Captured
The fur on his arms felt like it had come alive and was frantically dancing on his skin. The low rumble began again. He braced himself and got low to the smoking grey dirt at his feet. He could smell the sulphur strongly now. He closed his eyes and whispered to himself that he would be okay. He had heard about the dangers beyond the border from his parents as a small child, now just aged fourteen he was seeing it for himself. The vibration was beginning to shake him. He knew the fractures in the ground would begin and he would have to keep a mind on his feet. He placed each one as wide as he could comfortably manage. He looked up at the dark, rotting, green sky and continued his repeated mantra, "I'm going to make it home." He whispered again before coughing on the dust from the powdery grey dirt beginning to rise. He had to time his jump perfectly before he got caught in the gravity net. He would be captured if he let himself be caught.
The red line of light appeared and he watched it trace over the mounds of dirt, rocks and broken machinery as it clung to the ground. It began to silently move to his feet. He breathed in deep and tightened his leg muscles. He jumped. It passed below him and he fell back to the ground. He turned and watched the line continue it's path. He began to walk behind the red beams path. He knew in just a few miles and he'd be at the road that leads to his town. It continued at it's quick pace and Alban struggled to follow. He brushed the fur down behind his ear and struggled to keep from shaking now. He realised ignoring his fathers instruction might cost him his life; he wondered if anyone was coming looking for him. In that moment he felt totally alone. Amongst the charcoaled black trees only the wind whistled through and only his hurried foot steps broke the ethereal noise.
After a few minutes of chasing the red laser line, he noticed the ground was more firm. He must be exiting the Forest of the Soulless (at least that is what everyone in his town called it anyway). An exit through the trees appeared and a stretch of clear brown soil beyond that. His paws scurried. The green of the sky has deepened now and the line grew more vibrant as everything else seemed to grow darker.
As he approached the clear pass and noticed the line stopped just a few metres in front of him. He kept himself back and stayed behind of the final trees before the stretch of brown landscape. He ran a paw through his soiled red fur and up to his black ears. The fox had been moving what must be at least two hours now he thought, his body was slim and he knew he wasn't built to exert himself so much. He shock off his aching arms and stretched his neck, angling his head in five or six directions. With a final yawn he peered in between the trees, The line was gone now. He moved out of the trees and looked around the ground, eyes darting inch by inch manically looking for the line. He noticed a strange shape in the dirt, his eyes battled the darkness to attempt to make it out. He craned his head close to it as he kneeled down. "Help." He heard a whimpering, quiet cry. He looked up, a wolf aged just a little older than him was floating in the air, still. His body seemed stuck in one position. The fox stepped back and examined him. He was stocky but not in military uniform.
"You." He pawed at the air trying to find the right words. There was no easy way to interrogate someone, so he just decided to begin. "Do you know what I am?"
"A red wolf?" He said quietly.
"No. You're obviously one of them." He said pointing. He sighed, looked away, shook his head and began to walk on. "You'll be found by your own kind anyway." He noticed the lights of his town in the distance.
"Please." The wolf said beginning to whimper.
"Who are you? Why are here?" The fox asked.
"Moysei, I needed to escape. They would kill me if I'm found." The wolf said looking down at him.
"Why should I believe you?" The wolf's eyes seemed to sparkle in the night, glimmering. Alban couldn't make out the colour over the iridescent nature of them and the dark.
"I can't give you any reason to. I don't even know where you are from." Alban heard a sob. Alban crossed his arms and looked down. His beach coloured slacks pocket began to vibrate. He placed a paw on it. He grabbed the phone out of his pocket and rushed it to his ear.
"Dad." He said, as his eyes felt so close to crying it was as if they were steaming.
"Where the hell are you?" The choked voice at the other end of the line said.
"I was stupid. I went to go see the borderlands." The voice at the other end of the line was silent. "I'm safe now their defences don't go beyond the forest."
"You are that close? I'm coming to pick you up. Just stay there, I'll bring my gun." His father hung up.
He looks up at the wolf froze in his position arms awkwardly placed in front of him. The wolf is grimacing and staring at him like a hopeless castaway. "My dad is coming with his gun." The wolf began to cry, sobbing arms staying still. "I expected you to be stronger for a people known for their war crimes."
"I." He stopped to cough. "I just want to live. I have rights here don't I?"
"You aren't a citizen." He snarled. "I'm not even sure if you have a heart. Only soldiers have come this far; you must be one, or a spy." The wolf began to sob louder. "This used to be all forest. There where 13 cities and towns in that direction, of course that was before you invaded."
"I'm sorry. I didn't have anything to do with that. I have been walking on foot for weeks, trying to escape." The fox laughed a short sarcastic snigger. He turned away again. He was sure now the wolf was lying.
"If that is true you would have needed supplies, a map and a compass at least. You would have never have made it."
"I used my phone. It has a compass built in. I turned off the signal so they couldn't track me and used the GPS."
"You don't get those in a phone." The fox scoffed. "Even if you did have that, what did you eat to make it here?"
"My bag is just by that tree over there." He gestured with his eyes and titling his head as much as he could." Alban looked over and saw a large bag with a sleeping bag atop it.
"It's a trap." The fox said, placing his hands on his hips, in one of those camp gestures he couldn't keep hold of. He scoffed at himself for seeming less manly when he was trying to intimidate the stocky wolf. The stocky wolf looked at him in that moment like his heart had just been broken. The fox felt a flood of guilt run through him. He scrubbed his eyes with his paw and sighed. "Promise me it isn't a trap."
The wolf breathed in deep and said "I totally promise you, with my whole mortal soul." The fox paced over to the tree it was leaned up against. He pulled it away from the black tree and rubbed of the charcoal dust from it. He hesitated before he opened the bag. Alban wondered if the reason he was listening to the wolf was that he was hiss type. He breathed in deep and opened the bag, at the top was a pen knife, below some cans of beans, another can with no label and a small gas stove. All of them had little flecks of dirt on them. Below that was a magazine featuring men in compromising semi-naked poses with interspersed health, exercise and diet advice. He turned to the wolf and held it up.
"Is this why you left?" The wolf gulped and closed his eyes. "You need to be honest with me, as soon as my father comes he will shoot you in less I stop him. If you don't tell me the truth... then I can't decide."
"What if you are just a red wolf? What if you take me back there?" Tears begin to roll down his cheeks as his bottom lip trembles. "I don't wanna die."
"I'm gay too, and do I look like a wolf?" The wolf opened his flooded eyes and searched the foxes.
"Yes." He said as he shook so hard it caused his frozen body parts to tremble. Alban didn't need to ask to know he was referring to the second question.
"So it is actually illegal over there?" The wolf nodded. "The bastards. Not only have they killed every species other than wolves over there, but now they kill their own." Alban steadied his shaking paws and tried to push the memory that was leaving a bad taste in his mouth aside. His ear cupped in the direction of an incoming rumbling noise. He looked over and could see the headlights of his dad's old beaten up car coming towards him. He waved his paws and smiled.
"Please, don't let him hurt me." The wolf whispered. The car pulled up and a taller, greying fox got out. He quickly rushed to Alban.
"What the? Who is this?" Alban's father looked to him for answers.
"He's run from across the borderlands. He came from the other side."
"Only soldiers can pass through." Alban's father said.
"Hence why he is stuck." Alban choked on the words he was about to say but still managed to splurt them out. "He's running as he is going to be killed."
His father looked up at the wolf with his teeth showing, only now did Alban notice the shotgun was already sat in his paw. "What did you do?" The wolf began to cry.
"He's gay. They get killed over there for it." Alban's father looked at him and grabbed him by the paw.
"We are going to leave him here."
"No." The fox felt his face grow flushed and knew his paws were shaking.
"Then do what? Somehow stop a device neither of us understand and take him home with us. They are probably coming for him. They would probably follow him anywhere."
Alban wondered if there was anyway of tricking the device. He noticed it stop here but that might have been just to trap the wolf. If it just stopped here than it must have a limited range. If he had just been captured by the beam today then it must have only stopped due to catching him and be able to travel anywhere. He looked up at the grey wolf with his eyes closed in the bright headlights. He decided to ask. "When were you caught?"
"Since sunset yesterday." He said horsely.
"I've seen one of the beams go out today, it stopped not twenty five feet from here. Maybe it only has a certain range." His father looked into his sons eyes.
"You really trust him?" Alban nodded, trying to stop the goofy smile from stretching across his face. "I'll try to get him down, but we have to be quick." Thoughts flooded his head in that very moment. He'd feel so much less alone in his tiny isolated town. He'd have someone to talk to, to get to know, who was like himself, someone who understands what it is like. Then he looked up at the wolf. He was still not smiling.
"I'm not sure if you can get me down. I don't have any idea how this works either." His bottom lip began to shudder, but he was doing better at controlling it than before. Alban thought about the beam. All he knew where the signs of it coming. The rumble, the shaking ground, the cracks in the dirt. Maybe it was underground and moved to where it needed to be, but where? He began to examine the mud for signs. Sure enough just below the wolf was a crack in the dirt.
"Dad. Shoot there." He said pointing to the ground. The fox looked at him puzzled.
"Why?"
"These things travel underground, at least I think they do. I think it needs to be exactly where it's victim is." The fox shrugs and sighs.
"Fine." He picks up his gun and points it to the mud. The shot noise rang through out the wilderness. The wolf fell to the ground. Alban rushed over to help the wolf up. He got to his feet and pulled Alban into a tight hug. The wolf's face next to his made the goofy smile came back and took over his whole face. The wolf gave a light timid kiss on the foxes cheek. "Hey, at least get to know him first; that is my son after all." The wolf looked down and released Alban from the hug.
"It's fine. He's joking." The smaller fox said, grabbing the wolf again and pulling him into a hug. "I'm Alban. I don't remember if I said or not."
"I'm Moysei. In case you've forgotten." He said letting go of Alban. Alban looked at his father, hoping his eyes could say what he didn't even dare to ask. Alban's father rolled his eyes.
"You're gonna have to stay in the spare room." Alban's father said begrudgingly. "And for the first few weeks I'm going to leave CCTV on in there. I need to be one hundred percent sure."
"I'm totally fine with that." The wolf said finally smiling. Alban's father placed a paw on Moysei's broad shoulder.
"Then let's go, before they find us."