“E-N-O-U-G-H with the goddamn fucking politics!” Desmond growled, slamming his claws down onto the dining room table. Toh, Moss, and a couple of other tenants of the boarding house whom he’d not been introduced to yet stared at him, wide-eyed and jaws agape. Across the sleepy little town, a tingle had shot up and down the spines of a particular wolf, fox, grizzly bear, and mountain lion.
“A-Anyway, change of subject, I guess,” Toh orange tabby said, regaining his composure following the mole’s sudden outburst. “I was thinking for the holiday decorations this year—“
“Christmas decorations, you mangey cat.” Growled the bulldog sitting adjacent of Toh. “Damn kids and your political correctness.”
Desmond listened, watching. He’d never met this particular beast before but already, he wasn’t forming the highest opinion of the old dog. It was he who had sparked the initial discussion that the mole had to end, after all.
“Well, that’s true technically, as we do have some Christmas decorations in there, but there are several holidays—“
“And only Christmas matters,” the dog huffed before taking another bite of his meal.
“Ah-heh, anyway. We’ll be putting up the decorations this weekend, so if anybeast would like to help participate and kind of help expedite the process, it would be greatly appreciated.
Desmond eyed each of the beasts currently sitting at the table. The old bulldog to his right, an even older anteater beside him that had hardly said a word. A quality the mole could appreciate in this world. Finally, at the end of the right half of the table, sitting closest to Toh, was a scruffy-looking younger feline that the mole could swear had crawled through a meat grinder and somehow survived.
“Bah! It’s barely even Thanksgiving, and you’re already cramming Santa’s cock down our throats. At least let me choke on Turkin first, fuckin’ hell.”
The rest of dinner was an awkward one as no beast had been willing to bark another word without fear of hearing more push-back from the old dog, who Desmond later learned was a Vietnam vet who had been honorably discharged from the service shortly thereafter, suffered PTSD and had been abandoned by his family at the doorstep of the boarding house a few years ago, much like the mole this past spring.
Keeping his distance from the other boarders had always been Desmond’s goal, initially anyway. Following the chance encounter with Moss, another old timer with an equally colorful background as the bulldog, the mole’s shell had begun to crack despite his best efforts, and he found himself approaching gatherings around the house more frequently. An act that had surprised not only Toh as the mole appeared at the top of the basement stairs at dinnertime but also the rest of the boarders who were also attending the meal that night. Most of whom had never even seen or knew the mole lived there with them.
Retreating to his basement-level bedroom, which he affectionately referred to as The Burrow, Desmond unclasped his overalls, allowing them to fall to the floor where he stood. His stomach full of roast behemoo and beetroots smothered in a thick balsamic sauce, he was ready to get to work on writing the next chapter in his series of web stories, which were, in reality, a stealth expose of the happenings of Brickhedge.
On more than a few occasions, Desmond had even tried to gauge the local populcace’ thoughts on the story, or if they’d even heard of it. To no surprise, nobeast had any idea of the series’ existence, which he used as an opportunity to plug it, citing how ‘interesting’ it was. His opening up and being more sociable had benefited him in these instances, which he’d never admit to anybeast.
Keeping his identity a secret on the blog itself was a must. The account had been created through an email created behind a VPN. There’d be no tracing things back to him that he had made sure of.
In recent days, he had published a longer-than-average story about a seemingly important figure visiting the “fictional” town in which his story had taken place, which, thanks to an anonymous tipster sharing it on Reddit, had gained a ton of traction in the form of anonymous arguments in the comments section over whether the piece had been about Garou Loveless.
Desmond, of course, kept quiet on the subject matter. He’d continued with the next chapter as if the last hadn’t happened, just hoping that the extra publicity he got would carry through to the next chapter. The money he’d make just on that traffic alone would cover his domain costs for the next month or two.
Hours later, the temperature outside had plummeted to a chilly thirty-five degrees, which until the furnace kicked in, much of which would be felt inside the mole’s bedroom unless he could pry his fatass off the computer chair and flip the switch on his little space heater.
Puffs of his breath materialized in the cold, damp air of his room as he exhaled. The wiry grey fur that covered his body only insulated him so much, unlike his buddy the wolf or his foxy partner. Their thick undercoats would handle the cold here, no problem. Or that’s what he assumed, at least.
Ignoring the cold, he began to tap away at his mechanical keyboard as the words for this week’s chapter began to pour out of him. This one titled ‘The Old Folks’ and was about a retirement community in this fictional town. Characters that were oddly similar to Moss and the old bulldog appeared alongside the town’s hateful old mouse, the friendly groundhog that waved to each and every passerby from his old, wooden rocker that sat beneath the willow tree.
Tapping his chin with his claw, the mole began to brainstorm. Ignoring his quote-on-quote fictional tale, an idea began to formulate within that thick skull of his. The tentacles on his face wriggled in a way that resembled a flag caught in a gentle breeze.
Opening up another tab, he did a quick search for Brickhedge on every archival site he could think of on this side of the country: News articles(99.9% of which were about Loveless), brief mentions, anything that could have given the mole some insight on the town’s history that he could fictionalize. But there was nothing; the town simply did not exist to the outside world.
And that made him begin to wonder. Was it done intentionally as the townsfolk just wanted to be left alone, or was there something more behind the curtains that kept the town so lowkey? He knew beasts in high places, so perhaps he could dig away for some info there at town hall the next time he saw Eligh.
There had obviously been some great history in the town, but with no online presence and no local newspaper to speak of, such events were hard to learn about unless you knew who to talk to.
And like a bolt of lightning striking an unsuspecting water-based Slime, an idea struck him: The local library! They would for sure have some form of historical documents on Brickhedge locked away in their archives. He just needed somebeast who was good at communicating with others who could tag along with him.
Luckily for him, he knew just the beast.
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