FOX, Book Three, Part 2. The Metropolis.

Michael Gray Griffith. a human written novel.

Fox reaches the City and starts travelling through the bowels of man.

CHAPTER

They reached the crest of the last hill. Below, the city of Perth stretched out before the quiet pair in a split ocean of light. The closest houses appeared as pretty white and yellow-lit creeks that trailed their narrow streams to the greater sea. It was breathtaking, not only in its light, but in its span. Rivers of cars traveled their beams through the lesser veins that intersected the flickering tapestry that seemed to spread on forever. In every direction, but behind them, the lights claimed the horizon. Even the clouds' undercarriages reflected the glow, while the greater dome absorbed the dimmer stars. To Fox’s eyes, the air itself was purple, not black. The atmosphere was static with unnatural and natural sounds. He could hear tribes of dogs fighting to include their voices in the din. Hear sirens wailing across the light-scape, as overhead airplanes groaned the sky. To Fox’s eyes, it was a stupendous web, whose city center of high-rise buildings—towering their own lights from the center of the lit plain—stood like a bright, glimmering spider. An assured, waiting spider.

"Where is the ship?" Fox asked, with dread woven into his tone.

"For me or for you?" Crow asked.

"How far?"

"It's over the horizon, in front of yah. Yah can't see it from here."

"Well," Crow started, "I'll go down to find a hide for the day. I'll be back as soon as I can," he cawed, then disappeared into the mess of lights.

Fox waited. Tenderly wrapped his tail around his forelegs, as though being kind to himself, and filled his eyes with the city. In his mind, the lights were pouring over the edge of the world: an illuminated waterfall stuck with all this noise: noises that were unnerving him.

"So close," she said.

"Where are they all?" Fox replied.

"Everywhere. Nowhere. I won't let them near you," she said.

Fox turned to the Spirit Vixen. She was glowing brighter than he had seen her glow before. Brighter than the Spirit Fox had ever shone.

"Why?"

"Because dogs and cats can see us. Point you out. We can’t risk that. We can’t risk anything."

He nodded and turned back to the view.

"I won’t make it."

"Oh yes, you will."

"No," and he shook his head. "Look at those lights, each light a human... No... No way."

"You’re wrong," she said, and sounded convincing. "The city’s easy. Humans are blind. They only see us if we let them."

"Like your father did," the Spirit Fox said.

Fox and the Spirit Vixen both turned and growled. The Spirit Fox was dull. He looked old and was alone.

"But then making it isn’t your problem, is it?" he said and stared at her.

"Get out of here," she snapped.

"Tell him!" he said.

"I said go!"

"Tell me what?" Fox asked.

"Don’t listen to him!" she swung back and said. "His soup’s gone. That pathetic piece of the trail. When you killed the man, they all started believing in you. Like they should."

"But I didn’t kill him, Crow did."

She fumed, but didn’t reply.

"Tell me what?" Fox asked again.

"The journey’s pointless," the Spirit Fox said. "Others have already done it. She made them do it, and nothing was repaired."

Fox felt as though he had been shot.

"Is this true?" he asked her.

"What," she replied. "Are you going to listen to him? He tried to kill you. Twice."

"Yes, I did, but I never lied about it," the Spirit Fox said.

"Get out of here!" she snarled and charged at him.

"Ask her again," he told Fox.

"Is it true?" Fox asked.

"No," she snapped. "Of course it’s not true!"

"Is it true?" he asked again.

She stopped snarling. Stood there glaring at him, her thoughts clearly fighting each other.

"Is it true?"

"They got on the wrong ships," she finally replied.

Fox took a backward step and almost fell on to his bum.

"But that won’t happen this time. You’ve got the bird. The bird will know."

"How many?" Fox asked.

"Not many," she replied.

"How many?!" he demanded.

"Enough to know it’s pointless," the Spirit Fox replied. "The only difference this time is that you’re destroying what we have left of the trail by destroying the soup. They believe in you, you’re destroying their one, true hope."

"Don’t listen to him. You are the hope. More than the hope. You are the one," she implored.

"No," the Spirit Fox said, "You’re just a fox. A lucky one, perhaps, but a fox being tricked into sacrificing the precious life in your veins for nothing."

"He’s lying," she said. "Trust me. He’s lying!"

Fox looked at her, then him, then turned back to her.

With a thud of air, Crow emerged from the shadows like a shadow himself.

He took in the spirits apprehensively, then said to Fox:

"There's a little bit of high grass between two houses, almost straight ahead once we get down the bottom of this hill. Shouldn't take us too long to get there."

Fox nodded grimly, and Crow took off again to beacon him down.

"I’m not lying," the Spirit Fox said.

"He is," she said.

"Coming?" Crow cawed, unable to understand any of the spirits' words.

Fox looked back. Took in the distance he’d traveled and the great darkness that had protected him, then he nodded, and head down, began descending the hill that led to the city.

II

The side of the hill was matted with native and feral plant life. Exotic creepers wound tendrils around damaged grass trees, and reached grasping fingers into the descending air. Eucalypts towered their trunks above the flora's confusion, supporting their canopies safely in the sky. Rubbish was everywhere, as were the trails of humans and their dogs.

Fox chose a heavily used path that had been trodden smooth beneath the constant daylight tread of shoes and paws.

Rats and rabbits had left their own well-worn paths through the scrub. A feral cat, from the safety of the bushes, observed him with a lazy look, and birds warbled their alarm. But it was the dogs that concerned Fox, not their actual scent itself, but the staggering numbers he could taste imprinted in the earth. He crossed the tracks of miniature dogs, their dainty paws barely marking the ground, and he crossed the paths of giants, whose paws were more than twice the width of his. He could hear them now, as he descended, barking from all over the human forest.

He paused constantly and looked back from where he’d come, the memory of the two foxes whispering in his ears.

The first houses came into view: the first streetlights.

Fox saw a cat saunter across the road and disappear into the shadows of one of the house's gardens. Cars were sleeping on the sides of the road. A few houses still had their lights on, and though he could hear no human noises on this street, he could hear cars roaring around, just out of view.

Crow was up ahead on the road somewhere: invisible in his black coat. He cawed, Fox followed.

The road ended in a large roundabout at the foot of the hill. Fox hid in the shadow of a rubbish bin and studied the sleeping street. He did not want to move.

Crow cawed again.

Fox pinpointed his position. The bird was roosted on the bend of one of the light poles. His body hidden behind the bulb's glare.

Fox could see that wherever he walked the next few moments, he would be visible from one light or another.

Crow watched Fox melt out of the shadows and whisper diagonally across the orderly street. A well-fed cat opened its eyes wide and ran inside its house.

"Hide underneath the car till I call again," Crow cawed, lifting off to fly ahead to the next beacon point.

The car's white paint reflected the streetlights cleaner than the moon, but the space underneath was dark and stank of oil and grease. It did not appear to Fox to be a sensible place to hide, but then there seemed no viable alternative. He did not want to come any closer to the houses. He could already taste the presence of sleeping dogs floating on the placid air... He hid.

A huge tomcat sauntered out of the closest garden and, sitting itself down on the nature strip, kept one eye on Fox while simultaneously and casually it began cleaning its face.

Fox growled. The cat ignored him.

Then Crow cawed and Fox emerged and ran, leaving the cat to watch him go.

Fox ran, but not fast enough that he could not stop for any unexpected surprises. Other cats got out of his way: charged up trees, and hissed as he passed. Cars drove past, their headlights searching for him as Fox cowered behind light poles.

And Crow kept cawing, his voice piercing through the combining churn of the suburb's noises.

Fox sprinted across intersections. Paused to watch green become orange and then red. He hid under daisy bushes, next to letterboxes, crouched behind a tricycle left discarded on a house’s front lawn.

Finally, he found Crow waiting on a fence.

"Hide in there for today," Crow cawed. "And I’ll be back tonight." With that, he lifted into the air and vanished into the night.

Fox sniffed the odors emanating from the spare block. It was full of long dry grass and was nestled between two houses. It looked and smelled vulnerable, with nowhere to escape if he was discovered. Below him, the pavement was thick with the scents of dogs and humans. He looked around for a better place to hide, then, worried about being in the light, he crossed into the grasses, moving slowly to keep the sound of his rustling to a minimum.

The further he infiltrated, the more the spiderwebs coated his face. He could sense a Dugite snake asleep in the grass and moved away to avoid a confrontation. Finally, he came upon an old enamel oven which was lying on its side, its open door covered in grasses. Fox crept into its stomach, pulled himself into a ball, and waited, too nervous to sleep, for whatever the approaching day had in store.

Chapter

The virus burst out of Fox's cells. Billions of them. Starving, they all searched his veins for new cells to hide in.

It found them. Moved in and got back to breeding, with Fox putting the throbbing in his body down to just being tired.

Chapter

Dawn cast an eerie glow through the tall dried grass, and not only switched off the streetlights, but turned off radios and TVs.

Fox listened, entranced, as the melodies seeped out from the houses and wafted over the fence. Next, he heard a family sometimes yelling, sometimes laughing.

Cars roared into life. First in dribs and drabs, but as the dawn became true morning, there came a mass exodus of cars, followed half an hour later by another as the kids were taken to school. With the suburb quieter, he heard an old man jabbering to no one he could hear. While on the other side, he heard a door close behind the rippled grey fence and then he heard a woman and young child in the yard. The young child was laughing.

The day passed like this, with the only occurrence being the children. They were small, only twice the height of himself. They chased each other through the piled rubbish and the grass. Belting discarded metal appliances with sticks until a woman, from the house on the left, yelled and instantly they fell quiet.

Quiet, their attitudes changed, as did their game. Instead of banging, they became silent in their intensity. Then, after a period of silence, they started giggling. To the laughter, Fox closed his eyes and fell asleep.

More children woke him. It was afternoon; he couldn’t believe he’d slept right through the day. The children were small: only twice the height of himself. They chased each other through the piled rubbish and the grass, but did not venture into the deeper grass where he was hiding. Then one boy began belting discarded metal appliances with a stick. They all joined in, laughing and slamming until a woman over the fence yelled out something.

It calmed them. Their attitudes changed, as did their game. Giggling became intensity. Together they began searching through the rubbish. As if frightened of what would be beneath, they turned over everything they could. Then one squealed in excitement and as something hissed, she slammed down her stick.

Fox couldn’t see what it was, but he heard the thud of wood meeting flesh. He crept closer and saw one child reach down and, in a quick snatching movement, tossed the blue-tongue lizard spinning over their heads into the long grass. Fox watched it spin. It crashed down to earth close by him. The children descended, then stopped.

Fox heard them mumbling the word “snakes,” but didn’t know what it meant.

Unperturbed, they returned to the rubbish where they’d found the lizard and began searching again.

As they did, Fox crept to the all-but-dead lizard and picked it up in his jaws. The taste of the fresh blood was a celebration. His body was busy rejoicing, he failed to keep monitoring what the children were doing until he heard the yellow wave lift into the air.

One of the children had found and opened a discarded tin of paint. Half full, its oil-based gloss enamel was flying over the grass. Knowing if he moved he would betray his position, Fox grimaced and closed his eyes. With a splat, the paint coated the entire top half of his head and some of his shoulders. The grass all around him was now yellow too.

The children, bubbling with laughter, turned back to the piles of rubbish, and Fox, shaking his head, slipped back into the longer grass.

Then the woman yelled something new, and the children, begrudgingly, left.

As soon as they did, Fox frantically began licking his paws and trying to clean his face, but all that happened was that his paws became yellow and the paint made him gag.

Giving up, he ate the lizard as day, as it does, became night.

Chapter

Fox was anxious to get moving. Loitering thirstily within reach of the nature strip's tree, he had a new ease with the suburb: a passivity that reacted nervously only to cars and stray dogs. More than a couple of dogs had wandered by the front of his block without picking up on his scent. A few had passed connected to a human by a short cord, but these ones had not looked aggressive.

Crow, who had left him alone until well after dusk, came fluttering in from nowhere. At first, he was agitated and uncommunicative; he wouldn’t look down at Fox.

"What?" Fox called.

Crow looked down, and his expression changed.

"You’ve got a yellow face?"

"I know," said Fox. "Let’s get moving."

"Sure," Crow said, but instead of moving on, he stayed where he was and then asked, "Why do you have a yellow face?"

Chapter

You’re on Annie. What would you like to talk about?

"I’m looking at a fox."

"Alright, and you called in to tell us that because?"

"It’s across the street, looking up at one of the trees on the nature strip."

"Is that so. I’m still not sure why I’m listening to this. Isn’t there anyone else with something more interesting than...?"

"And it’s got a yellow face."

"Pardon me?"

"Bright yellow. I can see it quite clearly because of the streetlights."

"You’re staring at a fox with a yellow face?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, next caller."

Chapter

As soon as they’d started, they were forced to stop. The going was too slow. And there were people and cars everywhere. Inside an overgrown garden bursting around a rundown house, Fox hid, as Crow remained perched further down the road.

There had been foxes here. Fox could smell their paths through the gardenias and their hair was caught on some of the rose barbs. He followed their trail. It led under the house. The crawl space was dusty, full of spiders, and dry. Foxes had been born here. His keen eyes could see the worn patches where mothers had lain and cubs had fed and played.

Something moved in the house. He came to a window, and lifting onto his hind legs, leaned his front paws against the windowsill. An old lady was sitting at her kitchen table. The radio was on. Some man was talking on it: taking calls. On her lap was an old cat. The cat was looking at him. This was what had made the noise. The woman was drinking a cup of tea, and taking her time between her sips. He watched her for a while. Staring at the fridge, she never moved.

The night dragged on. Midnight. Past. Then Crow's caw reached him, and they left again.

They could not travel straight. If one street was too busy or too well-lit, Crow chose another. Parks were easier. Small ones with playgrounds, larger ones that offered places to hide and spoke of other foxes. But there were no lives. At least none he could find.

The first suburbs changed into light industrial areas. Mechanic workshops, auto wreckers, and warehouses housing everything passed. Some of these yards had ferocious dogs, but they were all locked behind fences.

A graveyard accepted him: its tombstones and angels quiet in the dark.

Three nights of traveling passed, and all without a single human seeing him. It was as if they couldn’t see him. On the third night, he trotted down a footpath, only a few meters behind a late jogger. He could hear music coming from the jogger’s headphones, but the jogger never turned around. Even their dogs were slow to react, often he didn’t hear them barking until he was way past their house: and this barking was often followed by a human telling them to shut up.

On the fourth night, a blue heeler, identical to Sal, smelled his approach. Managing to awkwardly climb over the fence built to keep her in the backyard, she charged down her driveway, all bristle and teeth.

But Fox was waiting.

He pulled up on a blade of grass: quicker than the dog could. Slightly too fat, the dog not only exposed her whole left side to Fox, but was easy to overturn. Before she knew what had happened, Fox had clamped his jaws around her neck. As his needle teeth sank in, she could see his gold eye burning.

Howling, she began peeing everywhere. Lifted her chubby rear leg and offered Fox her stomach. This surprised Fox. He could read the language. He had spoken it himself in the games he played with Dint. Instinctively, he stopped squeezing.

A man burst out yelling from the house. Running up to the verge, he reached his spooked dog who was now cowering, her tail firmly between her legs. The man took in the street, both ways, and then went:

"Jesus!"

Chapter

You saw it?

"No. I didn’t, but my mate did. I was listening the other night and heard that other woman mention it."

"So you’re sure its face was yellow."

"Like a dandelion, mate. And it tried to kill his dog!"

"Well I’ll be. Are you listening, what was her name?... Are you listening Annie? It seems your yellow fox has turned up again? So tell me, what’s your name again?"

"Robert."

"Tell me Robert, is this fox all yellow?"

Chapter

Fox crossed shopping center car parks, moving through the shadows cast by abandoned shopping trolleys and rummaging through any rubbish he came across. While ghosting down a short strip of shops, he found his reflection in a hairdresser’s window.

It made him stop. For a moment, he was sure it was Mother, just with a yellow face.

On he pushed. Drank from leaking garden taps. Eating moths that had fallen from their brush with the streetlights. He also stopped bothering to hide from every car that passed. Even if they stopped and one actually reversed, it did no good because by then he was gone.

Time and time again, he crossed the scent of missing foxes. Mothers, fathers, dog foxes, and cubs, and most of their fading prints telling how their last moments were spent running.

Chapter

Welcome Doctor Jervis. Do you think our Sun-Fox is the one fox, or has your virus stopped killing foxes now and just changing their color?

"Sun Fox? Hmm, well personally I think your yellow fox is a new urban myth, fostered perhaps to boost someone’s ratings."

"Ouch. That’s below the belt, Doc. I might have brought this to my listeners’ attention, but it was my listeners who brought its attention to me."

"Tonight alone we’ve had three calls."

"Any of them with any photographic evidence?"

"Doc, we’re a radio station. What are we going to do with a photograph?"

"Do you have any other questions?"

"Yes, of course..."

"Good... Goodbye."

"Doc?... Doc, are you there? Oh, he’s gone. Hmm, well listeners, what do you think? Is there or isn’t there a little yellow fox out there?"

Chapter

Fox’s infected cells began to collapse. Managing to hide in a cluttered garage attached to a house whose yard was full of rundown cars, he pulled himself beneath some dusty panels stripped from some car and trembled to the aches.

In the center of the garage, a rusty Mercedes, its bonnet up, waited, forgotten.

His veins and muscles felt like they were on fire. As the virus raced to find new cells, it started a fire in his belly. He vomited. He shat, and he tried not to, but finally he began whimpering. On it went, like wildfire. Dawn came, entered through the open door, and flooded the garage with light. Sleep followed, smothering him in its mercy.

While he slept, the virus rehoused itself in an ever-growing number of cells. Hidden, it went back to work.

Peace.

Sweet peace.

The screech of the garage door closing saw him burst awake. Feeling horrendous, he pulled himself deeper beneath the piled panels and squinted, trying to see what was happening.

The garage’s light was turned on.

"Come on!" a fat man began calling.

"Come on, I know you’re in here?"

The fat man’s belly was protruding over his shorts, and as he made his way down the side of the car, looking in here, peering in there, he smelled of sweat.

"Come on," he hissed.

Fox heard it. Shallow, fast breaths, too soft for the fat man to hear, were coming from the other side of the garage. Fox looked underneath the car. A boy was there, six, perhaps seven. He had spiderwebs in his hair and a raised red mark on his cheek. His irises were wide and glued to the fat man’s thongs.

"I know you’re in here," the fat man said and wrenched back a car door which was leaning against one of the cluttered walls.

"Bugger!" the fat man spat, before saying, "Come on! Come out yer little shit!"

Under the table, the boy closed his eyes... tight.

"Ah hah!" the fat man sneered: "Found yah!" and bending down, he ripped up one of the panels.

Growling, teeth bared, Fox burst out of the dark, ran up the man’s fat body, then leapt over him, using his head as a springboard.

"Jesus Christ!" the man bellowed and slammed his hand down on the side of the car. His weight on the car dislodged the pole holding the bonnet up.

The bonnet came down.

He was still screaming as Fox ran to the garage’s closed door and panicked.

The boy crawled out and made for the garage door too.

The man lifted up the bonnet and clutched the wrist of his bleeding hand.

The garage door opened. The boy had shoved it open. The enraged man charged Fox. Fox turned to the day and fled into the street, a few feet behind the already running boy.

Perched on the power line and sleeping, Crow missed Fox tearing across the empty street and vanishing into the garden across the road.

But he woke to the fat man, who, with his bleeding hand held in the air, stood roaring from the verge.

"Humans," he grumbled, shook his head, and then went back to sleep.

Chapter

A white van had turned up. On its side was a picture of a fox’s head and some writing.

The humans from the van, a tall thin man and a sturdy young woman, both wearing white overalls, were talking with the fat man who now had his hand bandaged.

The fat man was waving a hand at these houses, and the other two were looking across.

As the two crossed the street, Fox retreated under the Banksia. The honey flowers reminded him of the park. But the memories left as the two humans stopped on the footpath and stared into the yard.

Fox didn’t wait to be found. He ran to the rear of the house, passing a patio and a pool as he reached the rear fence and leapt that too. He had never leapt that high. He felt like he was flying. Landing in the rear yard, he sent a small dog yelping back through its dog door. An elderly man appeared at the door. Looked through and saw Fox. He looked aghast. Something hit the fence. Fox turned around. The woman was climbing over it: her eyes on him. He turned right. Leapt the next fence, ran through that yard and leapt the next and then the next.

The American pit bull did not yelp or run away. Hearing Fox’s approach, he positioned himself and waited. Fox leapt over his head. But Fox heard him too. Leaping over the fence, he saw the sturdy dog looking up before he’d even landed in his yard. Fox ran right across the yard with the pit bull at his heels, then leapt over the following fence with only his rear legs touching the top of the fence. The pit bull tried to follow but couldn’t leap that high, so fell down instead, but just as it went to bark, it noticed the woman climbing into his yard.

"Uh oh?" she said as she landed in the yard.

The following yard was the last house. Running around the side of the house, Fox charged into the street, crossed the quiet road, and vanished into the yard of the house on the opposite side. Leaping the side fence, he found they had no dog, but they did have broken slats that allowed his access to the crawl space. This was where he hid and listened to the woman who had been following him, screaming for help as the dog barked and snarled.

Chapter

The fat man had pulled on a new t-shirt and had jeans on, his belly still broke free though. His hand was re-bandaged, and the boy was in the window hiding behind the screen.

"So after he bit you," the reporter asked, "which way did it go?"

The cameraman followed the fat man’s point and filmed the quiet street.

"He attacked the women in the house on the corner. He’s crazy," the fat man said. "He could have something like rabies? And what about this virus?!" he said directly into the camera, "I thought it was supposed to have killed them all?!"

"And that’s the question many are asking now," the reporter turned to the camera and said. "After numerous sightings and now two attacks, do we have a rouge yellow fox out there, or is the virus turning them yellow? Back to you, Jim."

"A yellow fox," Jim Lane said, and grinning, shook his head. "Well now I’ve heard everything. Stay tuned, the six-thirty report is next."

Chapter

All day, Fox, from his vantage point under the house, had watched the white vans. Six fox catchers had searched the street, all with poles in their hands, at the ends of the poles, the loops of rubber waiting to wrap around Fox’s neck.

Several times they’d entered this yard, even peered under this house, but as they had, Fox had hid behind one of the house’s joists and watched the torchlight miss him time and time again.

Then they left.

Finally, there came a caw. Crawling to the twilight, Fox peered out and found Crow perched on the side fence.

Crow was perched on the opposite fence: the evening breeze ruffling his feathers.

"Let’s go," Fox said and pulled himself out.

"Too early," Crow cawed.

"No," Fox shook his head and moved to the edge of the house where he overlooked the front garden, "Let’s go now. These humans are stupid. They don’t bother me."

Crow didn’t move.

"Come on," Fox said.

"No," Crow cawed, as he refused to budge. "Too early."

Chapter

Crow finally relented a little after midnight. Bursting to get moving, Fox trotted so fast he was basically running. Crow was having trouble remaining ahead of him. By the time he found a perch and cawed, Fox was already turning up.

If cars stopped, Fox simply disappeared into the closest garden, leapt that house’s back fence, broke into the following street, and kept heading down there.

A wake of barking dogs marked his passing. As the calls came in, a few police cars were sent out. They cruised the roads with their powerful spotlights examining the footpaths where he was already a memory.

Towards dawn, Fox stopped in a park and ate from a wheelie bin that had been pushed over by kids. He tasted chocolate and a moldy souvlaki. Crow ate some of the souvlaki.

The park was empty of humans, and its winding cycle paths were landscaped with tiny clumps of bush.

"Hide in there for today," Crow said and motioned to one of these islands of bush.

"No, let’s keep going," Fox said. "We’ve got time."

Crow shook his head.

"Hide there," he said.

But Fox would not. Taking off, he kept heading in the direction they’d been going and made his way up the embankment from behind which the sound of cars was louder than usual. Fox didn’t care. Cars were easy.

Then he breached the crest and changed his mind.

The freeway was not as full as it would be soon, but with first shift workers still prevalent in half of its eight lanes, the view appeared to Fox to be a huge swollen vein pumping through its stream, more cars than he had ever seen in one place before.

"I’ll never cross that!" he said as Crow landed a short distance away from him.

The bird did not reply, only turned to notice the entrance of the sun.

"Is there a way around it?" Fox asked.

"This ain’t your problem, mate," Crow replied. "It’s what’s ahead that you’ve got to worry about."

"What are you on about? What could be worse than this?"

"You’ll see," Crow replied: "Now hide, and I’ll see yah tonight," and with a grim glance at Fox, Crow rose into the air and flew over the freeway’s canyon to disappear over the opposite, bush-encrusted embankment.

Fox felt little. To him, this freeway was the nightmare of nightmares. Only meeting the glittering spider itself could be more daunting. Look at it. Only birds crossed this.

The sun began piercing the day. Retreating down the embankment, he made his way into one of the islands and curled up under a thick bush.

Lay there, kept awake by the ever-increasing numbers of vehicles roaring past.

Early afternoon offered no break in the traffic, and the stress of this had not let him sleep. It felt to Fox as though the entire human population of the world had drained through his ears. Inside his weary head, he was trying to imagine himself crossing it, but as he watched a few cyclists pass, he still found himself struggling with even the imaginary successful crossing.

The sound of the wood chips giving way to the footprints burst him awake. He knocked his head on a thick branch and reacted too late.

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