FOX, A Hero's Journey. Book 2 The Road: part three. The final part of book two.
Michael Gray Griffith
Severely injured, Fox is being cared for by a Vixen, he’s too wounded to move, but he will have to soon, for around their precarious den, the Virus is on the rampage, driving foxes insane before killing them. And nothing can stop it . . . Not even Love.
Chapter
The gunshot saw them jump.
Becoming delirious, Fox had managed to survive so many attempted breaches of the hole, he now growled at things that weren’t there. The hole reeked of his blood. And in places he couldn’t reach, through weariness, the cuts and puncture wounds were becoming septic. Strangely, though, the pain was going. Transforming into this overwhelming desire to sleep—a need so desperate, the thought of giving into their hunger was more a relief than fear.
And where was the Spirit Vixen—or any of her pack? The only spirits that were here were those that the Spirit Fox had ordered to stay. Stay until he dies.
Dies. To be dead. The concept was odd. Would he be with Mother? Would he be…
Ker-thump, went his heart, despite the approaching, silent paws.
Ker-thump, it beat and lulled him to sleep.
Ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump.
Crow cawed now—loud and hard.
Fox opened his eyes. Before him, everything was blurred. Enchanted, he watched the triangle-eared head blocking a portion of the mouth as if it were within one of his dreams.
Groggy with sleep, Fox closed his eyes again and searched the coming sleep for Dint and for Mother.
Trembling, and ready to leap out of the way, the cat remained and studied the still fox. Inhaling deeply, it sniffed and watched Fox while waiting for movement.
There was none.
Another cat was close behind it—its tail flicking, its eye sucking in the night. But it was the first one who finally took a step inside.
As Crow cawed, to no avail, the dry earth of the hole crumbled beneath its paws.
Crow cawed.
Drowsily disoriented, Fox barked himself awake.
The cat retreated. Its every sense strategically judging… waiting.
Unable to sustain consciousness, Fox fell back to silence—to sleep.
The cat entered again—ignoring Crow’s voice as it descended slowly, step by pausing step.
Behind it, the other followed.
Fox felt the weight of the first cat’s paw as inquisitively it touched his side. Fox sensed, too, the other cat entering the burrow, but sleep sang his heart… Sleep… Sleep.
He did not. Bristling awake, he transformed the hole into a churning pit of gnashing, hissing, and scratching.
A third cat, outside the hole, moved back from the battle. Hair raised, it listened, evaluated, then suddenly hissed and vanished back into the bush as, over its head, Vixen leapt and dropped into the hole. Her disappearing body lit by an astonishment of spirits.
The first cat that had entered the den collapsed onto Fox, crushed beneath Vixen’s weight. The second cat, frozen in shock, was grabbed by the back of its neck and wrenched, snarling, out of the hole.
Out, it realized the Vixen had let go and so tried to run, but it couldn’t. It lay there, paralyzed, its spinal cord severed.
In the den, Fox had clamped onto the first cat’s leg and was holding on. Hissing and scratching, the cat turned to the attacking Vixen and snarled. Vixen was prepared, powering past its swiping front claw, she clamped her teeth around its neck and began shaking. Hissing, sadly growling, it felt the coming of death. Its spirit light illuminated the den, allowing Vixen to see all the damage Fox had suffered. After tossing the dead cat aside, she came to Fox’s mouth and licked its tears.
To this, Fox lifted his head and studied.
“Mother?” he said, then, before she could reply, he closed his eyes and left.
Chapter
As the spirits watched, Vixen dragged the dead cat out of the den and left it next to the paralyzed one, who, in shock, was looking at the crow that had landed nearby.
Full of contempt, Vixen turned to the spirits.
Clearly annoyed, they moved together.
She lifted her head in defiance and snorted.
They weren’t afraid of her, but they knew they had lost. Turning, all but one of them disappeared. She studied the remaining one—old, it moved further back into the trees, then sat and wrapped its ghostly tail around its legs.
Back in the lair, Vixen began attending to Fox’s wounds, lapping up the salty ooze with her tongue.
Even Crow, whose sense of smell was nowhere near as developed as a fox’s, could smell the infection.
Too dark to see, Vixen could feel the tears in Fox’s skull and his gums, and felt too his dry tongue. He needed water. He needed food.
Water she couldn’t provide, but food… Moving back out to the cats, she began eating from the paralyzed one’s rear. Unable to feel anything, the cat blinked as it tried to grasp the terror of its situation. Arteries were bitten through. It died soon after.
Back in the den, Vixen regurgitated the meat into Fox’s jaws. It fell through, untouched, landing on the dirt on the other side. She tried again, and then again. It was no use. Fox was missing, and in his absence, his body would not eat.
Chapter
Fox entered the brilliant light of the soup. There were so many faces, and their numbers were growing by the moment. In the physical world, the virus was doing its work. The newer spirits were as bright as he was. Some of them were angry. They plowed through the resigned ones, churning them up as they did.
No one looked at Fox. No one spoke. Caught in their current, the occupation of the majority was to keep circling and, in doing so, generate the soup. Yet, despite their combined light, they looked exhausted. Alone, Fox moved on.
Chapter
When Vixen woke, the den was thick with their mixed and musky scents. Fox did not stir. Alone, she wondered where his spirit was and what wounds, if any, it had suffered.
Outside, Crow had heard her rouse. Lifting from the body of one of the cats, he returned to the trees. Perched, he grimaced at the returning pain of the “Eyes in his Head.” In the distance came the voices of a murder of crows as they argued over some human rubbish. They were arguing playfully, mainly about who would be left on watch. In his head, he saw himself guarding them all, as below him, they ate happily.
Inside the den, Vixen scratched at a flea biting her belly, then sniffed and licked Fox’s lips to stop them from caking. A pale light stopped her. It was the Spirit Fox. With most of his body submerged in the earth, his head and shoulders were illuminating the den.
“Leave him,” he told her.
She moved back as far as she could in the small, confined space.
“No,” she growled.
He was not intimidated. Eyes fiercely on hers, he said, “Leave him, or we’ll have you killed.”
“How?” she scoffed. “All you are is air.”
He paused, then, after turning to take in the unconscious Fox, he moved right up to her.
“Leave,” he whispered—steadily and firm.
Chapter
“There’s no point,” a fox said as Fox floated with him. Around him, a few others, lost in the soup, had also raised their heads and were now listening.
“The trail’s broken,” a vixen added, her tone matter-of-fact. “Man broke it. And what man breaks, a fox can’t fix.”
The others murmured in agreement before lowering their heads and flowing on.
“A fox can’t,” some fox behind him said, “but foxes will.”
Fox spun around and found the Spirit Fox. Instantly, all of Fox’s dream-teeth were bared.
“Come with me,” the Spirit Fox said. “It’s time you saw something.”
“With you? Why would I go anywhere with you? You tried to kill me.”
“Tried?” the Spirit Fox replied. “No, I think we did more than that.”
Fox paused.
“Obviously you haven’t tried to wake up,” the Spirit Fox said.
Backing away, Fox looked all around him, searching for another soul to confirm or deny. Around him, a few lost souls nodded.
Fox fled, churning up the spirits as he did. On he went, searching here and there for a way back or something familiar, but all he found were the resigned faces of the dead. And every time he stopped, the waiting Spirit Fox was behind him.
“I’m dead?” he finally stopped and asked the Spirit Fox.
The Spirit Fox nodded. “What you’re experiencing now is the After-between. Your spirit has crossed over, but the last of your body is holding on. Eventually, it will realize it’s over.”
“And you wanted this,” Fox replied.
The Spirit Fox shook his head. “Needed,” he said.
“But why?”
“Like I said,” the Spirit Fox began, “come with me, and I’ll show you.”
Together, they left the soup, and after passing through several layers of light, they left both the spirit world and the physical. Fox found himself rising into the night’s sky. In front of him, the Spirit Fox was traveling a gently curving route, and Fox could see stars passing through his transparent skin.
“What happened to you?” Fox asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” the Spirit Fox replied.
“Why not?”
The Spirit Fox stopped and turned around. “Because I’m dead, and once you’re dead, how you died doesn’t matter.”
Fox didn’t reply.
“We’re here,” the Spirit Fox said.
Fox looked around and then down.
“This is it,” the Spirit Fox told him. “The furthest any of us can reach.”
They were in the Spirit Trail. The curled path they’d been traveling along had been the route of the trail. Below them, the severed trail drifted back to earth, lit by the same light as the spirits’.
“The light we make in the soup keeps this portion of the trail alight,” the Spirit Fox said. “By moving together, our combined light makes it glow. When it’s bright enough, the other end of the trail will find it and reattach itself.”
“You believe this?” Fox asked.
“I know it,” the Spirit Fox replied.
“Then why hasn’t it worked before?”
“A lack of numbers,” the Spirit Fox replied. “This is the brightest it’s ever been. Up to now, the brightest radiance we’ve achieved has been hope, but now, with the sickness bringing us so many souls, we will generate such a brightness that it will be impossible for the other side of the trail to miss it. Do you understand what I’m saying? The sickness isn’t to be feared. The sickness is the savior of us all.”
“But then, if this is true, why kill me?”
“Because she believes in you, and when the Spirit Vixen believes, others follow her. And every time one of them follows her, that’s one spirit less to generate our light. And if we are going to return to the Womb of the World, then we will need every spirit we can gather.”
“Liar,” Fox sneered. “If you need every light, then why did you steal my mother’s light?”
“Your mother?” the Spirit Fox said. “I haven’t touched your mother.”
Fox scrutinized the Spirit Fox’s face.
“Then where is she?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “And I don’t care. My only interest was you.”
Fox was not convinced. “Then what about my brother? I saw your pack attack him.”
“We warned him not to help you,” the Spirit Fox said. “He paid the price.”
“But how can he be gone? He’s already dead.”
“If a spirit is attacked by enough spirits, then that spirit can have their light absorbed. They still exist, but in the nowhere place. There, they have no light, no voice. Once you’re dead, then I want you to join us. You have to, to prove her wrong.”
“And if I don’t join you?”
“Then I’ll hunt you down and inflict the same fate.”
“And if I don’t die?” Fox asked.
“Then we will find a way to make sure you do. You are a false hope. And I will destroy you rather than risk our greatest chance.”
Fox turned back to the trail. Found other foxes and vixens—the newly dead, rising to here and then, upon finding nothing, giving in and falling back down.
“Can you bring my brother or my mother back?”
“No.”
Head and heart heavy, Fox nodded.
“But you can help save them. Join us. Generate the light, and together we will all get home.”
Fox took a while to reply.
“What about the bird?” Fox asked.
The Spirit Fox went blank.
“Crow,” Fox explained. “What will happen to him?”
“Who cares?” the Spirit Fox shrugged. “He’s just a bird.”
Chapter
FOXES FOUND DEAD IN SCHOOL
Ms. Ng, the principal of St. Bridget’s Primary School, said she was astounded when her students found three dead foxes in the playground.
Ms. Ng, a principal at the school for over fifteen years, said she had no idea that there were any foxes in the local area, let alone living in the school. A council worker sent out to dispose of the carcasses informed her that they were probably living in the crawl space under one of the school’s buildings and may have done so for years.
Coodgee Councillor Peter Tang claimed that in his municipality, around ten foxes were being collected every day. Some were found in the parks, others in backyards, and many were found drowned in pools. Two foxes were even found in a church.
“Who knew there were so many foxes living around us?” he said. “It’s like suddenly discovering a race of ghosts.” He urged the public not to approach any fox they found, whether the animal was alive or dead.
A local environmentalist, Gabriel Sanchez, said that if the cat population could also be controlled through curfews, then the way was being paved for the reintroduction of several native species, such as numbats, the southern ningaui, and even the bilby, which is fast replacing the rabbit as Australia’s Easter symbol. Environmentally, he said, this was a remarkably positive time.
In other related news, the Prime Minister hinted today that his favorite for this year’s Australian of the Year Award was none other than the virologist Professor Chute.
Chapter
It was still dark when Crow watched another fox run past the den. By the time Vixen came out to investigate, Crow was watching it disappear into the trees. Its eyes wild, its mouth thick with foam.
When he looked back down, Vixen was pacing around the entrance of the den.
Crow peered into the den. He was trying to see how Fox was, but all he could see was darkness. Then the “Eyes in his Head” spiked, and he jerked to the pain.
Vixen noticed. She studied him as he suffered another spasm.
The last remaining spirit noticed too. Floating in from the distance, it studied Crow as Crow shuddered. Knowing this was a sign, it left.
The spirit’s leaving let Vixen understand. Clambering back into the den, she sniffed and then nudged Fox. He was cold and still. She licked him, but he wouldn’t react. She lay against him, but he wouldn’t absorb her warmth. She growled at him, but he didn’t seem to hear. And then she bit him. Grabbed a mouthful of pelt and flesh and squeezed… It was no use.
Retreating out of the den, she found another spirit had replaced the last one. It was a spirit she knew. It was the Spirit Vixen.
Old, weary, her entire expression was a resigned question. A question Vixen answered by shaking her head.
Nodding, the Spirit Vixen looked up at the suffering Crow, then bowed her head and faded from view.
The soup accepted Fox as it effortlessly accepted the others. Melting into their numbers, he felt the current carry him off. The other newly dead were still angrily churning up the soup, but Fox was not. Head up, for a while, he traveled along as if trying to recognize one face in the crowd, then finally, he lowered his head and accepted the fact that he was lost.
Before Vixen, the tree-hampered horizon was tinged with dawn’s milk. Not wanting to return to the den, she watched it rise and in its spill found all the faces of the ones she had lost. The ones she had survived. But now, as another day’s sun congratulated her face, instead of feeling relief, all she felt was the hollow price that only the survivor pays.
Fox looked young—too young. Weary beyond her bones, she threw her head back and, unable to stop herself, howled. The series of disconsolate yaps awoke the other survivors hiding in the scrub. Ferals and natives, alone or wrapped with their young in the safety of burrows, lifted their heads to listen to the howls as they rippled their way to the altering sky. A few of them joined her—magpies, mudlarks, cats, and possums all began releasing their sorrow. A combined grief that spread through the forest, gathering other voices to its choir, then lifting, broken and out of tune, to the park’s canopy. There, the swell of leaves carried the notes to all the impounding shores of humanity, crashing their lamentations over the boundary roads. A few early drivers heard them, but they were unable to comprehend their meaning. Regardless, the tunes spilled over the paddocks, their waves gathering the voices of cattle and sheep. Bleats and bellows brought the farmers away from their breakfasts to search for the rogue dogs they believed were spooking their stock. Farmers who, upon finding nothing, remained in their four-wheel-drives, confused by their livestock’s unsettled and unceasing calls.
The desolate waves also swamped the island of the Ranger’s house. Bleary-eyed, the Ranger emerged, half-dressed, to calm his howling dog. He could not. Inconsolable, the great dog’s howls were returning a portion of the breaking wails. Back his howls rippled, haunting the trees and the unsettled survivors until, finally, it spiraled down, unheard by Vixen, into the lair of Fox.
In the soup of light, Fox stopped.
As if an undertow had entered and corrupted the current, the spirits paused to listen to the distant, disjointed song. Around Fox, lowered snouts lifted, and eyes, dull with time, lit up as their pricked ears listened. Amongst them all, one of them understood. Fox. To him, this current of sadness wasn’t a reason to pause or to mourn. To him, it was an audible path back to living—to life. And, as if for all this time he’d only been sleeping, he simply opened his eyes.
As he woke, he found he was lying on his side and that his body owned a persistent ache. Starving, his desire to eat and drink had not yet allowed him to taste Vixen’s smell. He had no memory of her existence. Instead, he lay where he was, concentrating on relaxing his muscles, until another wave of the song descended into the burrow. He turned his head. Suddenly, Fox was deaf to any note that did not emerge from the throat of the vixen who was sitting alone outside the mouth of the den.
Visually, he ate her. Swallowed her pointed ears, devoured her orange coat that flowed down her spine and swept up to the white end of her tail. He needed more.
Unaware Fox had woken, Vixen threw back her head and sank into the tuneless choir another howl. A note which stopped as Fox nuzzled his snout into her pelt.
Surprised and confused, she went rigid as he bent his head onto her face. Then this rigidity melted as she turned to him—into him. Suddenly, they were licking each other’s face and rubbing their snouts. They couldn’t stop, and as the melancholic song she had commenced continued to drizzle, they combined and sank into the den.
Above, Crow shook his head and glared. The eyes had backed off, and the pain had stopped.
Chapter
Along the park’s main road, the vixen ran, her lungs and nostrils burning. She had been running for hours. She had no idea what else to do. No idea how to escape the pain because ideas needed a mind that could think, and all her brain could do was scream.
Behind her, the ute rolled along. Its hazard lights on to warn the other cars to beware.
On either side of the road, newly erected signs warned the public not to approach any foxes they came across. People who were casually strolling along the paths were pointing at the running fox—photographing and camcording her.
In the ute’s tray, three more foxes the Ranger had found this morning lay dumped on each other. Each time he found a new corpse, he saw, in his mind’s eye, natives moving back into dens they hadn’t inhabited for generations. He imagined young kangaroo rats venturing out into the morning, their keen eyes peeled for cats but nothing else. He imagined bandicoots doing the same. Given time, they could even bring quokkas back from Rottnest Island and attempt to re-establish them.
Currently, the whole country was celebrating. The newspapers—local, state, and even national—were still running stories on the clearing of the land, and all the news stations still aired reports. Internationally, too, there was great interest. Never, in the history of an introduced pest, had a feral species faced complete eradication.
In the cities, all the talk was about the number of dead foxes the council had been clearing from the streets. There had always been claims that the suburbs were full of foxes, but unsubstantiated claims and finding a fox corpse slumped next to your letterbox were two different things.
The numbers were so great, the departments set up to collect the corpses were overwhelmed. Out of necessity, dog-catchers were roped in, along with the State Emergency Services, whose phones were ringing hot as flustered suburbanites reported dead foxes in their backyards. Several times, the police were called out to schools where kids were throwing stones at dead or dying foxes.
The Ranger’s dog was not here. Concerned that the virus might cross over to a dog—despite the adamant assurances of the scientists that cross-species infection was impossible—he’d begun leaving his dog at home.
It was odd being out alone.
“Give it up, mate,” the Ranger whispered.
“Come on,” as snorting bloody phlegm, the vixen ran on.
Chapter
Inside the den, Vixen and Fox listened to yet another fox run by. In their three days here, it had been the fourth they had heard.
“We have to leave,” Vixen said as this one ran off.
“And go where?” Fox replied, nudging his snout into her neck. “We just went for a drink.”
“Not to water,” she said. “To the ships! If we leave tonight, we could make it out of the park before dawn breaks.”
They had been sleeping and making love all day, softly, gently. This was the first time Fox had moved away.
“No,” said Fox. “No way!”
“But that’s why the Spirit Vixen brought me here. She asked me to save you so you could save us. She begged me.”
“I said, forget it!” he said, then left the den.
“But the trail,” she implored as she followed him out.
“The trail’s broken,” Fox sneered. “And if those in the soup can’t fix it, then it will probably remain broken forever. But who cares? We’re alive! All I want us to do is live!”
“Live? How? You’ve heard them running! The sickness is all around us. Killing us! Foxes are dying!”
“Foxes have always died,” Fox replied. “And always will, but we’ve survived, and we will survive this.”
“How?”
“By making more life. Winter’s coming. Soon, we could have our own family, and raising healthy cubs makes much more sense than getting ourselves killed by trying to repair something that can’t be fixed.”
“No,” Vixen said. “You’re wrong. You and that crow are our best chance… our only chance.”
“Then that’s it,” he said. “We have no chance, because I’m not going.”
And so she paused, hoping he was kidding, but when it was clear he was not, she turned away.
“So that’s it,” she said. “You’re telling me I should have just left you here to die.”
“No,” he said and came to her. “You’re right. We should leave.”
She turned back, confused.
“But not to the ships. Let’s go inland. We’ll hide somewhere—somewhere the sickness can’t find us—and there we’ll live,” he said and buried his damaged face into the back of her neck.
She shrugged him off.
“Don’t,” he said.
“But what about your family?” she said. “Don’t you care about them?”
Fox backed off.
“Well?” she insisted.
“I can’t save them,” he said and felt sick for admitting this. “And even if I could,” he said, “I’m not sure that the living should ever risk dying for the dead.”
To this, she did not reply.
“Come with me,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m alive, and here and now, that’s all that matters.”
Chapter
The Spirit Fox moved through the soup. His passing left a rippled wake of light. Beside him, some of his pack kept pace.
The soup was altering. Some of the foxes had their heads lifted and were conversing. In patches, their hushed conversations were as prolific as the light.
“They know he killed the Dog-Fox,” one of his pack told him.
But the Spirit Fox did not need to be told. His greater nerve endings filtered through the soup, and he could feel all the shadows growing, the cracks.
“Let’s go,” he said and turned.
“Where?” said one of his pack.
But this was the only one—the rest did not have to ask.
Chapter
Laying alongside the warm body of Vixen, Fox spoiled himself by constructing a new dream.
They were in a forest that was not a park, and wherever it was, the sickness had failed to reach here. Safe in their den, Vixen was cleaning one cub as the other pulled a spider web down from the den’s ceiling. The den was large enough to be comfy and small enough to be warm. Its floor was soft, and the bones of a possum pressed into its soil.
Outside the den, on the riverbank, Fox was resting. The water was fresh and flowing, and the trees sheltered the bank from the full sun.
Then, as he watched the flow, the boys burst out of the den and leapt onto him. He growled at one, who knew it was a bluff, as the other, who was on Fox’s back, leapt for his ear, missed, and rolled onto the grass.
There were no roads. No nights shattered by gunshots. And to the cubs, this was how life was because it was all they had known.
Vixen came out, her teats heavy with milk, and her content eyes letting him know she was all that he would ever need.
He moved to her. They rubbed faces and necks, and as he felt her closeness, he found himself wondering where Mother was, then immediately began trying to force this question out of his head.
But the query would not leave. Rather, it remained like a hole they had to stay clear of. A hole whose starving mouth grew. Trees vanished.
“We have to go,” he told Vixen, then jerked as he realized she was missing.
The hole continued to grow as he rushed to save them. It swallowed his cubs.
The bird, he thought. He had forgotten the bird. Looking up to the trees, he found there were none. Where the trees should have been was the opening of a den.
He had woken up.
With his wound throbbing, he found the den was empty.
Clambering out to see if Vixen was toileting, he found that not only was she missing, but that Crow was gone too. And as if the spirits controlled the weather, it was raining.
Despite knowing she was gone, he called to her.
As she knew she wouldn’t, she didn’t reply.
Full of knowing, he looked up to the branches and shook his head as he found that the bird was also gone.
As the rain filled the silence, he called to Crow.
Nothing.
And as water so efficiently does, the rain was washing away her trail.
He sniffed anyway, stopping only to call to her again.
He heard it now. A fox was crashing through the scrub.
“No,” he mumbled, and as it careered off, he ran after it.
The fox ran without caution. It careered through scrub and left Fox, with his injuries, far behind. Finally, Fox stopped. He could smell its scent and knew it wasn’t Vixen.
He wondered about heading back to the den. Perhaps he’d missed her trail. But before he could set off, a new smell pulled him up. Somewhere ahead was a scent of foxes. At first, their combined odor was nothing more than a drop of fox-cordial staining the damp air, but as he followed it, approached it, their smell became overwhelming.
And then he found them.
As the rain fell, the muddy edge of the pit threatened to give way, but Fox did not retreat. Below him, and beginning to flood, the foxes lay dumped on each other—their stiff corpses moving with maggots. Despite their numbers, Fox could smell their individual prints. Vixen wasn’t amongst them, and although this offered some relief, the view was an earthquake. It left no part of his landscape undisturbed.
But the night was not finished. A square of light called him to it. Leaving the pit, he answered, stopping when he reached the fence.
Within the encircling trees, the house stood defiantly. Even the rain attacked it, pounding its tin roof, pouring out of its gutters.
Above the assault of the rain, Fox could hear the dog. The animal was around the other side of the house, and he was snoring.
The sound of the dog wrung Fox’s stomach, and yet, despite this, another scent—a familiar, precious, yet impossible scent—was drawing him to it.
Gold eyes on the house, on the window, Fox followed the posts around until he reached a twist in the fence’s wire. In a join of metal, a grasp of hair had caught. It was Mother’s hair.
The strands were weathered and brittle and broke to his touch, and yet still her scent remained and effortlessly carried him back to warmer places. Places he’d had trouble remembering. Places where hunger had ruled, but life had shone. A place before man.
“Don’t,” she said.
Fox turned and found her.
“Where is she?” he growled.
“Which one?” the Spirit Vixen said as the rain passed through her.
“Where?” Fox growled.
Chapter
The path the Spirit Vixen took was not a straight line. Constantly, they veered off course as she led him past other dead or dying foxes.
The dead were quiet and crumpled; the dying, crumpled and snorting phlegm and blood. Some of them had blood pouring out of their ears, noses, and anuses. All of them were covered in cuts from the branches and rocks they’d run into.
“It’s killing us,” the Spirit Vixen said as she paused near one dying fox. “All of us.”
“I don’t care,” Fox growled as he looked away from the dead and the suffering.
Finally, they stopped. In the distance, a light was illuminating the trees.
“I can’t go any further,” she said. “If they sense I’m here, they’ll hunt me down.”
Fox wouldn’t look at her either. To look at her filled him with revulsion. He hated her voice as well.
“Why?” he asked.
“Ask them,” she replied. “But do it quickly before he kills you too.”
Fox lowered his head and moved to the light.
“Fox,” she said and stopped him.
“She saved you, you know,” she said. “Your mother saved you too, and your brother. All of them have saved you, and now they’re all lost… So tell me, little one, who do you intend to save?”
Chapter
When Fox reached the light, the Spirit Fox’s pack parted to let him through.
In the center of their circle, collapsed where she’d tripped over a branch, Vixen lay.
As Fox approached, he could both hear and feel that she was still alive. Her slender body was lying side down on the earth, and below her, her front legs were buckled, their flesh torn. She too was snorting phlegm, and the phlegm was bloody.
“She was trying to get back to you,” the Spirit Fox said. “I guess she must have known she was dying.”
Fox turned to him.
“Dying? She wasn’t dying! You killed her!” Fox glared.
“And it was easy,” the Spirit Fox replied. “We simply led a sick one toward her. It wasn’t sick enough that it couldn’t listen. We told it that if it attacked her, then we would cure it. I think it knew we were lying, but I guess, when you know you’re dying, any chance will do. She managed to escape being wounded in the fight, but that didn’t matter because the sickness caught her. Just like it will catch you.”
“You’re going to take her, aren’t you?” Fox said. “That’s why you’re waiting here. You’re going to steal her light like you took my brother’s.”
The Spirit Fox didn’t reply.
“If you do,” Fox said, “if even one of you goes near her, then I will leave for the ship tonight!”
“We know,” the Spirit Fox mildly replied, then after a brittle pause, said, “She’s brave and strong, but that isn’t enough. And it won’t be enough for you, either.”
To this, Fox turned away, and heart heavy, came to her. Sniffing, he then gently licked her suffering face. She did not react. Lowering himself down, he stretched out and lay against her. She was shivering so much he brought himself closer, then, as one, he closed his eyes to escape what he knew was coming.
The spirits made no sound, and neither did she, but their light was so bright he could see it through his tightly closed eyes.
And then it was over. When he opened his eyes, not only were they gone, but the new darkness was both around him and within him.
Standing up, he looked down at her body and felt the last warm parts of him being left behind.
“Which way?” he asked.
Studying this different Fox, Crow didn’t reply.
“Which way?” Fox asked again.
Opening his wings, Crow went to say something, didn’t, then flew off.
With one last look back at Vixen, Fox turned and followed the disappearing bird. Unaware, as he did, that while he’d been lying next to Vixen, the virus, desperate to live, had abandoned its dying host and attached itself to a living one… him.
BOOK 3 The Metropolis will be posted soon.
If you like thi work and want to support a Human writer and work we do with cafe locked out, perhaps you could afford a gold coin donation
or you could take out a paid Substack Subscription.