FOX, Book Three, Part 3. The Metropolis

Michael Gray Griffith

Suddenly man is aware of Fox.

"With senses like that, how did you survive?" the Old Fox asked.

CHAPTER

Fox could not believe that he was real and not a spirit, that standing before him was a living, ancient fox.

The old one's mouth hung open, displaying the brown stubs of his worn-down incisors and the complete absence of other teeth. His coat was colored as Fox’s, but faded and speckled with grey, and the occasional bald patch where mange had left sun-hardened skin. His left eye was clouded with a murky white cataract that was drifting its fog across to the other. Sat only a reach away, his ancient scent smelled of dried urine.

"You smell young," the old one whispered in a voice unaccustomed to speaking.

"You smell old," Fox replied.

The Old One rose his head and, silently laughing, replied:

"That's because I am old. Older than you would ever believe."

"How old?"

"This summer, I’ll be ten."

Fox was not sure whether he believed this claim, but he kept his doubts quiet.

"Of course I don't expect you to believe me," the old fox said. "It's not important if you do or not. But what is important is that you are here, because I haven't seen another fox in months. I was beginning to think the sickness had killed you all."

"How did you find me?" Fox asked.

"I came across your trail and followed it. I thought at first I was following a mistake. A trick in my old head. I mean, who'd be silly enough to sleep here? But here you are."

"I’m waiting to cross the freeway," Fox snapped.

"Why?"

"I'm trying to get to the ships," Fox answered, still put out by being referred to as silly.

The Old One went silent to this. His pleasant grin left his face: "The Trail," he said.

"You know?" Fox asked.

He nodded and then distantly asked: "So, she still believes, huh?"

II

To the sounds of the vehicles passing, the two foxes curled up against each other and listened.

"Who is she?" Fox finally managed to ask, referring to the Spirit Vixen.

"Some say she was the first the humans killed," the old one replied. "The first to find the trail was broken. Ever since she's been trying to convince any fox, young and foolish enough to try, back."

"Did she send you?" Fox asked.

The old one took a moment to reply, then, in a lighter tone, suggested: "Why don’t you stay here? It's an easy life once you realize just how blind humans are."

"But what about the sickness?"

"What about it. I’m still here, you’re still here. Surely it can’t kill us all. Better to hang on, find a mate and breed. Making new life is how you beat man."

"There is lots of food here," Fox said.

The old one nodded: "In their bins, around their houses, and their cats."

"Do you kill cats?"

"Not anymore. When I was younger, I used to. Now I just eat from their trash."

From his curled position, Fox took in the embankment’s crest and felt everything that had become temporarily solid and known was now loose again.

"What's past the freeway?" Fox asked.

"The end of your journey," the old fox smiled. "It's a river. A river so wide that you’ll think it’s a lake. On one side, there are houses and apartment blocks. But they're built so close together and with such small gardens, it's difficult finding anywhere safe to hide. On the other side, it meets up with the freeway again and curves around to the city. You can't go that way, but then what are you left with? The river. You’ll try to swim it. For a while, you’ll be fine. You may even get a third of the way across it, but then the water will wake up. It's alive, you see. It’ll feel you trying to cross it and it will wake up and kill you."

Abruptly, Fox moved away.

"How do you know?" he snapped.

"Because I’m old," the fox said, "and so therefore I know lots of things."

"Stay," the old one said.

Fox wavered, turned to watch a cyclist fly past, then came back to the old one.

"Stay," the old one rose his head and said again.

CHAPTER

Crow cawed from the embankment. Struggled to have his voice heard above the din of the vehicles' roar.

Lifting into the air, he flew along the freeway, repeating his calls. Flew up and down each separate side before returning to where he had left. Again, he cawed: again and again throughout the night. Each caw weighed with an extra degree of worry.

II

Fox lay next to the old one as the old fox slept. He listened to him struggle and wheeze as he breathed. Felt, where their bodies met, the old one’s diminished warmth. He was not sure whether he was telling the truth or exaggerating about his age, for he had never seen an old fox, so had nothing to measure him against. Though he was, by far, the oldest he had seen.

Crow's caws continued. Low dragging notes that pulled him like a tide. Each wave breaking through his thoughts and his soul, yet none of them strong enough to see him leave the old one's side.

He tried, despite the old one's snoring, despite the growls of the persistent cars, despite too, Crow's concerned voice, to picture Vixen's face, failing this he attempted to picture Mother and Dint’s. But for all his memories, he could not recall, precisely, their features. Their colors felt wrong, as did their snouts. All of them, he realized, were fading into time. He grimaced at the void left by their removal: the bearable loneliness. He moved closer against the Old One, feeding on his geriatric presence:

allowing as he did the virus to leap from his body to the old fox’s.

Finally, though, Fox rose and left the old one curled up beneath the dew.

"Why can't you stay?" the old one asked, his eyes closed, his voice half asleep.

"Because everyone I know is dead," Fox replied.

"Everyone, everyone knows, dies," the Old Fox said.

Fox nodded, thought, then said: "Did she send you?"

The old one opened his eyes, took in Fox’s pensive face, and then nodded.

"How did you get here?"

"All the way there, all the way back."

"You made it? But the trail?"

"The trail’s broken. Man broke it... And what man breaks foxes can’t fix."

CHAPTER

"Where the hell have you been?" cawed Crow as Fox emerged from the dark.

"Let’s go," Fox replied as the freeway, emptier, but not car-less, waited: its grey and white dividing lines glowing as though warm beneath the careering headlights: its center island dangerously safe.

Fox deliberated no more. Angrily, he sprinted down the embankment. His pace increasing as he went, his strides widening. The first lanes of the freeway drew up from the gloom. He crossed the narrow strip of earth that separated the embankment in two stretching strides. The freeway itself felt like a closed mouth, and with each sprinting stride, he waited for it to open and devour him. He could smell its oily breath. Taste its ingrained rubber. Fighting it all, ignoring its horn-blowing cars, he crossed it.

As the old fox had said, behind the freeway’s opposite embankment, the river was waiting, and it did look like a lake. The immense flat, mirror of water, two miles across, stretched from the foreshore park to the steps of the city.

Fox could see now the city was not a spider, rather a daunting array of high-rise buildings squashed together on a too-small piece of land. He was entranced by the mirrored cliffs of glass that were reflecting the clouds emerging with the dawn.

Fox studied the distant end of the freeway that finished at one side of the city, vomiting its cars into the buildings, then started again on the other side and stretched across the entire far bank.

Then he turned and looked at all the houses and apartments, cafes, and shops packed together on this side of the river.

"Time to hide," Crow cawed.

"Where?" asked Fox.

"Just hide," Crow replied, then flew off across the river.

Alone, Fox walked the narrow beach. The water smelled ill. His survival instincts advised him not to drink it. There were jellyfish and plastic rubbish, rolling dead in the river's ineffectual waves.

Further out, his vision could not pierce the murk of the water's depth. He stopped trying and began looking for a place to hide.

As the dawn became morning, people began to emerge. Joggers streamed past: misty breaths, dissolving behind them. Cyclists flew along the paths past others who were walking their dogs: the leashed dogs going insane to the smell of freedom.

Fox was still in the open. The park itself spread its manicured grass to the feet of the separate trees, and the flower beds offered no cover, neither did the bin he was hiding under.

II

The gazebo was in the middle of the park. Its round, wall-less construction had a crawl space underneath that smelled of cats and spiders.

Fox crawled underneath and curled up in the center. There was no back wall, just thick stubby posts supporting the entire structure.

At every side, he could see and smell humans and their dogs. Like the light, their numbers were increasing.

By mid-morning, humans were stomping around on the gazebo's wooden floor: laughing, yelling at their children, and creaking the boards. At first, it was horrific. Fox bared his teeth in soundless growls, trying to scare the noises themselves, but as the day progressed, as it became obvious that the humans and their dogs had no idea of his presence, his outlook altered. At one point, a ball came rolling under the crawl space. Remaining completely still, he watched a child scramble in on its belly to retrieve it. He could not believe the child could neither smell nor see him.

Sweet liquid spilled from above, leaking through the joins in the floorboards and onto Fox's drinking tongue. It was delicious.

Food, scattered on the ground around the opening of the crawl space, found itself tenaciously abducted and pulled back under the crawl space.

A small dog, who had a fit of barking when he stumbled across Fox's trail, was rewarded with a kick and a hail of obscenities that saw him retreat to a safer distance where he glared at the gazebo's crawlspace and whined on his knowledge.

Finally, despite the humans and dogs all around him, Fox drifted off to sleep: his stomach full and his nose and ears waiting on sentry duty for the next delectable spill.

With the early evening, the humans' numbers had thinned, but they had not diminished. Fox spent a while laying outstretched below the rim of the crawl space, before wandering into the structure to eat whatever trash he could find.

There, he toyed with the idea that had been in his head all afternoon.

Around him, people were still jogging, cycling, and walking their dogs. Moving to the entrance of the gazebo, he sat there, in plain view, and waited.

From his perch, in a white gum, Crow watched. He had observed other foxes playing this game. It was a trait some foxes seemed to have. Yet he’d always thought Fox was free of this trait... he was wrong.

Leaving the tree, he flew down and landed on top of the gazebo.

"These humans are stupid!" Fox said.

"Is that right, mate," Crow cawed.

"Yeah," Fox answered, struggling to look unconcerned by all the people who were now observing him and Crow.

He had no idea they were talking about the virus. Holding their dogs back. Worried they'd catch it. Had no concept that his photo was being taken by mobile phone cameras and someone who still used film.

"Let’s go," Crow cawed.

"Which way?" Fox asked.

Crow flew towards the flats. Fox followed, leaving the crowd gasping.

Where to hide, went through Fox’s mind as he studied the approaching foreshore road. It was busy, but then he’d crossed freeways; no suburban road could beat that.

Fox stopped. The police car came around the corner and pulled up on the side of the road. It wasn’t the patrol car that stopped him. It was the way officers climbed out: the way the biggest one pointed him out and grabbed for something on his belt.

Crow had noticed too, landing on top of one of the foreshore palms, he watched.

Fox backed up a few steps, then chose a different angle and headed for the apartments there.

Another patrol car turned up. Fox stopped again. He could see no pictures of foxes on the side of their vehicles. They weren’t wearing white uniforms, but as behind him the crowd, now dispersed, were yelling and pointing him out to the officers, he knew these four fanning out and approaching humans were dangerous.

Fox looked up to Crow. Crow looked at him. Fox turned and ran back to the gazebo but instantly he could see that that was no way to go. Many of the people there looked like they were getting ready for him. Shouting at him. Fanning out, arms wide and waving. He turned again and headed for the freeway...

He skidded to a stop. He hadn’t seen the collectors turn up. Their van was parked in the foreshore car park, the fox head painted on its side.

These weren’t the ones he’d seen on that street, but they were real, and poles ready, they were approaching.

He turned back, turned around, then turned around again. The cops were closer. The people were closer, the catchers looked confident.

Crow cawed. He was in the air, heading out over the water. He cawed again.

"It’s alive," Fox heard the old fox say. "It’ll realize you’re in it, then come alive and swallow you."

He turned back to the human net: the closing human net.

Crow cawed. He was above the water now. Fox snarled at it all then ran for the bank. As the catchers and the police charged in, he splashed into the filthy water.

Chapter

At first, the swimming was not hard. In fact, for his lack of swimming experience, Fox was surprised by the distance he had swum in such a short time.

The water was continually washed over his tongue and slipped down his throat. Shuddering, he paddled through patches thick with jellyfish: their phlegm rebounding unseen into the liquid: now dark with night.

On Fox's right, the city dragged long lines of light across the river's surface, but Fox could not see them. All he could see was a virtually starless sky and the moon.

The water's salt and other human impurities began irritating his tongue and nostrils. His eyes burnt and his muscles began wishing for a few minutes' relief, but then the swimming was not hard. Perhaps the old fox was wrong. If he kept going straight, he'd eventually reach his destination. And straight was how he swam because he could not hear Crow.

Somewhere above, Crow had lost him. Alone, he was flying over the expanse of water, his frustration rising. He cawed and cawed but could see nothing but the black, secret-keeping water.

Out on the ocean, the tide had turned. In a surge, it powered up the narrow mouth of the river and up its long, narrow gullet. Moored boats changed direction, seagulls resting on the water drifted along, or lifted and flew to the bank to sleep. Finally, the tide surge reached the Swan River’s widest section and carried away everything inside it: carried away Fox.

Fox knew nothing of ocean tides. To him, the river had awoken. And now awake, it was swallowing him. His paddling strokes became ineffective. Instead of reaching his destination, all his efforts were now invested in just trying to keep his head above water.

A ferry passed: all cheery lights and choppy wake. Its wake washed over him, and for the first time, Fox went under.

Under the water, everything was different. It was dull and still, even as the ferry's wake turned him this way and that. Bursting back to the surface, he gasped for air.

The tide hadn't stopped. The only way he could swim safely was with the force of the current. Paddling as the tide raced him along, he lost sight of the moon as the city raced towards him. Towering above him, it used his blurred eyesight to transform itself back into a bright, glimmering spider.

Crow rested on a cormorant-crowded buoy: its red flashing lights illuminating the surrounding circle of water around him and his gleaming feathers.

Unconcerned with the stranger, the cormorants slept or watched the boats passing by: he clenched the slippery metal, awaiting, no matter how distant, a whine.

Whenever Fox stopped swimming, to give his burning muscles a rest, the tide effortlessly pulled him under. Under the water, there were other lights. Spirits. Keeping pace as if waiting for him to drown, for him to join them.

He broke back to the surface. Struggled to stay afloat, to paddle and breathe, but in his struggle, he swallowed water as well. Mouthfuls went into his lungs. He coughed and spluttered and gasped for more air, but panicking, swallowed more water instead.

The city came closer. Its mirrored cliffs towered down. The offices whose lights were on, thanks to the cleaners, looked to Fox like the eyes of the spider.

More Spirits. The water below him glowed to their presence.

"No," he snorted and paddled till his legs felt as if they would fall off.

From nowhere, the buoy loomed in front of Fox. Its cormorants complaining, in their guttural voices, as spluttering, Fox struggled to clamber up onto its heavy base.

The cormorants were used to the surprises the drink coughed up. But this was new. As Fox collapsed on the slimy base, they left, covering the surface in their calls of distress and disgust.

Shivering, coughing, and vomiting up water, Fox crawled to the middle of the base – directly below the metal skeleton – and saturated, lay down. His tongue was swollen. His eyes blurred and burning to the brine, but he was alive and he knew, as he breathed, that that was all that mattered. That was everything.

He was so completely worn out he didn’t even notice the light approach, the light that was the first to find him.

Chapter

"So professor, you wanted proof, we have proof. We have photos. More eyewitnesses than you can poke a stick at, even some by officers of the law, so, what do you think? Is our Sun-Fox the one yellow fox, or is your virus turning the remaining Vulpes vulpes yellow?"

"I see. Since our last interview, that you’ve learned their scientific name."

"Touché, professor... Touché. But you still haven’t answered our question. Is our Sun-Fox the one fox, or..."

"Naturally, this pictured fox, and I noticed there is only the one picture..."

"Three, actually."

"Yes, but all taken in the same few moments: isn’t that right?"

"You’re splitting hairs, professor. I mean, perhaps our little mate is 1% fox that your virus can’t touch."

"More like a stunt organized by some radical animal rights movement."

"An Australian animal rights movement that not only supports the plight of feral animals but colors them yellow?"

"Either that or one of the carrier foxes that’s somehow got itself covered in paint."

"Like Pepe le Pew."

"Hmm, how will we know? If the animal has leapt into the river like the reports say, then no doubt that’s the last we’ll hear of it."

"Do you think?"

Chapter

Unaffected by the winds or the current below her, she floated across the water. The closer she came, the more Fox took notice. Rose and found her waiting.

Sat on the side of the buoy, she was patiently and quietly looking away over the black expanse as the lines of city lights danced across the ripples.

"I drowned in a river like this," she said. "I was in a cage and they were unloading me from a ship. The man who was carrying me put his hand inside my cage's only opening and I bit it. Soon as I did, I really knew I’d done the wrong thing. He let me go and the cage with me in it splashed into the river, and then sank to the bottom."

Panting on the metal floor, Fox kept his eyes on her, but did not reply.

"Maybe the water had something to do with the trails breaking. But then foxes must have drowned before... They can't all have been lost... Can they? Then again, perhaps it was because I was locked in the cage, or both. Who knows?... When the impossible happens, how are those left supposed to make sense of it?"

"Did you break the trail?" Fox whispered.

Deep currents crossed the Spirit Vixen's face.

"You broke the trail and now all we do is die trying to repair them?" Fox pushed himself up and growled.

Her sadness was obvious, but still Fox, teeth bared, went for her.

II

Crow had heard the cormorants complaining as the other cormorants landed. Their language was obscure, but he could read the shock, the annoyance. There were two other buoys he could see in the distance: another with a red light, one with a green. He rose and headed towards the red one.

III

As Fox went for her, the Spirit Vixen simply floated backwards, and his weak leap fell short.

"Conserve your energy," she said.

Exhausted, he looked down over the edge of the buoy and found the underwater populated with foxes, their lithe spirits swimming around each other or looking back up at him.

"How many of them are you responsible for?" Fox asked.

"They believed. The shadows are full of the unfortunate believers."

"And the soup wasn’t?"

"You have no choice now," she told him. "You'll have to swim for the closest bank. You’ll have to swim to the city."

Fox looked over his shoulder at the nearest bank. It was the foreshore of the city. Lifting his head, he took in the towering buildings, neon-lit signs, and cranes.

He turned back to her.

"How many have made it?" he asked.

"None to the old country. Other countries, yes, a few have. But none to ours."

"How do you know?"

"Because I wouldn’t be here if they had, and neither would those haunting the water below."

Fox took in the spirits in the water again, then he turned back to her.

"If you don’t know how the trail was broken, then how do you know that getting me to the old country, to any country, will fix them?"

"I don’t know... But I believe."

"Yes, but that’s easy for you, isn’t it? You’re dead."

The Spirit Vixen grimaced: "You believe... I know you do. Or at the very least, you want to. You wouldn’t have come this far if you didn’t."

Fox stared at her, then turned back and took in the city.

"They’re getting ready to release more sick foxes, and after they have been released, they will release even more... They’re killing us: all of us."

Fox studied her; she was staring at him, earnestly as the city’s lights seeped through her glow.

"You know if I get back in there, the water will swallow me. It’s already tried."

"You’ll only drown if you fight it. Don’t fight. Give in to it, and if you can stay afloat, it’ll take you there."

"There you are?" Crow cawed as he landed on top of the buoy.

"Will you stop bloody despairing? I was about to start looking underwater," then he saw her. "Oh, it’s you?" he cawed. "How are you going, yer nasty old bitch?"

"What did he say?" she asked Fox while sneering up at Crow.

"He said he’s pleased to see you," Fox grinned and slipped into the water.

"Now where are you going?" Crow cawed.

The tide had turned. As it had driven Fox to hear now, it pulled him back. Fox, with his eyes on Crow who was circling above, did what the Spirit had told him. She was right. He reached the narrow beach and then clambered up the grimy stone wall to pause.

The city glared down from all of its thousands of eyes.

"Over here," Fox cawed, and squinting at the immensity of the view, he followed Crow to a group of man-made ponds. The end of one of these ponds was covered in a great growth of the pampas grass. After drinking the fresh water from the pond, Fox crept beneath the blades of the pampas grass and lay down to wait.

Above him, around him, and it felt like it was also below him, the city moaned and grumbled.

CHAPTER

The gander hobbled in its midget gait around the pond’s shit-covered stones. It had endured the constant threat of dogs and the greater violence of humans ever since his kindly human provider had dumped him here. Too fat on bread to waddle fast, and with his left wing clipped so severely (years ago), he was unable to fly. He simply leapt into the water and paddled out of reach. He entered the pampas grass because he knew they were safe and to escape from the world.

Fox watched the gander’s light leaving the throes of his dying body. He could see its feathers floating beneath the pampas. Feel the weight of the corpse hanging from his jaws. The kill had been so silent, so quick that none of the other waterfowl had heard a thing.

Fox devoured half the gander in the morning and the rest, apart from some flesh thrown to Crow, at dusk. All day he watched humans visit the ponds and take pictures of each other and the ducks and swans. None of them entered the pampas.

As though inside its gullet, Fox listened to the city’s erratic heartbeat pump. Its cars never stopped. Its ant-like confusion of people didn’t either. He heard the wind roaring through its mirrored cliffs. Peered up at all its glass walls as the high-rise buildings reflected the clouds. In the evening, a universe of splendiferous lights came on. They flickered constantly through the fronds of the pampas. Fox found it breathtaking: a plethora of sound and sights that had his eyes flicking from one astounding occurrence to the next.

A duck flew quacking from the grass. It had stumbled across Fox and the devoured gander’s corpse. Fox tensed as its terrified voice saw all the other birds lift from the pond and vanish into the purple-black haze of the city’s falling night.

Fox looked to the sky. There was barely a star to be seen, only the resilient moon languishing over the buildings.

Crow cawed.

Fox worked his way through to the last fronds of the pampas until he saw the bird on the grass.

"Which way?" he whispered.

"That's the problem, mate," the bird replied. "If we follow the river, it could take us over a week, and even then, it’s dodgy. But if we could get to the other side of the city tonight, there's a train line we could follow that could get us to the ship in a few days, even less."

Fox, amazed at the closeness of the goal, peered at the city and studied the buildings' sharp cut undulations.

"Which way?" he asked again.

Crow pointed between two high-rise buildings.

"But we will have to wait," Crow cawed. "There are too many humans now. Loads of 'em. Close to dawn, most of 'em will be gone."

"How do you know?"

"I was born here," Crow cawed. "I grew up eating from the bins and from the floor of the malls."

"By yourself?"

"Naw, in my murder," Crow replied. "It was a small one. A real cocky bunch."

"What happened to them?"

"Dunno. We were all tired of the city. There was too much competition: seagulls, pigeons, plus the humans wanted us gone and were destroying our nests wherever they found them. Finally, one day, we all decided to move on." Crow paused and watched the memories as they all came flickering back.

"I lost them one night, in a storm. I was trying to find a better tree to shelter in. I was only young, see. But I panicked and got lost. In the morning, I flew back to the city because that was the only thing I recognized, but I couldn't find them. I never found them. In the end, I just went exploring and eventually stumbled into the park... Now look at me... I’m back here."

Fox listened. It was unusual to hear the bird talking about his past. But as he listened, he also surveyed the city again. Squinting his eyes to transform all the lights back into the glimmering spider.

But it wasn't a spider. What it was, and he knew it, was the fortification of humanity. The towering shrine of their species' dominance peering down upon him from its self-assured impenetrableness. And it was waiting now. Waiting confidently and ready to pounce: to annihilate him.

Hidden in the grass, he peeled back his gums and bared his fangs to its lights: his growls rolled out of the pampas grass and dissipated into the car horns and ringing mobile phones.

Deep inside, a fuse of hatred ignited. Enflamed, it burnt through his taught being. He began tempting himself with dynamite thoughts of tearing through the city. Found he suddenly owned an imploding want to not only display his strength and agility but the bravery of his species and the weaknesses of theirs. He remembered the killing of the Dog Fox, the man dying, the fat man in the garage, and water failing to swallow him. And then, clearly, he remembered Vixen. And then, as the fuse reached the bomb, he remembered Dint, and with Dint, and with the greatest pain of all, he remembered Mother.

To Mother's breaking face, the face she wore that morning before she turned and buried them, before man arrived, but it was the memory of her dead face, the one in the shed, that saw everything explode.

To car’s horn blaring, he burst out of the pampas grass. On fire, he sprinted across the path towards the hedge that separated the small reserve from the first true streets of the city. Before Crow could realize that what he was watching was actually happening, it was too late to caw for him to stop.

He screeched it anyway.

But Fox would not stop. Inner eyes focused, he careered through the hedge and was born. Alone, he tore across four lanes of traffic whose horns blared. Disappearing from Crow's vision, he shot into the sidewalk, which was thick with people. Immediately, the pedestrians began screaming and leaping out of Fox's path. Hardly any of them had seen a live fox. Some kicked inept kicks at his side. Kicks that fell short. Others scooped their screaming children into their arms and swung their handbags at Fox's charge.

Fox did not stop. Fox did not waver, and in the air above, Crow struggled to keep pace. He saw policemen sprinting into life: running towards the confusion from different angles.

Fox careered across the next intersection, causing a car to screech to a halt and a delivery van to slam into its rear. Pigeons lifted terrified to the safety of the heights. People ahead of Fox, hearing the approaching commotion, steadied themselves apprehensively, with no idea what was coming.

A teenage girl sunk a boot into Fox's shoulder. Fox tripped, yelping, into the arms of her boyfriend who picked him up. Fox struggled in his arms. The boy was hooting. People around him were clapping and cheering, then Fox sank his fangs into his forearm. The teenager's blood hosed into his mouth. The boy screamed and dropped him. Clutched his bleeding arm and hollered.

Fox escaped before the boy's angry kick could reach him.

Possessed, the unstoppable bullet, Fox had more people stumbling out of his path, some into the paths of cars, that screamed their brakes to more ear-piercing halts. Behind him, people were yelling in fear and wonder as running police officers called for calm. A cyclist, astounded by seeing Fox, hit the curb and somersaulted over his handlebars.

Crow was laughing. It was the most astonishing sight of his life. It appeared as though the whole human world was collapsing upon the presence of a single fox. He was not sure if Fox was insane or a genius.

Behind Fox, a long snake of bewildered people had now paused and were busy chattering to each other. Police were charging through, following his trail. Fox was still flying at full pace, the one lithe, flash of movement: the human blood boiling on his tongue.

As Fox ripped across the last road, sirens began wailing. It was the first thing to make Fox stop. It sounded to him like the glimmering spider was in pain. Transfixed in the middle of the road, one car that tore past brushed his tail. It was enough to shoot Fox onto the pavement.

He’d made it. The city was immediately behind him. But now he was lost. Behind the tall buildings and in front, a horseshoe bridge.

Where were these trains?

A crowd of people were gathering around him. From the city, police officers were approaching. Some of the people gathered around him were bent down and edging towards him with soothing, cooing voices: their hands outstretched.

Above them all, Crow cawed, his guttural voice diverting the attention of the encircling crowd. Finished, he flew on towards the side of the horseshoe bridge. Fox growled, bared his teeth, and as the crowd gasped and parted, he ran through and followed the bird.

Below him, the world dramatically and suddenly fell away. Below was a man-made chasm full of dried oil, railway tracks, electric wires, and trains.

With the crowd and three police officers rushing up from behind, Fox leapt down the concrete embankment, scraping and half-running his way to the chasm's floor.

Fox slipped and rolled his way down there but made it. Once down, the air was dense with all things human, and there was little life he could sense: no plants, no animals, just insects.

"This way," Crow cawed before flying off.

Fox looked up to the many heads of the humans peering down and found two of the officers sliding down as well.

Making allowances for the rocky, oil-slippery floor, he set off after the bird.

CHAPTER

"Well, he’s obviously one of our carrier foxes."

"Is that right, professor? But I thought all the carrier foxes had their ears tagged. And not one of the callers, and we have had callers, has recalled seeing an ear tag."

"Yes, well, a tag could be a hard thing to see..."

"And what of the boy who is now in the hospital being tested for any infections? Is he safe?"

"Of course he’s safe. And anyone who would dare to claim that the virus could cross a species is just socially irresponsible."

"Many are saying releasing the virus full stop was the irresponsible move."

"Rubbish. The feral fox population has been decimated. All around the country, native marsupials, hunted to the point of existence, now have the best chance to come back from the edge of extinction. (MORE)

"But if this fox isn’t one of your carriers, then he must be naturally immune to your virus."

"Speculation. And speculation that will be cleared up once the authorities catch him."

"Do you think they will?"

"I know they will."

"Like you knew he would drown in the river."

Chapter

The police dogs barked as they pulled their handlers over the rocks and train lines. Each handler had another officer with them looking out for trains. Further down the lines, past where all the waiting passengers were watching them from the main station, the fox collectors, in their white uniforms and poles, searched behind and under the trains that had been momentarily stopped.

It didn’t stop there. Moving down the tracks, other police officers were using their batons to bash the bushes that bordered the high fence between the tracks and the road.

One rabbit making a break for it found its shot. The shooting caught by a photographer from the West Australian.

"He’s here somewhere," one of the catchers said as they stretched their backs. "I can smell him."

Fifteen kilometers away, Fox rocked as the goods train rocked. He had no idea of the numbers of people he left searching behind him. He had no concept of television or that he was on it. A still photograph of him, taken by a city officer worker with their mobile phone, was there behind the news presenter’s head, which was a prequel to the reporter on the city streets interviewing the excited eyewitnesses. No idea the name Sun Fox had stuck, or that the public were being told not to approach him.

It had been Crow’s call to leap onto one of the cars of a slow-moving, but passing freight train. The train was full of wheat.

On either side, humanity stretched as far as he could see. Tiled roofs bordered with trees and church spires and upright oblongs of apartment blocks.

Crow flew next to the train, rising and dipping as he glided and flapped. Stations passed. Many full of people. On one, a young boy noticed him. Fox saw him point and yank on his mother’s hand, but she never looked up.

The smell took hold of the air gradually. It seeped through the mechanics and grease of the train and smelled like the river, though decidedly saltier. As they moved closer to the source, the smell became fresher and spoke of power. Fox called to Crow, but the bird could not hear over the rattling of the train.

Fox knew it was though, and it was odd to be so near. His stomach was shivering, a little out of sadness, a little out of excitement, a little out of relief. He wondered if Crow was excited too. He hadn't told the bird, but he was glad Crow’s pains would be gone.

Crow cawed. Fox saw him do it, and his superior hearing heard him too.

He wanted him to get off. The train wasn’t stopping though. Fox spun around on the spot, watching the sleepers pass. But Crow was not stupid. As the train approached a bend, it slowed.

Full of the adrenaline he earned in the city, Fox leapt free, then ran up an embankment and disappeared into a long wall of yellow flowering Geraldton Wax. Inside his honey-smelling hide, he turned to watch the train pass. It did, and in doing so, revealed over the last hem of houses, the blue and immense ocean.

CHAPTER

Through its bee-busy, leafy veil of the Geraldton Wax, Fox not only watched the constant passing trains, with their weary or blank-faced passengers, but he studied the ocean. Its water claimed the entire horizon. A perfect line compromised by a low-lying, long, and flat island, and dotted with the dark silhouettes of what Fox realized must be the sought-after ships.

From here, the ships looked inadequate, vulnerable, and little, yet it was obvious to Fox that they were monstrous.

None of the four ships he could see were moving. He hoped he would not have to swim out to them. For although he could not see the point where the water met the land, he knew the distance was three times the width of the river: at least.

Fox knew he should, but he couldn’t sleep. The excitement was in the ocean's breeze, its seaweed, and salt feeding the fever of Fox's swiftly beating heart.

Twice a fox catcher's van passed on the road on the other side of the railway tracks, its passenger studying the bushes, but although once it paused, it never stopped.

CHAPTER

"It's time," Crow cawed gently through the branches. Fox was already awake and waiting in silence for his friend's call.

Quietly, he moved through a narrow seaside suburb with all the usual noises of the human forest surrounding them. Dogs barked to his passing, only to be yelled quiet by their human providers, who remained snug inside their well-lit houses. Cats climbed trees or steadied themselves beneath parked cars to watch him pass: king of the footpath.

To Fox, none of this seemed real: his mind far ahead and only the skeleton staff of his survival instincts keeping him safe.

They passed out of suburbia and down streets that passed through a great cargo yard full of waiting shipping containers and enormous petroleum holding tanks. Above them, seagulls cut the air with their shrieking language as they dove into the packs of suicidal moths that were erratically swamping every light.

Crow's caws were softer now: each with a subtle impediment that Fox noticed only because his thought was similarly inflicted.

Two Alsatians guarding a container yard came backing and gnashing at the fence. Initially, Fox yelped in shock, but realizing they were trapped behind their fence, he wandered up to the fence and gave them more to bark at. Crow cawed. He moved on.

Ships moored at the docks appeared almost out of nowhere. One moment Fox was bypassing a great warehouse, and the next, their incredible silhouettes loomed.

There were two ships moored on this side of the dock and another on the other. Fox could hear the water lapping around their great floating bulks. And the ships themselves strained against the thick wound ropes that held them in place. The entire dock was dark and seemed empty of life. Somewhere close, but unseen, a metal wire clinked lazily against a metal pole, as above, seagulls roosted along the skeletal arms of the container cranes that towered silently like monsters from a nightmare.

There were no plants to be seen. No tough weeds growing inside the crane’s rail-lines. There were rats though. Fox saw them racing across the black floor, leaping over the oily puddles, before vanishing into the darker shadows.

And there were no men.

The incredibleness of the moment emptied Fox's mind of thoughts: leaving it open to fill and remember all he was seeing. Finally, he turned to Crow, who was on the ground with him, and asked:

"Which ship is mine?" Fox asked.

"I don’t know," Crow replied.

"What?" Fox said.

"I don’t know," Crow repeated: "It could be one of these, it might not be any of them. I don’t know."

"But what about the sea birds?" Fox asked. "You were supposed to ask..."

"I did," Crow said. "I’ve been here every day, asking around while you slept, but they don’t know. And why should they? They all live and die here."

Fox sat down. "But... " he said, then turned to the ships and said, "So no one knows where they go?"

Crow nodded and then cawed softly:

"You’re not special. You’re brave. You’re stubborn, but that’s all."

Fox was struggling. "But there are only three to choose from. A one in three chance is better odds than we ever had."

Crow shook his head again. "In the past two weeks alone, over thirty ships have come in here and left. We should have never left the park," he said.

To the left of them, cars and trucks plied their way over a bridge that crossed the river, to their right, the mouth of the port opened up to the ocean, whose dark was interrupted by the green and red lights of the buoys.

"If we could get you on the right train," Crow cawed, "In one night, it could take us right through the city and over the hills."

Staring at the ships, Fox didn’t reply.

"Don’t just get on anyone," Crow cawed. "You could end up anywhere. Even right back here."

A car approached. Instinctively, Fox ran for the shadows, and Crow took to the air and perched on an arm of the crane where a few annoyed seagulls complained.

The security van passed slowly, its driver lazily overlooking the docks as one of his fingers on the steering wheel tapped to the song coming out of his radio.

As Fox watched the van move up the docks then turn and come back, he was not watching it as it passed again. Instead, as soon as it disappeared, he was out and running down the dock. By the time Crow had flown down and landed near him, Fox was looking at the containers on the closest ship.

"Let’s go," Crow cawed.

"Look," whispered Fox.

Crow turned. He could see nothing but the ships and its stacked containers.

"Look closer," Fox said.

"Bloody hell," he cawed.

Some of the containers were new and brightly colored: oranges, yellows, with writing on their sides that neither Fox nor Crow could read. Others were old, their paint and writing faded or all but worn away. One of these weathered ones had once been red, but perhaps the ocean or something else had scraped away at that until now, in places, the red was gone completely, revealing the bare metal underneath. Near the front of this container, where its doors were locked, was the faded word "Fox Transport." But Fox and Crow couldn’t read these words; that’s why they weren’t looking at them. Above the words, though, was the black painted head of a fox.

"No," Crow cawed.

"It has to be," Fox disagreed.

"No," Crow cawed again. "It’s just a coincidence. It has to be."

"Bird,"

"Yeah?"

"I’m going."

"No," Crow cawed. "You can’t be sure, you just can’t."

But Fox was smiling. "It’s okay, bird. I have to... I’ve got no choice. I’m the one."

"No you’re not..."

"Shush," Fox said, then sitting, he wrapped his tail around his legs and said: "Say goodbye, bird."

Crow didn’t reply at first, then after a slice, he said, "No, I’m coming with you."

Fox smiled again and then shook his head: "This is your country. You shouldn’t leave it, plus those eyes in your head will go now. Now you can live."

"They’re already gone," Crow cawed. "They’ve been gone for ages."

"What," Fox said.

"They left as soon as I killed that man. A reward, huh?"

"But you kept... Why?" Fox asked.

Crow didn’t reply.

"Tell me, why did you help me?" Fox asked.

"Don’t go," Crow whispered. "Forget about this, and just come back to the road with me and live," and then he mumbled: "Please."

A familiar sound broke their silence. Further up the dock, the security van was returning. Its headlights inevitably explored the dock.

"I have to go," Fox said.

Wings tight around him, Crow didn’t reply.

Fox went to leave but couldn’t. Eyes full of the bird, he felt as though a great section of his being was being sheared away. He wanted to tell Crow this, but didn't know how, so instead, he said:

"I better get on board."

Crow, his head turned back and eyes on the approaching car, didn’t reply.

"Tell me to go," Fox said.

Crow turned back. Looked Fox directly in the eyes then cawed, "Well, what yer waiting for?! Go on! Bugger off!"

Fox waited a moment later, but Crow had already looked away, so turning, Fox headed for the gangplank. As the security van passed, he paused, halfway up it, and glanced down. Crow was nowhere to be seen.

The security van did another circuit, then slowly headed back the way it came from.

Alone, Fox studied the rest of the dock but found only a few rats and a puddle making dark rainbows out of the oil on its surface, but the bird was nowhere. He was gone.

He faltered. Inside, something softer than a bone broke. He could still walk, though, and blinking, he turned to board the ship.

"Looking for me?" Crow cawed.

The bird was perched on the gangplank’s rail. Warmth. Celebrations. Fox ran to him and lifting to his back paws came physically closer than he had ever been to the bird.

Crow leant back. His black eye unsure, then slowly he came forward, paused, then closing his eyes pressed the side of his face against the side of Fox’s face.

"See yah mate," he whispered, then leant back, opened his wings, and lifted into the sky.

"Crow!" Fox called.

Crow dropped a wing and flew in a slow circle near the ship.

"Live,"

"You too," Crow cawed, and then lowered a wing and lifted into the dark sky that swallowed him.

Able to fly wherever he pleased. He had been telling himself this all day. Not just today, but ever since Fox made it through the city. Fox was gone. The "Eyes in his Head" were gone. The Spirits, the worry, the imprisonment of it all... All of it, all of it gone. He was as free as the cold breezes ruffling through his feathers. So free, he flew back across the metropolis and headed towards the park which was perhaps a few goods flying away.

But he didn't make it. By the time dawn rose, the gravity pulling him back finally won. Returning over the frantically waking city, he reached the port just before noon, in time to see Fox’s ship heading towards the horizon.

"Things were how they were meant to be," he thought, as he perched on top of the warehouse’s roof. Before him, the cranes were loading and unloading containers, and the seagulls were studying it all from every roost they could find.

It would be a nice day. A warm, easy, gentle day, he felt a moment before everything stopped.

His breath stolen, he stared in disbelief at the container the crane was loading onto the new ship. New and red, its black fox head glistened in the sun. Looking down at the two ships below him, he saw both were carrying similar containers. Just one was being loaded with them, while the other was having them crane off. Turning around, he scanned into the holding yard overcrowded with containers and found between the many, more of these fox ones. Some were being loaded onto trucks. One pile was five containers tall.

He cawed like he had never cawed before and flew out to sea. But from flying all night, he was more tired. By the time he realized he couldn’t swim any further, he realized he didn’t have the energy to swim back to land. Below were buoys rising and lowering with the swell, and a ferry coming back from its first trip to the island. Crow landed on the top of this ferry.

Perched and panting on its top railing, he felt the ocean breeze explore his feathers as he watched the ship that held his only friend disappear over the long and blue horizon.

The Final Book of Fox coming soon.