Scary Stories for Young Foxes

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  The fourth’s ear twitched with realization. “Oh, right! Mia! That’s—”

  “Hush,” the beta said.

  The little one curled her paws beneath her chest to keep them from shaking.

  “Uh, Boz?” said the alpha.

  Bozy, the sixth kit, hadn’t blinked since the story ended. The littlest kit tried to see into her brother’s eyes, but they stared straight through her into the dark of the wood.

  “Bozy?” the beta said. “Do you need to go home?”

  Without a word, the sixth kit stood, turned his nose toward the den, and left.

  Six little foxes.

  “We’re ready for the next part,” the alpha said.

  “Yeah,” said the third. “We’re ready for the scary part.”

  The little one gulped, hoping the scary part was over and done with.

  “What’s more frightening than a rabid teacher?” the storyteller asked.

  The kits tilted their heads questioningly, ears still flat.

  “Perhaps,” the storyteller continued, “someone in your family who is just as cruel, even though they are not diseased.”

  The wind made the leaves whisper, ruffling the little one’s fur. She didn’t like where this was going.

  “On the other side of the forest lay the Boulder Fields,” the storyteller said. “One night, the moon shined high and bright, just like it is now…”

  Six little foxes gazed into the sky.

  SIX SISTERS

  ONE

  “GIRLS, CLEAN your brother, please.”

  “Mo-om,” Ava said.

  “He’s gross,” said Anna.

  “His fur tastes funny,” said Ali.

  “Like shrew guts,” Aya said.

  “Yeah,” Ada and Agatha said together, “and owl pellets.”

  The sisters’ giggles echoed off the walls of the stone den.

  Uly, their only brother, listened from a dark corner, wobbling on his one good foreleg. His other leg, the front left one, curled against his chest like a dried-up dandelion stem, the paw a wilting flower. It didn’t show any signs of growing like the other three—as much as his mother licked at it.

  “Girls,” their mother scolded. “Clean your brother now or I’ll bite your lips.”

  Ava huffed, and her huff was echoed five times.

  Uly had tried cleaning himself. He really had. But it was impossible to sit upright and run his one good forepaw over his ears without thumping over and bruising his chest. He had tried lying on his side, licking his good forepaw, and swiping at his face. But he always ended up tumbling himself in circles, making his fur even dirtier than before.

  “Mom says we have to clean you,” Ava said.

  “Yeah, so you don’t stink up the den,” said Anna.

  “And attract every hawk in the universe,” Ali said.

  “And—”

  “I heard,” Uly said before they could continue.

  He slid his forepaw forward, slumping to his stomach, and lay his muzzle on the stone. His sisters took little licks at his fur, making it stand out at all angles. Two of them made gagging sounds. Another gave him painful nips instead of licks. Uly knew this was Ava.

  “I’m going hunting, kits!” their mother called from the den’s entrance. “Howl if you see any shadows.”

  Uly’s stomach ached in anticipation of dinner. He wasn’t much of a fighter. And because he had to wrestle his six sisters for every morsel of food their mom dragged into the den, he barely ate enough to keep his good legs steady, let alone the shriveled one.

  The kits’ father was meant to bring fresh kills to the den for their first ten weeks. But Uly’s mom told them that their dad had died in a terrible accident before they were born. (And, no, she wouldn’t say what happened until they were older.) Whatever their mom could hunt and whatever they managed to wrestle from their siblings was what they got to eat.

  The moment their mother’s shadow vanished up the stone slope, Uly’s sisters stopped cleaning, leaving his skin grimy and itchy.

  Ava smiled at him. “We won’t have to clean you much longer, you know.”

  “Not much longer now,” Ali said.

  “Wanna know how we know?” Aya asked.

  “No,” Uly said in a slump.

  “Mr. Scratch told us,” said Anna.

  Uly’s jaw clenched. “There’s no such thing as Mr. Scratch,” he said, even though the name never failed to send a chill to the tip of his tail.

  “Oh, Mr. Scratch is real, all right,” Ava said.

  “As real as moonlight,” said Aya.

  Uly struggled to sit up. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  Few things about Mr. Scratch made sense. What was he? Where did he come from? And when would his sisters have heard about something Uly hadn’t? Had they slipped out of the den at night when he and his mom were asleep? Had they whispered to Mr. Scratch under the light of the moon? The thought gave Uly a case of the moth flutters.

  As if smelling his fear, his six sisters started to walk circles around him.

  “Mr. Scratch is made of ash.”

  “Mr. Scratch has teeth that gnash.”

  “Gobbles all the litters’ runts.”

  “Tiny kits are what he hunts.”

  “Dear Mother won’t make any fuss.”

  “When there’s more food for the rest of us.”

  Uly scowled. “That poem’s—hic! That poem isn’t even—hic! It—hic! It isn’t—hic!”

  He was trying to tell his sisters that the poem wasn’t very good—that the birds in the alder trees sang much more interesting songs about battles and hidden caches and daring escapes from predators. But his body betrayed him.

  “That poem’s—hic!—dumb! Hic!”

  The sisters giggled in delight.

  “You’d better not hiccup when Mr. Scratch comes around.”

  “Better not.”

  “Otherwise, he’ll find you.”

  “He’ll catch you in his ashy teeth.”

  “And that—”

  “Will be—”

  “The end—”

  “Of Ewwly.”

  The only thing Uly hated more than his nickname was when his sisters talked like this. As if the same dark voice slipped from muzzle to muzzle, using six tongues to speak.

  But where that voice came from … Uly had no idea.

  * * *

  Later that night, their mom dragged dinner into the den and then promptly fell asleep.

  The sisters pounced, and the groundhog vanished in a blur of fur and blood. Uly managed to wriggle between their thrashing bodies and snag a bit of something, which he clamped in his muzzle and took back to his corner.

  It was nothing but an ear, full of cartilage. But the sisters still stared with jealous eyes and bloody muzzles as he choked it down.

  TWO

  “WAKE UP, wake up, my little pups!”

  Uly stirred from a hunting dream to find his six sisters bounding toward the den’s entrance, which glowed orange and gray. He hefted himself onto his foreleg and hopped after them, but his sisters had formed a half circle, blocking him out.

  “You’re getting so big, all of you,” their mother said outside. “I can barely catch enough food to keep up.”

  Uly’s heart started to sink.

  “So tonight,” she said, “you’re going to hunt your own insects.”

  The sisters yipped and leapt in excitement, drowning out Uly’s whimpers.

  He gazed between his sisters’ ears and up the stone slope. The Great Boulder shimmered with dawn. It looked so bright and steep that it made his forepaw ache just to look at it. How was he supposed to hunt with only three legs? How was he even supposed to climb up there?

  Their mother cleared her throat, and the sisters’ yips fell silent.

  “You are not to venture beyond the crack, do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mom,” six bored voices said at once.

  Uly could see it now. The crack cut high across the G
reat Boulder like a crooked grin. Every night, the wind blew from the alders to the west and slid along the swell of rock, catching in the crack and howling as if in pain. The crack was just wide enough for a kit to tumble into. And even though he knew it was ridiculous, Uly had a feeling that this was where Mr. Scratch lived.

  “Keep within sniffing range,” their mother said as Uly’s sisters bounded out of the den.

  He sat under the arch’s shadow, watching as they gekkered across the boulder, ripping at each other’s ears and tumbling one another onto the stone. The sight made his whiskers wince.

  Uly searched the sky for spiraling shadows. His sisters once told him the story of a mother who walked the Boulder Fields in the bright of evening, her kits trailing behind her. The mother heard a swoop of wings and turned to find that her one and only son was gone—taken into the skies. The hawk had left nothing behind of the kit save his silhouette … in blood.

  A muzzle lay between Uly’s ears, making him flinch.

  “Everything will come twice as hard for you, Uly, my son,” his mom whispered. “But the rewards will be twice as wonderful. Once you finally manage to nip a strawberry, the juice will taste twice as sweet. The prairie dogs will be twice as succulent when you tear open their bellies. And the vixens—” Her voice caught. “Well, life will have a shine for you that it will not have for any other fox. You’ll never take anything for granted.”

  A warmth spread through Uly’s chest, stoked by his mother’s words.

  “Come play with us, Uly!” Agatha called back to the den.

  “Yeah!” Ava cried. “Come play so the hawks eat you instead of us!”

  Uly flashed a worried look at his mom.

  She only smiled. “What hawk would want you? You have no meat on your bones.” She nuzzled in his ear and whispered, “I’d be more worried if I were your sisters.”

  Uly snorted. He licked her on the snout, took a deep breath, and made a small hop out of the den. Its protective shadow slid back, and the sky opened like a giant’s eye above him.

  He looked back at his mom.

  “I’m right here,” she said.

  With that, Uly romped into the evening with a gait just as confident as his sisters’, if a little more lopsided.

  * * *

  The world outside the den felt violent to Uly’s senses. His nostrils itched with the dust of tumbling rocks. His eyes burned with sunset, shining bright behind the alders. The boulder still held the day’s heat, sizzling the bottom of his forepaw.

  He swiveled his ears, searching for insect sounds. But all he could hear was his sisters—wrestling, yipping, and playing tug-of-war with sticks.

  “First kit to catch a dragonfly is emperor supreme!” Ava screamed.

  With that, the sisters bounded into the air, snapping at the swooping blue insects.

   Clack!

     Clack!

      Clack! Clack!

       Clack!

        Clack!

  Uly decided to start simple. He fixed his eyes on the first star of the evening, determined to make his first-ever jump. He made a mighty push off his forepaw, then leapt with his back two paws … and managed to hop about a whisker off the stone. He cowered, waiting to see which sister would start laughing. But they were too focused on the dragonflies to notice him.

  Uly focused on the star and tried again. He pushed up off his forepaw, but this time his hind legs leapt too hard, throwing his top half off-balance. He tipped backward, rotating his body only for his muzzle to crack against the hard stone and chomp his tongue.

  The laughter came, echoed six times.

  Uly rolled onto his stomach, jaw trembling, blood dribbling onto his chin. His mother came to him, as she had dozens of times before. She slid her muzzle under his chest, helping him up onto his forepaw.

  “A fox is clever, Uly,” she said, “above all, above all. Your sisters may be able to hunt. But in order to survive in the wild, you’ll have to think of something that is truly Uly.”

  He glanced toward his sisters, then whispered, “Can’t I just stay with you?”

  “Oh, honey.” His mother gave him a kindly look. “I might not always be here.”

  His ears flattened as he tried and failed to come up with a way only he could survive. His sisters sprinted and swiveled and skidded, making him think of all the things he couldn’t do.

  “Come with me,” his mom said.

  She led him around their den to the low part of the Great Boulder, which smelled of wet soil and fresh green needles. A few tails away, the boulder ended at a jagged drop-off, announcing the start of the forest. The needles of the fir trees brushed the rock’s edge, as if they were slowly eating it. The sisters had told Uly so many terrifying stories about the forest that he couldn’t look into its shadows without seeing faces grin back at him.

  “Critters are injured every day,” his mom said. “Nestlings fall to the ground, babies are abandoned, innards go uneaten. The forest is a feast if you know where to look.”

  Uly sniffed along the boulder’s edge, but his nose couldn’t seem to catch anything but rock dust. His mom nudged his muzzle toward a light squeaking, which he followed until he caught the warm scent of something tiny and curled. It was a baby squirrel, no bigger than an acorn. It had tumbled out of its drey, high in the pines.

  “Congratulations, sweetheart,” his mom said. “You’re officially a hunter.”

  Uly opened his mouth to eat the squirrel, but then a breeze made him flinch. He glanced toward his sisters.

  “We’ll tell them you sniffed it out all by yourself,” his mom said. “Can you act like a brave hunter?”

  Uly puffed out his chest. “Like this?” he said in a scratchy voice.

  His mother suppressed a giggle. “My little warrior kit.”

  Uly ate his catch slowly, relishing every bite.

  “You’re right, Mom,” he said, licking his lips. “It did taste twice as good.”

  “No fair!” Ava called. “Uly’s cheating!”

  Uly’s ears folded as four of his sisters stepped atop the roof of their stone den and stared down at him.

  “Mom’s hunting for him!” Anna said.

  “Actually,” his mom said, “Uly found that little morsel himself, didn’t you, sweetie?”

  “Hic!”

  Uly cowered, forgetting to act brave.

  “If he can’t hunt, he should starve,” Ada said.

  “It’s only fair,” said Ali.

  “Hush now,” their mother said. “How would any of you feel if your sisters talked about you that way?”

  Three of the sisters whimpered with guilt.

  Only Ava stood strong. “Mr. Scratch wouldn’t like what you’re doing, Mom.”

  Uly saw storm clouds pass behind his mother’s eyes.

  “Ava…,” she said. “Where on earth did you hear that name?”

  Ava stared at her mother, defiant.

  “I did it! I did it!” Agatha called.

  The sisters turned to see what had happened. Agatha had snagged a dragonfly out of the air. The insect buzzed and coiled, jabbing at her snout with its juicy abdomen.

  While their mother and sisters licked her with praises, Uly kept his eyes on Ava. She snuck down to the boulder’s edge and stuck her muzzle between the needles … as if she were looking for someone.

  THREE

  SKRITCH

      skritch skritch

              skritch.

  Uly dreamed he was being eaten alive. Tiny creatures nibbled every inch of his skin. He tried to scrape them away with his hind paws, but his forepaw kept slipping and the creatures kept leaping back onto him, sinking in their pine needle-teeth.

  Skritch skritch

          skritch

              skritch skritch skritch skritch.

  Uly scratched himself awake. The creatures were gone, but his skin still felt like it w
as being eaten. An itch squirmed to life in his ear, and he dug into it, whimpering. Another bloomed on his neck, and he flopped onto his other hip to reach it.

  “Uly has mites!” Ava whispered.

  The six sisters pressed against the den’s far wall, eyes wide.

  “He’s being eaten alive!” whispered Ali.

  Uly wanted to argue, but he couldn’t stop scratching. He tried balancing upright so he could switch between his hind legs more easily, but his forepaw kept giving out. He rolled onto his back and writhed, scratching at his sides with both hind paws.

  “You—hic!—made mites—hic!—up!” he said.

  “Nope,” Anna said.

  “They’re tiny bugs,” Ava said.

  “They live in your hair.”

  “Hundreds of them.”

  “They just keep having more and more babies.”

  “And the babies drink up your blood.”

  “And eat your skin.”

  “Soon all your hair falls out.”

  “And you shrivel up like a rotten peach.”

  “And eventually, you scratch yourself to pieces and you die.”

  “No! Hic!” Uly said, scratching, hiccupping, trying to keep upright.“I—hic!—don’t—hic!—have—hic!—m-hic!—mites!”

  “Clearly,” Ava said, “you do.”

  Skritch skritch skritch skritch skritch.

  Now Uly was trying to scratch away his fear too. Was this Mr. Scratch? Had he finally come for him?

  “Ma—hic!—aw—hic!—ooommmm!” he howled.

  Their mother stirred in the back of the den. “What is it? Who’s crying?”

  “Uly has mites!” Ava said.

  “He stinks so bad he drew them all to us!” said Ada.

  “All. Of. Them,” Ali said.

  “We have to abandon den!” said Anna.

  “Hush your muzzles,” their mom said. She sniffed at Uly’s fur while he continued to scratch. Then she licked the worry from his brow. “There, there, sweetheart. You don’t have mites. Your sisters just missed some spots when they cleaned you.”

  Uly scowled at his sisters, who snickered while his mom gave his fur a thorough cleaning. Her tongue reached deep down to his skin, bringing a flutter to his eyelids. But when she finished, he still felt itchy. He nibbled at his hind legs, convinced he wouldn’t feel better until he’d chewed every inch of his fur off.