by Amy Star
Slowly, Zeke huffed out an amused sigh and the fox’s head snapped up. It looked straight at Zeke before its ears slicked back against its head and it turned and bolted away, a flock of crows taking off out of the grass as it raced by, abandoning whatever they were eating as they cawed noisily and scattered.
With a distraught, “Aw, no,” Charlie jogged after the fox, but to no avail. It disappeared with ease. But she didn’t have time to get properly distraught, as a deer bounded past, racing away from the sudden commotion.
It was huge. Well, alright, it was the size of a decent pony, but it was still bigger than she ever would have expected it to be. Kids’ movies had led her to believe that they were closer to the size of a dog, and she certainly wasn’t expecting the spread of six-pointed antlers that branched from its skull.
She stared after it as it fled, her eyes wide in wonder. “How does it not get stuck on the branches?” she finally mumbled to herself, reaching up to probe at the top of her head unconsciously. “How come it can just fit so easily through the trees?”
Behind her, Zeke huffed out a breath and gave her a prod with his nose, jerking her back to the present. She turned to keep following him, only to groan and turn away as he found whatever had so captivated the crows before and finished it off.
That was one part she was never going to get used to, she was pretty sure, and she was glad she did not need to take part.
(Zeke seemed to think her disgust with his scavenged meal was funny. Charlie was not a fan.)
*
It was sort of entertaining to watch Zeke bustle back and forth like a terrier following a broom. He knew Charlie was still around—she guessed that her smell was still in the area—but he couldn’t spot her. And maybe it was a bit mean, but it was honestly funny as hell to watch him pace back and forth and in circles around the area with increasing discontent as he tried to find wherever she had wandered off to.
It was only when he started grumbling and his irritation was pretty evidently turning to worry that she plucked a twig off of the tree branch she was sitting on and threw it at him. It bounced off of his head and he looked up at her as she laughed, “I’m up here, you overgrown worrywart.”
His grumbling took on a different tone after that, and with a huff, he stood up on two legs, his front legs leaning against the tree trunk as he tried to shove at her with his muzzle.
Not one to give up so quickly, Charlie climbed out of reach, hauling herself up to the next branch up. But Zeke was also not one to give up so easily, as he started heaving his weight against the tree, over and over, making the entire tree shake just enough that clinging to it was not the most comfortable thing.
Rather than climbing down to the ground once again, Charlie shimmied along her branch until she could grab the branch of a neighboring tree. She made sure her hold on it was steady, and then she dragged herself over to the next tree. She snorted out a laugh, muffled ineffectually behind one hand, as Zeke groaned and thumped back down to all fours.
It was a good half hour of climbing from tree to tree with Zeke lumbering along beneath her—sometimes standing up to get at her and sometimes just leaning sideways against the tree until it seemed like it might give out under his weight—before Charlie got bored of her game and finally shimmied her way back down to the ground, making her way down the trunk like some sort of overgrown squirrel.
As soon as her feet were on the ground, Zeke shouldered into her lightly. Well, ‘lightly’ in that he didn’t hurt her, but he did still knock her onto her back on the ground. She whined at him melodramatically for a few moments, but he was determined to show no remorse and she supposed she could at least grant him that much, as she climbed back to her feet and ineffectually dusted herself off. It wasn’t going to do much good; she was pretty thoroughly coated in the bounties of the forest.
At least it smelled pretty good. She sort of wished she could bottle the ‘just rolled around in a tree’ smell. Earthy and woody and sort of sweet from the leaves and the sap. Movies always made people who had been in the woods look as if they would smell like rotted sewage, but as far as Charlie could tell, everything just smelled like… nature. If she could bottle that smell, she would.
She would certainly be unique.
(She made a mental note to go shopping at some point in the near future. She had to remind herself that she could actually afford to shop in the more expensive district, and who knew what she would find there? It would be like a treasure hunt.)
*
It was a warm evening and it faded into a warm night. Warm enough that Charlie shucked her shoes and her socks without worrying about getting cold, rolled her pants up over her knees, and waded into the stream. She tied her shoelaces together to let the shoes dangle around her neck and stuffed her socks into her pocket, freeing up her hands to keep balance as the current buffeted her gently.
She had been swimming in a deeper creek in summer camp, but that had been with twenty other kids and counselors, the water had been churning and muddy, and they hadn’t really been permitted to actually swim, so much as they just got to aimlessly drift to make sure no one would swim too far ahead and drown, as if they hadn’t been wearing life vests.
Comparing the two situations… well, there really was no comparison.
It took maybe four seconds before Zeke hopped down into the water, and Charlie squealed as it sprayed in every direction. She found herself thoroughly doused, and she whined melodramatically for a few seconds before she shook her head quickly in an attempt to get her sodden hair out of her face. Mostly all she accomplished was getting her hair to stick to her face and neck. It was not ideal, but she didn’t care much just then.
She turned to face him, kicking water at him as if it was going to have any sort of effect on him. He yawned at her and then flopped down onto his belly, his resultant wave nearly knocking Charlie onto her butt in the water.
“You are such a prick,” she laughed, stomping both feet in the water over and over, just to splash his face a little bit. That at least got a reaction, as he grumbled and lifted a paw to cover his face. All things considered, his paw did not make for a great shield, and soon enough his head was dripping wet. Charlie couldn’t help but whip out her phone to get a picture of him with water dripping off of his nose, chin, and ears. He scowled at her, at least as much as he was really capable of scowling just then.
Still, it didn’t take long before being completely soaked started to lose its appeal, and Zeke stood back up and hauled himself out of the stream again. As if to offer it as one last parting shot, he stood right on the very edge of the ravine as he shook off, flinging water in every direction. Charlie groaned melodramatically and decided she wasn’t even going to bother getting out of the stream. There would be no point.
She walked through the water, following the stream as it meandered, and Zeke lumbered along beside her from just above the crevice the stream had carved into the ground.
It was just as Charlie was contemplating trying to catch one of the strange little shrimp critters—crawdads, maybe, but she couldn’t actually remember what they were called—that Zeke’s head jerked up. He started audibly sniffing at the air and his ears were turning every which way, and nothing about his sudden alertness boded well.
When he grumbled lowly, Charlie scrambled out of the water and up the side of the bank so she could tuck herself against Zeke’s side. She clenched her hands in his fur and craned her head back and forth to look around, to see if there was anything out of the ordinary yet.
She heard trouble before she saw it, as the underbrush on the other side of the stream started rustling, followed by the snapping of branches far too large for it to be something as harmless as a fox.
Quickly, Zeke dropped to a crouch and turned his head to prod at Charlie with his snout. She got the hint quickly, clambering gracelessly up onto his back. He was too broad for it to be comfortable and the only way for her to hold on was to clench her hands in his fur, but it was better t
han being stuck trying to outrun a bear on foot again.
Once she was on his back, they stood still just long enough to spot Richard watching them through the leaves, and then Zeke took off at a sprint, barreling through the woods as Charlie clung to his back for dear life, her teeth rattling each time Zeke’s front feet met the ground. She felt as if she was going to be shaken right out of her skin.
Zeke wasn’t going at his top speed, though. Instead, he waited until Richard had slowed to cross the stream before he put on an extra burst of speed, thundering along until Richard disappeared out of sight behind them. He had some sort of plan, evidently, as he seemed very set on some sort of goal.
When he stumbled to a too-sudden stop, Charlie nearly tumbled forward, right over his head. Zeke turned his head, tugging at the cuff of her pant leg until she got the hint and climbed down, and he nudged her into an alcove in the ground. He glanced back in Richard’s direction, heaved an irritated sigh through his nose, and then ducked his head into the alcove to steal one of Charlie’s socks from her pocket.
He backed up a pace and Charlie curled up into as small of a ball as she could manage before Zeke took off again, breaking into a run and gaining as much distance as he could before Richard could actually see him well enough to realize Charlie wasn’t on his back anymore.
Charlie held her breath as Richard stampeded past a few moments later, following Zeke’s path through the woods.
Everything was silent for a moment, and cautiously Charlie poked her head out of the alcove, peering around carefully. There were no bears anywhere to be seen, but Charlie had learned her lesson about wandering off into the woods. She pulled herself back into the alcove and curled up, making herself as small as she could.
She was just going to stay right there until Zeke came back to get her. She still more or less knew her way back to the car, in the worst-case scenario, but she was positive that wasn’t going to happen. Zeke would just lead Richard on a merry little chase until Richard inevitably ran off to go lick his wounds again.
*
There was a bang in the distance, thunderous and loud and unnatural. It was not a sound that was made in nature and it was not a sound that promised good tidings, and Charlie gnawed at one of her fingernails as she waited for Zeke to get back to explain what the hell was going on.
It was a very long wait. Charlie wasn’t even sure how long it was—maybe twelve minutes, maybe an hour, it was hard to tell—but it certainly felt like a very long wait, with only the wind and the bugs to keep her company in her hole.
She was very ready for their trouble with Richard to be done and over with.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Though Zeke came to the nature reserve once a month, he knew remarkably little about the area surrounding it. True enough, he could guess that it was a rural area, but that wasn’t exactly an enormous leap of logic.
Suffice to say, as he bolted through the trees and did his best to stay out of Richard’s line of sight, he didn’t actually have any idea where he was going. He would be able to find his way back easily enough, of that there was no doubt, but for all he knew he might go bumbling right over the edge of a cliff, assuming there were any cliffs in the area.
…Or he might go bumbling right onto private property, as the case was just then, as the trees eventually gave way to farmland with sheep and cows moseying around in the distance. They lifted their heads from their grazing to watch Zeke with alarm as he kept on running through the grass. Of course, it wasn’t long before the dogs spotted him and set to barking, and they only got all the louder as Richard barreled out of the woods behind him. If he even noticed the change in scenery, there was no indication, and he only slowed slightly once it was readily apparent that Charlie was not actually with Zeke anymore, as there were no longer any sort of trees or underbrush to block the view.
There was a farmer. Of course, there was; it was a farm. The farmer, however, had a gun and did not appreciate what to him were simply two predators on his property. To him it was likely the most obvious conclusion that the two enormous bears were a risk to his livestock, so Zeke really couldn’t blame him when the first shot rang out. It struck nothing, but Zeke put on another burst of speed regardless.
He angled himself back towards the tree line, intending to boomerang back around into the woods again. It would be safer that way, and if nothing else, Richard knew that Charlie was somewhere in the woods and would likely be heading back in her direction soon enough. Determination had always been something of a skill of his, though it was rather frequently mistaken as sheer stubbornness.
The second shot came as a surprise. Not because Zeke hadn’t expected the farmer to keep shooting, but because it actually found its target. Zeke stumbled to a halt in surprise when he heard Richard make the strangest noise behind him. Standing just at the tree line, he turned, peering cautiously back at his cousin as he toppled to the ground, blood streaming from one of his shoulders.
For a moment, Zeke dithered, debating running back to offer some sort of help, though he wasn’t actually sure what he could offer just then. Either way, though he couldn’t say he would weep for the loss, he had never wanted anyone to get shot; he had never actually wanted anyone dead.
Richard struggled back to his feet and hobbled a few steps before another shot rang out. There was a spray of blood and other matter as the bullet found its home in Richard’s skull, and his body dropped lifelessly to the grass.
Zeke turned and bolted into the woods as quickly as he could. There was quite literally nothing left that he could do, and lingering would do nothing more than get him shot as well. Considering he had a fiancée to get back to and a wedding to attend in the near future, that was rather low on his list of things to do.
What a strange thought, though. Richard was dead. Arguably because of his own malevolence. Zeke couldn’t help but think of the farmer as some sort of manifestation of karma. If Richard had simply butted out and left well enough alone, his brains wouldn’t be splattered over some pasture at the ass end of nowhere.
Even so, it wasn’t a particularly cheering thought and Zeke did his best to turn his thoughts to more pleasant, much more distracting matters as he kept on running. All of the sprinting meant he was about ready to sleep for a week, but Charlie had to be getting worried and he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long, especially given that he wasn’t sure what else, if anything, might be lurking in the woods as well.
Soon enough he would find Charlie again, and then he could take a break. And then he could explain what had happened.
What a night it had turned out to be.
*
The underbrush rustled loudly, branches snapping emphatically enough to give away the size of the creature coming closer. Charlie curled up into a tighter ball until she heard a placid grunt, and she finally started to crawl back out. A line of tension across her shoulders that she hadn’t even noticed began to unknot and relax as she saw Zeke staring back at her.
With a sigh, he flopped down onto the ground, dust and leaves and bits of grass rushing up around him. Charlie coughed and waved a hand in front of her face before she shuffled forward to lean against his side.
“You can’t actually explain shit about what just happened until you change back,” she acknowledged, caught somewhere between glum and amused. Zeke made a low, grumbling noise and shrugged, his ears slicking back against his head as he did.
The thought was sort of funny, in a strange way. Not funny enough to keep Charlie from checking the time on her phone roughly every three minutes, but it was sort of darkly amusing.
Whatever had happened, it had apparently worn Zeke out, as he fell asleep right there, content to nap the rest of the night away until he could change back to his human shape. That, at least, seemed pretty telling in one regard; if Richard were still a threat then Zeke wouldn’t allow himself to fall asleep. So whatever had happened, it had removed Richard from the picture.
Charlie sighed out a slow, relieve
d breath.
*
The night passed slowly. Charlie felt relatively safe in wandering, though. Not far, of course. After everything that had happened that night, she was content to stay within a stone’s throw of Zeke. But with what she had managed to intuit about the danger being more or less gone, she was content to meander through the immediate area.
Richard hadn’t come back, so clearly, they hadn’t simply made peace with each other. Not that Charlie had expected them to, and she wouldn’t have believed it for an instant if they tried to say they had. Frankly, she didn’t think Richard was capable of making peace with anyone once he decided he wanted something.
She supposed the most likely outcome was that Zeke had simply scared him off again. Richard was tenacious, but he had proven that he wasn’t above running from a fight that he knew he couldn’t win.
She supposed there wasn’t much of a point in speculating, though. Zeke would explain whatever had happened to Richard in due time. Until then, she plucked a few wild flowers and tried to weave them together into a chain, only to realize that it was harder than it looked. She discarded the ruined attempt and settled beside the creek with the last few flowers, sitting at the top of the ravine as she absentmindedly plucked the petals from the flowers and tossed them into the water, watching the small splashes of color float away.