try to find a way to open it up, but all I could find was a small lock on one side of it. ‘Damn, where’s a key when you need one.’

I dug around in the sand for a little while, hoping to get lucky and find the key that would fit the lock. After a few minutes, I had no luck. Grabbing the box, I headed back for the Drake’s residence, wondering if any of them knew about the box that I just unearthed from the beach.

Stepping on to the back deck, Jen and Alex both said, “Took you long enough to get here.”

“Sorry,” I replied. “Although, I did find what I tripped over.”

I produced the box, with some sand still clinging to it, and both of the girls looked on, wondering what it was. “Alex, have you seen something like this before?”

Alex grabbed the box and inspected it, “Hmm….”

She looked at it from various angles before saying, “Nope, maybe my mom has. She’s lived here for nearly all of her life.”

She led me into the house and we found her mother, working in the kitchen and putting on the finishing touches to Alex’s birthday cake. The cake was chocolate, covered in chocolate frosting, with pink icing. I was keenly aware of my growling stomach and how I hadn’t had anything since lunch today. The cake looked delicious, and I’m betting that it was. Hopefully, it would be time for dinner soon, so we could dive into that cake.

“Mom, Michael found this outside. It tripped him up on the beach. Do you know what it is?”

Mrs. Drake looked up at what her daughter was holding, gasped, and dropped the bowl of leftover frosting on to the ground.

“Where did you get that?” she said, with a note of panic in her voice.

“I just found it along the beach,” I nervously replied.

“I’d never thought that I would see this again,” she said softly, taking the box out of Alex’s hands.

“What is it?” her daughter asked.

She paused for about a half minute before laughing to herself and saying, “It’s my old jewelry box. I buried it on the beach as a sort of time capsule when I was back in school.”

“So, do you have the key?” I asked.

“The key?” She looked at the lock that was on the front of the box and said, “Oh, that. I’m not sure where it is. I think I lost it a long time ago.”

My hopes of seeing what was inside the box just fell.

“So, what are you going to do with it, Mom?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t really have any desire to open it.”

“May I try to open it, Mrs. Drake?” I asked, seeing a chance to figure out how to get in there and see what was inside.

“Why?” she asked.

“Curiosity. If this was buried from when you were in school, I want to know what things you decided to put into it for memories.”

Mrs. Drake thought about that for a while. “Let me think about it for a little while. I’ll let you know before you leave tonight, okay?”

I nodded solemnly. I was hoping that she would give it back to me right away so I could try to figure it out. I was already thinking about using Google to try to find a way to open an old jewelry box lock, maybe teach myself how to pick locks.

“Well, since the two of you are here, you can help me carry out the pizza for dinner.”

Mrs. Drake pointed to the stack of pizza boxes that looked like they had been delivered a couple of minutes ago.

“Sure, Mom,” Alex replied, “although don’t think this gets you out of washing the dishes tonight, Mike.”

I shook my head in resignation. “Don’t worry, I keep my bargains.”

“Good, I could always use a hand in washing the dishes,” Mrs. Drake replied, handing me a stack of pizza boxes for me to take out onto the kitchen table.

About an hour or so later, the party had finished up with the cake and pizza. It was just the five of us talking about school and how things were going. I glanced at the clock after I was finished talking with Alex about her mythology class.

“Crap!” I exclaimed. “I have to get going. I have to be up early tomorrow to open the comics store.”

“Do you have to really?” Jen pleaded.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I replied.

I went over and shook Alex’s hand. “It was great party. I hope to see you again and that you have a happy birthday for the rest of the night.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Alex answered. “I hope to see you around, too.”

I stepped out the front door after finishing up saying goodbyes to everyone else there, and walked down the steps. As soon as I turned down the sidewalk in the direction of my apartment, I heard the bird’s caw ring out again across the night.

I swiveled around on my heels, trying to find the location of that damn cawing noise. It seemed that it was following me around wherever I seemed to go outside. I looked up into the trees that dotted the sidewalk, but didn’t see anything there. When I looked back towards the Drake residence, I saw Alex running outside towards me.

“Mike! Wait up a sec!” she shouted at me.

I turned my attention towards her, hoping that that damn bird wouldn’t caw and distract me again.
“Alex, what’s up?” I asked, as she got close.

Alex huffed and held up the box that I had found earlier. “You forgot this. You said that you wanted to take a crack at opening it, and Mom found it and asked me to run it out to you.”
Alex handed the box over to me. I noticed that in her rush some more of the sand that was wedged in the design had fallen free.

“Thanks, Alex,” I replied.

“No problem. Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That when you do finally open it, that you tell me what’s inside right away, okay?”

I smiled and replied, “You bet.”

She smiled at me again, and before turning around to head back to her house she said, “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“You got it.”

I started on my way again before I stopped. I thought to myself that I might not see Alex again for quite a while. So, gathering what courage I had in me I turned around and called to her, “Hey, Alex. You want to grab a cup of coffee some time? Say Sunday morning?”

“Sure, I would like that,” Alex replied.

“Alex!” Jen called back from the house. “We’re about to start the movie! Hurry up!”

“I’d better get going,” Alex replied, blushing.

“Yeah,” I answered somberly.

“I’ll see you Sunday at the coffee shop, okay?”

“Yep. I’ll see you then.”

I turned and headed back down the road to my apartment, with the mysterious box in hand. Glancing every so often on where I was going, I kept turning the box over and over, to try to figure out how I can open the lock. I didn’t know anything about picking locks, but I had seen other people get around locks all the time in the movies.

I couldn’t see any cracks or other openings in the box that I could exploit, but my vision was somewhat impaired by the sand that was still in some of the crevices. I could barely make out some kind of animal on the lid and the key side of the box, but that was about it. Maybe a bird and maybe a dog, but that was all I could tell. I would have to look online to find out how to get rid of more of the sand that was stuck to this box.

About ten minutes later, I was fishing around in my pocket of the keys to the apartment complex. As I felt around in my pocket for them, I heard that caw again. I swivelled around and saw a raven in the tree that I saw it in when I left for Alex’s party.

‘What was with all these ravens following me around?’ I thought to myself.

I was about to ignore it and unlock the door to the complex when I heard something else. It was a low snarling growl coming from some trees nearby. Strangely, it was the same tree that the raven was perched in. The raven that seemed to take no notice of the big shaggy dog that was standing underneath it, staring straight at me.

I was starting to freak out a bit. First, it was a flock of ravens that seemed to be following me around or one raven that had picked up a lot of frequent flyer miles by following me from place to place. And now, there was a large dog hanging nearby, probably thinking that I was a nice snack for it to munch on.

Also, out from behind the tree, a dark figure wearing a leather trench coat and a large fedora stepped out from his hiding place. He stood against the tree, near where the large dog was. The dog ran off, but for some reason, the man just stood there, staring at me.

I don’t know how long we just stared at each other, but after what seemed like an eternity but probably no more than a few minutes, he moved off, in the same direction as the dog. I quickly shuffled around in my pockets for my keys, found them, and went inside as fast as I could.

I slammed my front door behind me, and panted as the adrenaline surge from the panic of someone creeping me out across the street started to ebb. I quickly set the box down on my table and flopped onto the couch, trying to get a hold of my senses again.

I thought to myself, ‘What was going on? Things weren’t like this before that damn bird showed up this afternoon.’

I rolled over and gazed up at the ceiling. My thoughts were lost in the mystery of what was going on. I had a bunch of ravens, a big dog, and some enigmatic figure watching me, and I had found that strange box on the Drake’s beach earlier today. Maybe they wanted what was ever in the box that I had found.

I turned my attention to the box that was sitting on my coffee table, right next to the couch. The sand was still clinging to the crevices that helped make up the design, obscuring it from view. I took a closer look at the lock on the box.

When I first looked at the lock under the moonlight and in the Drake's kitchen, it had appeared that it needed some kind of key to open the lock. Now, under the lights of my apartment, it looked like it was a simple bolt lock, like the kind you see on doors as an extra layer of security.

“How could we have missed that?” I said to myself.

I tried pushing the bolt back, but it wouldn’t budge. I struggled with pushing the bolt back and shifting it around, but that bolt wouldn’t budge.

“There might be some sand stuck in there that’s jamming it up,” I thought aloud.

I went over to my rag drawer, where I kept the couple of rags that I brought from home with me to help me clean, and dampened it with some cold water. After wringing it out, I wiped down the box to try to remove the excess sand from it. Little by little, with each wipe of the rag, the sand was coming away.

Slowly, I was able to see the image that was etched onto the box. Each of the sides had one animal on it, while the lid had two. The side with the lock was the image of a coyote. I recognized the coyote from the ones that I saw as a teenager along the side of the road growing up. Sadly, those were all killed by passing cars, but I knew I wouldn’t want to meet a coyote in the wild, as they can be pretty tough to handle. The smaller lengths had an image of a large cat, probably a cougar or a mountain lion, and a fox. The back of the box had an image of a large bear, probably a grizzly or black bear. The lid had an image of a raven, something that I was seeing all too often, and a wolf. The color looked worn away, as the passage of time had taken it away.

The images were mesmerizing and they seemed lifelike, probably due to the embossing that was used to help create their image. I tried the deadbolt lock on the front again, and grew frustrated that it still wouldn’t budge. I tried passing the damp rag over it a few times, but to no success.

“I wonder why it won’t move,” I said to myself.

Frustrated, I decided that I would wait until morning to try again. I was hoping that box wouldn’t keep me up for most of the night.