AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Joe calms himself down and goes over to inspect the body.

Punchy is awoken by Joe's scream, and rushes over to Bud's limp body. His pulse speeds up fast.

Tom Nook's morning announcement woke up Diana, and not much later, she was up and around fur cleaned up from the muddy day yesterday. Things were in order, save for one thing that was amiss. Her toolkit she made the night before last was gone, replaced with…a bone of all things.
Grumbling annoyedly, she took the bone and walked out of the soundproofed house to the tent, looking for answers.

Kamak, I'm disappointed you didn't use the sound byte from when someone dies in the game.

Pierce hears Joe's scream and looks over at Whitney worriedly.

"W-what was that?!?!?"

He looks across the plaza to see where the scream came from.

"I'm going to go check it out, hawkeye!"

Pierce runs out of the plaza to where Bud's body was discovered.

Upon seeing Bud's lifeless body, Pierce's face becomes pale.

"G...g....guuuuh!"

As Lucky steps outside he hears the commotion. He walks over and notices Bud's dead body. "Oh. Oh dear."

If Pierce had teeth, he would be gritting them now, his face contorted into a scowl.

"Why.....why did I have to be right....."

"Probably because your picture has you facing that direction," mutters Joe as he jerks the knife out of Bud's eye. He looks at the blade for a few seconds.

"Huh," Joe grunts as he places the knife back where he found it. He walks over to the shovel and picks it up to get a look at it as well.

Punchy glares at Joe before he goes back to staring at Bud.

"A-at least it wasn't me," he stutters.

Cranston, having finally woken up, was walking towards the breakfast table when he saw the commotion across the river. He halted, walked patiently toward the scene, until he noticed the blood.

In full sprint, Cranston arrived just as Joe picked up the shovel. "Don't touch anything," he grimaced, panting, shielding his eyes from Bud's body, "Do we know who did this? If we don't, we need fingerprints."

"And how are we supposed to get those fingerprints?!" Whitney snapped, looking almost frantic. "We don't have any of the right tools for that!" She gazed down at Bud's corpse, biting her lip. "I don't...know what to do," she mumbled sadly.

"I don't know!" Cranston sputtered, "Maybe there's some dust at Re-Tail. I mean on crime shows you can tell if a print is a feather or fur or fin just by looking at it, I don't think there's a police station we can go to to get a real examination..."

"We do need fingerprints, so why did-" Punchy started, before going quiet.

"Maybe we should check Re-Tail for some dust." He got up and joined Cranston.

Joe waves his wing at Cranston.
"The only one of us who had fingers was Mr. Super Hamlet Level Example before he exploded. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm checking to see if there're any dents in this shovel here."

"...pawprints. He meant pawprints."

Diana quickly made a turn for the river when she saw some of the animals heading that way.

The sight was truly a sickening one to behold. The small deer covered her mouth, and the bone she held clattered to the ground. "Nngh…" she made an uncomfortable sound as the stench permeated her nostrils. Her breathing quickened, and she stepped back, eyes still fixated on the gruesome scene.