Mysterious Hunting Ground

Chapter 288 278. Magic, attack

Hawkins Middle School, first floor hallway of the Bishop Building.

Jonathan opened two lockers next to each other on the wall, "Nos. 23 and 24 belong to Marcus and Samantha respectively."

Dean flipped through it carefully. They were all normal stationery and books. "Have the police come to search?"

"We searched and took some things away," Steve continued, "but I didn't hear anything important was found."

Dean nodded and carefully recalled the information in the file that Hope gave him. After the deaths of Marcus and Samantha, the police had already searched their personal belongings, but there was no mention of it in the file. to any badge-related records, which means no badge was found.

"Wait a minute, I'll look for it again."

Dean used his God's perspective to check the lockers around him.

What to wear!

Golan made a mocking face at his back and exchanged glances with a group of classmates behind him.
  Nancy leaned into Jonathan's ear and whispered, "Is this detective reliable? Why do I feel so panicked?"

Jonathan was flattered by Nancy's initiative to talk to him. He nodded quickly and said seriously, "He has helped me a lot and is deeply trusted by Director Hope. And haven't you read detective novels? Most of the smartest detectives have weird tempers and have... A little quirk."

Nancy looked at Barbara. The fat girl spread her hands and shrugged, making an expression of continuing to observe.

Catherine quietly wrote down the discussions between several people in her notebook.

"Let's go, everyone... there's nothing we're looking for in there." Dean waved for them to leave, "Take us to Marcus and Samantha's house to look for it."

"Whoever wants to ride in my car, hurry up and follow me!" Steve clapped his hands, and Golan and Hala rushed out after him.

……

Steve took Nancy, Hala, and Golan in a red convertible and ran ahead, while Dean, Katherine, Jonathan, and Barbara followed behind in a black Dodge.

"Is Steve's family very rich?" Dean dug into his pocket, took out a few POLO candies and shared one each. "The car he drives costs at least hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"His dad is a well-known local entrepreneur in Hawkins, so he has so much pocket money that he can't use it up and spends money lavishly." Jonathan looked at Nancy who was chatting with Steve in the passenger seat of the sports car in front, with a complicated expression on his face, "There is a mansion at home. , huge swimming pool, handsome, very popular in school.”

"Haha, Jonathan, did you just eat a few peppermints?" Catherine took out the makeup mirror and applied lipstick on herself, "Actually, you don't have to envy Steve. You know a lot of photography skills, and you can use them well." If a girl is happy, she will be no worse than him."

"Who envies this playboy?" Jonathan tightened his grip on the camera around his neck.

"Steve is really not cool." Barbara said with a worried look. "Although he is rich, he behaves frivolously. He has just entered high school this year and has already dated two girlfriends. Now he is pursuing Nancy, just for fun. It’s a novelty to try being a ‘good girl’. Once he gets hold of Nancy, he will definitely abandon her cruelly. I don’t want Nancy to have anything to do with him and be sad afterwards.”

"You're really good at reading people, I think so too!" Jonathan looked at Barbara next to him with a look of approval, and suddenly felt that her chubby face had become extremely pleasing to the eye.

Barbara smiled shyly, "I have always thought that you are more suitable for Nancy. In fact, she also appreciates your early work to support the family and your performance in beating up that annoying Golan last time. But you should be braver." .”

Jonathan smiled sheepishly at the compliment, "I'm not handsome and I don't have money."

"If you think so, then who am I?" Barbara laughed at herself, "A maid next to the little princess? In school, a fat guy + nerd like me is more unpopular than a 'weirdo' like you."

"No way, I think you are pretty good, Barbara..." Jonathan said sincerely, "You are more mature and considerate than other girls, and you have your own style in dressing up. Yes, I can take some beautiful photos of you. Photo."

Dean and Catherine listened to the exchange between the two young high school students in the back row, and suddenly felt that they were a few years younger.

……

Night fell, and darkness enveloped the town of Hawkins.

The two vehicles arrived at 57 Elm Street.

Because of the vicious case that occurred last week, almost no one was seen in the entire block after dark, and the very few people walked together were two or three people.

If Dean hadn't asked Hope to call several students' homes in advance, their parents would have been anxiously looking for someone on the street.

……

"My good sister Samantha's house." Hala got off the car and walked towards the dark two-story house. Her face no longer had the eccentricity and meanness in the afternoon. "She and Aunt Lux depended on each other. On the day of her accident, her aunt almost cried. I fainted and was hospitalized for several days. I lost dozens of pounds and looked ten years older."

These words put a sad atmosphere in the air, and a group of students couldn't help but hang their heads.

Steve continued, "I heard that Lux had put the house up for sale a few days ago and planned to sell it after the funeral and leave this sad place."

"Stop your sympathy, everyone, we are not here to mourn Samantha," Golan walked up and knocked on the door, but after a few bangs, there was no response.

"Stop knocking, there's no one in the house." Dean's perspective swept over and he saw the situation inside clearly, "You guys wait here, I'll go in and take a look."

As he said this, he left Ying outside to take care of her, and told Catherine to stand outside the porch. With a hand on his shoulder, he used his strength to jump up like a gecko and into the open window on the second floor.

"Did you see him flying over the roof and walking over the wall?" Golan exclaimed exaggeratedly, "Is this guy a detective or a professional thief or stuntman?"

"What do you know?" Jonathan couldn't stand this guy always slandering his friends and retorted unceremoniously, "Professional detectives are all-rounders and master all kinds of tricky techniques."

"Yes, I have read in books that Holmes is an all-rounder, extremely intelligent, observant, proficient in chemistry, understands anatomy, and knows a little bit about politics..." Barbara stood next to Jonathan and said clearly Expressing support, "This one is obviously not inferior to Sherlock Holmes either."

"Wow..." Golan and Hala exchanged a look, touched their chins, and said frivolously, "When did you two get together? The combination of a geek and a nerdy chubby girl looks pretty good together. "

"Shut up!" Nancy and Steve glared at the same time
  "Can you be quiet, children?" Catherine turned around with her hands on her hips, and the moonlight reflected her helpless face, "Do you want to attract the murderer here?"

……

Dean quickly walked around the slightly shabby bedroom, living room, and bathroom. With his eyes wide open, he rolled up dozens of things with his mind at the same time, rummaged through the cabinets, and put them back in their original places.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the house was dug up and down to find it.

There was no clue about the badge, but he found a cardboard box on the bed of the master bedroom on the second floor, filled with Samantha's small belongings, including a girl's diary recording her daily life in 1981.

Dean scrolled back to the beginning of December, the day he entered the cave last Wednesday, and opened the diary with a few lines:

What bad luck! You can actually hit dead people's bones during a snowball fight in the wild. It must be that weirdo Jonathan who caused the bad luck. You shouldn't have brought him here this time.

I was frightened and needed comfort, and Lux ​​was not at home that night. I asked Marcus to come and chat with me, but he rejected my invitation.

Blockhead! Break up with him sooner or later!

……

Thursday:

Damn Marcus, he has dark circles under his eyes, he has been listless all day, and he doesn’t even respond to me when I call him.

Did you secretly go out to have a tryst with other bitches last night?

So that's it, he was rubbing a strange badge like Mo Zuo.

I asked him what it was, but he didn't say anything. He covered it like a treasure and wouldn't let me touch it.

I have to find a way to grab his attention and let him know that I, Samantha, am his most precious treasure.

……

Friday:

I put on Marcus' favorite sexy lingerie and booked two tickets for his favorite color movie.

Tonight, I will drain him dry, let him fly into the sky, and make him unable to live without me!
  ……

After three entries, there is a blank, and Samantha's diary ends here.

Dean quickly extracted the key information and found that the progress had jumped to [-]%. He put the diary back to its original place and jumped out of the window back to the yard.

A group of people gathered around, "How about it, Detective, have you found anything?"

Dean glanced around, nodded, and briefly described the contents of the diary.
  "There's something wrong with saying that," Steve recalled, rubbing his chin. "Ever since Marcus got the badge, his whole person became very strange, as if he was out of his mind. Until he was killed, his attention seemed to be lost in front of him. ."

Golan also nodded, "Marcus has become unlike him and has a lot of worries."

Catherine put down her notebook and asked, "Children, did Marcus like collecting antiques before?"

"Don't be kidding," Hala said with disdain, "This bastard always ranks last in history in his grade. He knows nothing about antiques and has no interest in them at all. What he likes is sex, alcohol, picking up girls, and teaching black people. Asians, immigrants of all kinds.”

Catherine frowned and asked, "Then why is he so obsessed with this badge that he would not hesitate to steal it from a dead person?"

Everyone stared at each other. Nancy and Barbara exchanged a tacit look and said, "Maybe it's not that he likes the badge, but the badge that attracts him? You have all seen this year's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," right? Dr. Indiana is looking for The 'Ark of the Covenant' is a strange object that contains mysterious power. Perhaps the badge is also such a strange object with the power to confuse people's hearts, which is why Marcus is so obsessed with it."

Dean nodded secretly to the sisters. He had a rich imagination for being able to come to the same conclusion as himself so quickly.

"It seems that you have not only damaged your eyes by reading, but also damaged your brain by reading, confusing movies and reality." Golan and Hala hugged each other and sneered at this statement, "What mysterious power does not exist at all!"

……

Everyone debated with no result. Around eight o'clock in the evening, they drove to Marcus's house at No. 169, not far away on the same Elm Street.

Dean sat in the car and took a look from his perspective. There was no one at home either.

Steve said, "Marcus' family couldn't bear the sadness and moved to a hotel in the center of town. They will probably move out of Hawkins sooner or later."

"Wait a minute, I'll go in and take a look." Dean opened the door and got out of the car alone. He quietly climbed up to the second floor the old way, got into the window and searched for a while. Unfortunately, Marcus is a grown man but not like his girlfriend Samantha. Also fond of writing diaries, Dean searched the entire house, but found no clues about the murder or the whereabouts of the badge.

But he found a piece of white paper in Marcus's bedroom, with this picture drawn on it - sixteen strange symbols: ∞,, &,... evenly arranged in a circle, with a cross-shaped ravine in the center. From top to bottom, from left to right, there are sculptures of single-cell organisms, fish, dolphins, humans...all kinds of strange objects, which seem to express some kind of "evolution" process.

The first time I saw this pattern.

An electric current seemed to run through Dean's tailbone, his whole body trembled, and his pupils shrank.

The system progress also jumped to [-]%.

"There is no doubt that this is the pattern engraved on the badge... It is similar to the pattern of the magic circle, and there is definitely a close connection between the two."

"But what do they represent and what supernatural powers do they possess?"

Dean pondered for a long time and was unable to determine, so he had to continue searching.

Soon, he found another strange comic book in Marcus's bedroom, which showed pictures of white people fighting with black people in school, and there was a "swastika" blatantly inlaid on the outside of the picture book.

"Is Markus a Nazi?"

Dean raised his eyebrows, took the two gains and climbed through the window back to the people standing outside the sports car. He first used a flashlight to show the drawings on the white paper.
  "Yes, that's what's on the badge!" Steve and Golan nodded excitedly and asked Dean, "Did you find the badge?"

Dean shook his head, "It's a pity that there are only patterns."

"This painting is very delicate," Catherine took a look at her face and praised, "The painter has at least five or six years of experience. Marcus has learned to paint?"

"No," the six students shook their heads at the same time, "Marcus is just a brainless, stupid man. Not to mention drawing, he even writes his name like a caterpillar."

"Then who drew this picture?"

No one could answer. Barbara raised her glasses and mentioned her opinion again, "I said that the badge has the same magical power as the 'Ark of the Covenant', seducing Marcus and allowing him to discover himself. Potential, painted this picture.”

"It would be a shame if you didn't go to Hollywood to be a screenwriter." Golan sarcastically said,
  "Stop arguing, look at this one again," Dean took out another comic book, "Do you know what this is?"

"Anti-black propaganda brochure," Steve flipped through it casually a few times with a calm expression. "It's not strange for Marcus, an idiot, to see this. My impression is that he has always been a white supremacist, or a neo-Nazi, or a racial sect." He is anti-immigration and advocates maintaining pure white blood in the United States, so he often bullies black and Asian students in school. If we hadn't stopped him, he would have tattooed the 'swastika' on himself."

"You mean... Marcus Roland is a neo-Nazi?" Dean looked at Jonathan's other students questioningly, and everyone nodded in agreement.

Dean asked, "What about his parents and relatives too?"

Steve shook his head, "That's not true. His parents beat him several times because of his discrimination against black classmates at school, but they never got over it. Instead, he got worse."

This is strange.

Dean recalled the scene he saw in "Absorbing Memories". The murderer of Marcus had a Nazi tattoo on his left wrist. He was definitely a Nazi, and Marcus was also a Nazi.

Is there any hatred or connection between the two of them?
  What partisanship is involved?
  No, Dean shook his head. The Nazis should be secondary and there is no need to think deeply.

Dean vaguely felt that he had captured another important piece of inspiration, but it slipped away again without noticing.

"Dean, it's already past eight o'clock. Marcus and Samantha's house has been searched. They found nothing but a painting. Why don't we disband and go home?" Good girl Nancy glanced at the sky. The moon in the middle, the dead streets around, "If this drags on any longer, my parents should go to the police station to find me."

"Yes, Detective, can I cooperate with you tomorrow?" Steve yawned.

Dean finally saw that these high school students didn't take today's investigation too seriously. Maybe they thought they were deceiving them.

"Hold on."

Dean and Catherine exchanged a look, and the latter handed him a pile of today's records. The summary is as follows:
  1. Found the pattern of the lost badge.

2. Knowing that it has some strange power seduced Marcus.

3. Discovered that Marcus was a Nazi.

Next, they should wait for new information from Director Hope and Professor Aiden.

No, we will cooperate with the filming later and let Hope send police officers to protect these families and wait for the murderer to come to their door.

"Let's go, I'll take you home one by one,"

"No need." This group of young people resisted. "We go to high school, not elementary school. We can protect ourselves and don't need you to take care of us."

"Stop talking nonsense and get in the car quickly." Dean tapped the horn, and the piercing whistle penetrated the silent neighborhood. "Whose house is closest, go there first."

……

The red sports car drove ahead, and Steve and Golan were still chattering about the strange experience tonight.

The Dodge driven by Dean followed behind, along the quiet and dim road, and quickly entered the suburbs where Maple Street turned to Elm Street.

The night creeps like mist.

Dean suddenly felt a sense of uneasiness in his head, and his temples began to pound. He glanced forward and penetrated the deep darkness. Under the ink-like night sky, a few hundred meters in front, a dark figure shot out like a sharp arrow. Standing in the middle of the road in the woods, it looked like a wild boar that had strayed onto the road from a distance, but a cold object in front of it, the gun, was pointed at Steve in the driver's seat of the sports car, reflecting a dangerous sheen.

"Oh my god, someone, brake quickly!" Nancy, the co-pilot, shouted,
  Golan and Hala in the back row screamed nervously, "God, what is that in his hand? Is that a gun?!"

"careful!"

sizzle-

The tires squeezed the ground and made a harsh friction sound, tearing apart the silent night.

The red sports car drew a beautiful arc on the road like a drift.

Bang bang gunfire broke out!
  The black figure broke into the road and pulled the trigger continuously. Several bullets hit the front windshield of the sports car, tearing out a large radioactive crack, and then penetrated it and shot Steve in the driver's seat.

I am dead!
  Steve felt a slight sting on his forehead and held his breath. His heart stopped beating for a moment, but a magical scene appeared in his widened eyes. The warhead seemed to hit an invisible layer. The film was suspended less than ten centimeters in front of his eyes and stayed there for a moment.

Bang, a force sent the warhead flying towards the nearby trees.

The red car crashed into a pine tree on the side of the road. The four people who were in shock trembled as if they were on a roller coaster. When they recovered, they saw the sneak attack gunman rushing over. He was wearing a black robe and hood covering his whole body, his face A pale mask blocked his facial features, making them look particularly cold and penetrating in the moonlight.

"Fake, the Asian detective didn't lie, there is really a murderer who is chasing us!"

This thought flashed through Steve's and the other four's minds, but they had no time to resist.

The killer raised his gun at them.

Bang bang bang!
  Gunshots.

The high school students screamed in panic and closed their eyes.

But there was no pain as the bullet penetrated the flesh, and they were not the ones injured.

The black-robed gunman who launched the sneak attack trembled as if he was electrocuted. A bloody hole burst out in his right wrist, and the pistol fell from the tiger's mouth of his left hand and fell to the ground.

boom!
  Second shot!
  boom!
  Third shot!
  The sound of gunfire was so faint that it was almost imperceptible.

Dean walked in from behind with the M1900 in hand, and stepped quickly and calmly. Each step seemed to be stepping on the rhythm of his heart. The bullets hit the murderer's left and right knees, ankles, wrists, and shoulders with incredible accuracy.

The sting and impact robbed him of his mobility.

He knelt down in front of Dean with a pop, keeping his upper body upright, and his arms fluttering slightly in the air like wings.

The whole person is like a believer worshiping the gods.

The suppression of perception completely deprived him of his senses and he became a lifeless statue.

"Bring it to your door yourself, which saved me a lot of effort." Dean gave the four stunned students in the red car a comforting look, stepped forward, and took a closer look.

This hidden murderer, regardless of the strength of his life or the intuition given to him, is just an ordinary person who is slightly above the normal level.

No trace of the supernatural.

Dean grabbed the white ghost mask on the murderer's face and pulled it away, looking stern for a moment.

Under the mask was a weathered white male face, with short black hair mixed with patches of snow-white, deep-set eyes, straight nose bridge, thin lips, skin as pale as a dead person, and a pair of eyes staring straight into the air, losing focus.

Even though he was more than ten years older than the corpse Dean had seen before, Dean could still recognize the facial features and facial contours at a glance. The man who attacked him was the man lying in the morgue. The middle-aged version of Kurt Rolland.

(End of this chapter)