Pierre and Francine arrived after a few minutes at the location Marie described. The street was empty. On the right side of the street was a sidewalk. A great forest lay beside it. They stepped out of the car. They walked down the road until Pierre smelled something.
“Do you smell that?”
“What?” Francine asked.
“Don’t you smell something musty?”
“Well, I thought it was your odor,” she replied with a blush.
“No, it is not me,” he said irritated. “Where does it come from?”
They walked a few feet further and the scent became stronger.
“If this smell became even worse, we wouldn’t even need those dogs to find this kid back. That is if the beast is still with him…” Pierre said, closing his nose against the stench.
“You’re exaggerating a little bit. I can barely smell it,” Francine pointed out.
That was only partly true. Pierre had a very good nose, which helped him out very well several times. He once saved a family after he smelled that gas leaked from the furnace. He evacuated the building just in time, because the house was lit by flames only seconds after they left, swallowing the house in mere seconds. This same nose now helped him find the spot where the toddler was dragged into the woods. Any other person wouldn’t even notice the smell.
“Well you may be right. Let’s wait here for the backup…”
He hadn’t even finished his sentence or several police cars arrived at the scene.
“Speak of the devil, there they are” Francine said, walking towards the cars.

Within a few minutes the policemen and the dogs were ready to go. The dogs found the scent and followed it into the woods.
After a few minutes they came to a track way. It seemed like it wasn’t used much this time of the year. Grass was growing at several spots on the dirt road. Tree branches lay everywhere from the past windy days. One old rotten tree has fallen, blocking half of the path.
The dogs walked towards that tree and started circling it.
“What’s wrong with the dogs?” Pierre walked towards the dogs. “Weren’t they supposed to follow the scent of the… beast?”
The dogs started whining and started scratching at and digging under the log. One of them uncovered something that looked like metal. Pierre and Francine asked the policemen to summon the dogs back and tried to dig the metal out. Once they removed some dirt, they uncovered a manhole cover. It was buried beneath the fallen tree.
Pierre and a few policemen tried to move the log. After a few tries they succeeded and after a bit of digging the manhole cover was fully visible.
“Why was this manhole cover completely buried beneath the sand? Weren’t they checked once in a while?” Francine asked.
“It may be part of an old sewer system.” Pierre took a closer look. “And I think it hasn’t been buried that long. Otherwise the dogs wouldn’t have leaded us to this spot.”
“How do you explain that is covered in sand and buried beneath a huge tree?” Francine asked.
“Well, the storm of this morning could have caused the tree to snap. It was pretty windy. It is possible that the tree flattened the sand. Look, you can still see some loose dirt besides where the tree lay.”
Francine wasn’t convinced yet. “That could have been the dogs; they dug before you two pushed the log aside.”
“True, but they dug on the other side of the log. I stick with my statement that the manhole was opened recently, but if it was the beast, how did he open it?”
“You tell me.” Francine shrugged. “Let’s find out.”
They pulled off the manhole cover and went in after a couple of policemen. Once inside, it wasn’t that small. They didn’t have to stoop too much. The smell wasn’t so great, especially for Pierre. The sewers looked old, but seemed to be stable enough not to collapse.
They left the dogs outside, because they would certainly loose the smell in this stench. They split up. Four policemen went east while Francine, Pierre and another agent named John went west. They readied their weapons, just in case the beast might show up.
“Just this morning I was looking forward to going to a baseball game with my kids. Now I’m stuck in a sewer, trying to find some ruthless beast. Can this day get any better?”
Francine hushed Pierre. He and John looked at her confused.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
The all listened and heard the sound of a crying child. They hurried around the next corner. What came into view was a large room. It was about fifty meters wide and also fifty meters to the other side of the room. The room was connected to three other sewer pipes, one on each side of the room.
In the middle of the room sat a boy with an age of around a year. He cried and it looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.
Pierre walked towards the boy.
“Look who we’ve got here! Hello there, little fellow.”
The boy noticed them en started to cry even harder.
“You don’t have to be afraid. We won’t hurt you. We are here to help you.”
Pierre tried to walk closer, but out of nowhere we was pushed aside with a lot of force, letting the gun slip out of his hands.. When he looked, he saw a huge wolf. It was bearing its teeth and growled at every move he made.
Francine and John were paralyzed by this sudden appearance, but quickly recovered. The hurried towards Pierre and the wolf with their weapons ready to shoot. The wolf was startled and walked back towards the child, shielding it from the three humans as if it was protecting its prey.
Francine didn’t have to think twice. The wolf assaulted her colleague and looked like it wanted to kill them all. She shot the wolf three times in the chest. It mad a short whining sound and fell down within a second. Francine hurried towards her partner while John picked up the crying child.
“Are you OK?” she asked worried.
Pierre tried to get up but he was forced back down by a stabbing pain in his left arm.
“Ow! I think that wolf broke my arm!”
“Let’s get you to a doctor. Let me help you.”
Francine helped Pierre get up and they left the way they came through the manhole with John and the boy close behind them. The other agents were already back, because they encountered a dead end.
“They could have come our way to help. It’s not that we were too far away.” Francine sighed and grabbed her phone out of her pocket. She called the animal patrol to pick up the dead wolf they left behind.
John left with the little boy to an orphanage near the police station where it could stay until his parents were found. Meanwhile, Francine brought Pierre to the hospital to get his arm fixed. Luck was on his side, because it was just a single clean fracture that could be set easily. It would probably heal within two weeks.
“You’re lucky that the wolf didn’t bite your arm. It looked like it could crush your arm with ease.”
“Well, Francine, I don’t feel so lucky right now,” Pierre said with a grim on his face. “Damn! This hurts like hell!”
“Toughen up! These things can happen as. It’s part of the job.”
“Well, I never read anything in my job description about being attacked by a large wolf. Man! I didn’t know they could grow so huge!”
As Francine tried to say something, she was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. She tapped the 'answer' button and listened to what the caller had to say. After a few seconds, Pierre saw her face change color. In another twenty seconds she ended the call.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Animal patrol called. They said there wasn’t a wolf at the location we gave them. They were quite mad that we send them into those sewers for nothing.”
“Could it still be alive?”
Francine shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe. I shot it with all the bullets in my weapon. I don’t know how he could have survived that.”

After Pierre’s arm was fixed up, they left the hospital. Francine brought Pierre home, where his lovely wife and children took care of him. After that, Francine called it a day and went home too.

Pierre’s arm was healed within two weeks, as expected. Of course he shouldn’t carry too much weight, but he was able to do fieldwork again after a week of doing paperwork with one arm.
Strangely the wolf was never found. It almost looked like it never existed.
The child’s parents never came for him. The employees at the orphanage named him Lang, which means wolf in Chinese. He lived a happy live at the orphanage until Mr. And Mrs. Ren adopted him. They treated him like their own son and he had a good live with them.