Chapter 14: Following the Fleeting Summer

This time I awoke in complete darkness. I'd had just the presence of mind to switch off my flashlight before the counter hit zero - I didn't want to waste any extra battery power.

For a moment I didn't dare move. I almost didn't want to be the first one to know if the transformation had worked, but I couldn't help myself.

You would assume it would be obvious at first thought, we are talking a tail and fangs here, but somehow it felt the same... no matter what. I raised a hand hesitantly to my face, bracing, telling myself over and over again that there were so many reasons that it could have failed.

I felt a mussel and a cold, wet nose.

I couldn't help it, I let loose a howl of pure joy. No words, no structure, I just howled at the top of my lungs into the sticky, hot air.

"Gods, mate, keep it down. Some people are trying to sleep." A massive hand came out of the darkness to swat at me, I grabbed it by the fur that covered its wrist. "Mate, come on..." He broke off mid sentence as I laid his paw across his face. All I heard then was a sigh.

"Wolfy, did it work?" Rebeca's voice was quiet beside me.

"What do you think, Babe?" I reached over in the darkness to kiss her soft lips, her lack of fur not fazing me in the slightest.

"Hello? Taggert? 'Becca?" Amstys' voice carried in shortly thereafter, his dull flashlight beam piercing the omnipresent darkness.

"We're here, Amstys." I called out to him, "Be careful, this place is covered in acid."

"Tommy!?" I could hear a yip in his voice as he charged towards us, that yip became literal as he almost stepped in a puddle of green.

"Just give us a moment, we'll come to you." I gave English an elbow to the gut to get him moving and pulled Rebeca up into my arms, carrying her down the aisle of computers.

"I can walk you know, Wolfy." She reached a finger up to tweak my nose. Gods, I never thought I'd ever be so happy to feel my whiskers twitch.

"Sure, Babe, but let me be chauvinistic, just this once. I've been too weak to do it for a while, and I do enjoy feeling like a man every so often."

She laughed, "You just finished being a man... or a human, anyway."

The grin froze on my face for a moment before I let it grow wider. "I guess so, Babe, but I wouldn't trade where we are now for anything in the world."

Amstys just about went snaky when he saw me. Wonderful. Between him and Sayer I was becoming a minor god.

It took him a bit to realize that 'Tommy' and 'Taggert' were the same person. That almost gave him a heart attack. Wait... no, I think 'heart attack' isn't a good term to use here...

Anyway, I left the three of them - English, Rebeca, and Amstys, to load up the jeep for the trip back south. There was one more thing I had to do before we left.

The sun was still up, despite the clouds that obscured it, and the forests felt far removed from the ones that I'd stalked in the night. It didn't slow me down though, I put my nose to the ground and tracked the scent of wolves back to their den.

The entire pack was there, the whole family. I stood in the trees and watched them, unseen.

The alphas were lounging out in the open air, the betas just behind them, within the den. The two pups were playing out front, chasing and nipping at the leaves and grass that danced on the wind.

A dried leaf came skittering towards me on the breeze, laying to a rest on my outstretched paw. I reached out and held it fast with a thumb. A moment later one of the pups charged after it, not seeing me until he ran head first into my fingers.

Only the slightest yip escaped his lips as he looked up at me, I must have towered over him like a vengeful god. I held out the leaf, letting it come to rest on his nose.

He didn't move, didn't make a sound. But he didn't run either. For a hand full of seconds we sat there, staring at each other. He didn't let his gaze fall from my eyes, nor I his.

A smile broke my lips. If he was afraid of seeing my teeth, he didn't show it.

I leaned down, my head rubbing against his. Letting my tongue come out, I gave him a single affectionate lick across the brow before turning and melting back amongst the trees.

I looked back over my shoulder as I strode away. He was still peering after me, a bemused expression on his small face.

Heh. Pups are cute. I should have some someday.

By the time I got back they were already packed. The truck was loaded to the gills, spare parts and gas filling every available space. The engine was even idling, sounding nothing so much as like English himself purring.

"Are you ready, Tommy?" Rebeca met me a dozen steps from the vehicle.

"Let's go home." I led her forward, opening the door for her.

A small smile lit her face, "And where would that be, Wolfy?"

I slid in beside her, "Where ever we want it to be, Babe."

Chapter 15: The Big One (Epilogue)

If I thought the ride home was going to be gentle and easy, I was sorely mistaken. Sore is the opportune word here. Even with English manning the controls - not that I'm really sure he knew how to drive, mind you - our journey over the cracked asphalt of the highway left us feeling like beaten eggs. I can't remember the number of times we had to stop so everyone could puke out their road sickness.

The advantage was that we made far better time than any of us had any reason to expect. The whole trip to Kicking Horse Pass fell away in only three days, even keeping well clear of Calgary. Amstys may have promised that particular beast was well and dead, but none of us wanted to churn up bad memories.

I hadn't bothered to pick up the radio since we'd left Edmonton. I wasn't sure I really wanted any more news. As a result, our arrival was a complete surprise to Jon.

"Tommy?" He just about fell out of his chair when I walked into the spotless radio room at the Pass. "How did you... where were you..." He paused for a moment, gulping down air to get his sputtering under control, "It's nice to see you again, Mr. Taggert. Did you...?" He couldn't quite ask it.

"Yes, Jon. It's all true. And we're going back to V-town. Now."

His ears fell, dejection reading in every hair on his face. "I'm sorry, Tommy. I failed you."

"You did what you had to, Jon." I offered him my hand to help him from his seat.

"There's more, Tommy."

Oh gods. What now?

"It's the city, Tommy. Just in the last day. All the dogs, cats, even the police, they've all gone insane."

I felt my heart stop.

"I don't know what's happening, but something's caused all the animals to go haywire."

"My parents, my father?"

He let out a gentle sigh. "Last I heard, Gowan and the hunters had stormed police head quarters and dragged them off into the forest."

I wasn't sure whether I should feel relieved or horrified. The hunters had turned on the police?

"Get packed, Jon. We're leaving."

We had a few moments as English babied his truck, with Amstys pressed in to service as his assistant. I took Rebeca by the hand, we wandered across the fields outside the Pass, waving at Renfrew in the distance.

We hadn't journeyed far when we stumbled upon a plateau. Indian paintbrush and small mountain flowers, too many to count, had sprung up in the summer since we'd last been here. Not a single one reached above our knees, but the riot of colors and scents in the air made them impossible to miss.

We sat down among the flowers. Now that we were lower, I could see the tiny buds that had only just sprouted above the surface of the earth. I gently plucked one, it was so small and perfect as to be almost impossible to believe that it existed at all.

"Sometimes I feel sorry for them, Wolfy." Rebeca laid her head on my shoulder. "They have such short lives up here, the summer barely seems to have scant days to touch them." She slowly reached out, taking the single flower from my thick fingers. "With only a few weeks to live, they have to put everything in to it - a single burst of life before they die again for the winter."

I looked up and felt the warmth of the sun stream onto my face. As high up as we were, we lay above most of the clouds.

"Come on, Babe," I gently pulled her to her feet, "We need to get going."

We were all back around the truck, just getting ready to set out when I felt it. I don't know what it was - something screaming in the back of my mind, the same place that had held the voice of the wolves.

I snarled, not knowing why, and lashed out a hand to pull Rebeca to my chest as I took us both to huddle on the ground. Before me, I could see English, Amstys, and Jon doing the same. We were all terrified, running on pure instinct that overrode anything our minds could understand. From the corner of my eye I could see Renfrew. He followed us, more from confusion than reasoning.

The earth moved beneath us a instant later. It kicked and bucked beneath my belly, throwing us around like so many toys in its childish and fitful hands. Around me, the mountains crumbled, millions of tons of scree tumbling off, exposing new faces that had never before been seen by the sun.

Oh, gods. This was it. An earthquake. This was the Big One.

The rolling lasted minutes at a time, and none of us were stupid enough to try and move until the aftershocks had past. All seven of them.

"English, go! We're going! Now!" I shoved Rebeca towards the truck that, miraculously, was still on its wheels.

"What?" His entire composure had slipped, as had mine. I reached out a hand, pulling him to his feet by the scruff of his neck.

"V-town, you fool. The city! Vancouver is built on a foundation of silt. It would liquefy in a major earthquake."

He looked at me wide eyed, then got in the truck and started the engine.

We didn't know what awaited us, but the city that lay just beyond the horizon was our destination. Home.

Author's Note

Well folks, here we are again.

Tommy Taggert and company are back for another round in The Explorers. This time they're out of V-town and facing something even bigger than the extinction of the human race.

I broke a promise I made to myself when I wrote this story. My first novel was The Hunters, and I was concerned that I was going to become a one trick pony while writing it. I promised myself up and down that once I was done I'd move onto a different series. I was planning to return to Tommy, but I didn't want to be tied to him.

And, of course, immediately upon completing The Hunters I turned around and wrote The Explorers. I'd just left Tommy and Rebeca in such a bad place that I couldn't not write the follow up.

Not that the ending of this story is much better.

You'll likely notice this novel to be a bit rougher around the edges than the previous three I posted. The Hunters, Little Brother to a Lion, and Police Dog were all submitted for publication and went through multiple drafts. The Explorers was written strictly for me and saw a lot less sweat and polish.

I spent the first half of this story writing in a blind panic. I had the Calgary scenes figured out, but had no idea how I was going to write the fight between Tommy and English. And to me that was the centerpiece of the book.

In the end it seems I shouldn't have worried so.

All worked out (in my opinion at least) surprisingly well. I can't speak for anyone else, but I really liked the way the battle between them played out.

One fun technical innovation I brought to my game with this book was proofreading it with a text-to-speech program. I'm sure a lot of errors still slipped through, but hearing the story rather than just reading it again (for the fifth time!) made the editing process both faster and a lot more bearable.

Choosing which characters to bring back with this book was a little difficult. There were the obvious choices of Tommy, Rebecca, and English... but who else? Jon made the cut, if only just. I had to bring him along, but only too late did I realize I didn't have enough for him to do. Hence him getting left behind at the Pass.

Amstys was another interesting character. With Jon developing past his 'whipped puppy' persona, I needed another canine to fill that gap. Amstys just stepped in without me noticing. I rather like the big lug. Expect to see him pop up again from time to time.

You'll start to see a few trends in this book that will become reoccurring motifs in The Hunters series. I won't go into them too much, but they should become fairly obvious when the third book hits the web.

I suppose it was with this book I began to hit my stride. The idea of writing a novel length work was no longer so daunting as I'd already managed to do it once. I was warmed from from The Hunters, and was well on my way with The Explorers.

The ending of this book doesn't feel nearly as rushed as some of my other ones (Little Brother to a Lion, I'm looking at you...) but in reality I was pushing it out as quickly as I could. The idea for Police Dog came to me right as I was writing the final chapters, and I just couldn't get it out of my mind.

And speaking of endings, I won't be surprised if I get a few angry comments about this one. I did it on purpose. Not for you, but for me.

I took a two book break from The Hunters after this story to write Police Dog and Little Brother to a Lion. I wanted to make sure I had good reason to come back.

And boy did I ever...

As always, I'd love to get your feedback on the book. If you have a few moments I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me what you think - both the good and the bad!