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[ Chapter 9 ]
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They were right at the top of Midrise trail when it happened -- a sound like a small explosion against the calm evening air, which nearly threw Brian from his handlebars as the bicycle shook to a stop and Matt pulled aside to offer help.

"My front tire just blew!"

Brian spun the front wheel, feeling around the softened tire as Matt parked and dismounted his own bike. Hardly any wear on the front wheel, Brian looked for anything like a sharp thorn or rock that could have punctured the tire. He couldn't see anything obvious, but he did nonetheless find evidence as to the problem: Green goop, tire sealant, spilled over a section of the rim, clear indication of a catastrophic puncture to the inner tube.

"Damn. I'll have to walk it back." Brian glanced at the trail leading down. "Matt, you go on ahead...."

"Get back to camp, alert the rangers?" Matt confirmed. "Yeah, I can do that. But what about you? It's already sunset. We're going to be late!"

"I don't have much of a choice now," Brian answered. "I'll stick to the trail so they can find me. Can't get lost that way, right?"

Matt shrugged.

"Look, it's either that or we'll both be walking...."

"I get the point," Matt answered. He readied his bicycle for a trip down and prepared to kick off. "Ranger Mark is going to be furious about this...."

Brian shrugged it off. "Just get going!"

Matt kicked off and disappeared down the slope amidst the amber glow of the setting sun.

Brian sighed as he grabbed the bicycle by its handlebars and began walking. It was not a fast walk, downslope and with a blown tire in tow, and with about one mile to the lodge he estimated about twenty minutes. Though his feet kept up the pace solidly, his mind wandered to other thoughts. What would the Rangers do about it? On the one hand, the rangers were always repeating their rule about curfew, but on the other hand..., as stern as ranger Vince's face was when he returned a belated Ben to their cabin last week, Ben was forgiven the offense and another student expelled instead for precipitating it. This blown tire was an accident, clearly, and they would have to take that into account.

Brian sighed in relief as he sat down along the side of the path, removing his jacket and draping it across the handlebars. He closed his eyes and rested for but a moment. Just stay on the path, he told himself. Keep to the trail....

When he opened his eyes next, he spotted the moon visible in the sky to the east, cresting over the mountainous ridge.

The moon? Blast it all!

He couldn't have dozed off . . . or did he?

He scanned his surroundings, noting how it was much brighter under the risen moon's illumination. He could see the trail quite clearly, and he could smell the lake air through the night's calm breeze; he had to be near by to the camp. He couldn't tell where the lodge was through these trees and brush, but with a glance up along the trail he could at least spot the bicycle.

He stood up, stretching his arms and legs and checking his wrist for the compass. Good, still there. The strap felt a bit loose, but with in the reflection of the moon's rays he could read the needle quite easily, quickly calibrated his compass to north, and considered his location.

"At least I'm still on the trail...," Brian reassured himself. All he needed was to grab the bike and keep walking it along the trail's meandering southern direction....

He began to walk back to the dropped bicycle when he heard movement, and he sighted the source quickly: A gray wolf trotting down the trail with its snout low to the ground. It was clearly hunting something, and Brian halted in place as he observed it.

The animal didn't notice him at first. Instead, it stopped by the bicycle, sniffing over it intently.

"...what the...?"

The wolf snorted once, then wiped some of the tire's slimy sealant off of its nose as it turned its attention to Brian's jacket next. It picked it up in its teeth, pulling it free of the bicycle's handlebars, then set it down on the ground and sniffed it over.

What was it doing?

The wolf turned its head, looking to its sides, and then it put is head to the ground and rubbed against the jacket vigorously.

Was it . . . rolling in it?

"Hey!" Brian called out as he began running. "That's mine! Stop it!"

The wolf looked up suddenly as Brian approached, and he froze as they locked eyes.

Something was wrong, and it wasn't just because Brian realized he was upwind.

"Oh, crap...."

The wolf looked him over as it smelled the breeze.

"Since when is a wolf over ten feet tall!?"

Brian tried to take a step back from the beast without taking his eyes away. It was still a wolf, he tried to assure himself. Just an ordinary, four-hundred pound canis lupus....

He vanished in a full sprint.

He didn't have time to label it a mistake -- he knew the monstrous wolf was pursuing him, but he couldn't focus on anything else. The lake was south, he could almost see the lights of the camp lodge as he dodged between one tree and another, and he had to keep running....

He didn't see what direction the wolf came from, only that it knocked him to the ground in a forceful blow, pinning him down with its two large front legs, its claws pressed against his body and neck as it glared him over through its large, yellow eyes.

Brian couldn't return the wolf's gaze. This could not be happening... was not happening....

And then, after a seemingly long time, he heard a voice call out to him.

"Look at me!"

What? He could still feel the monster's claws pressed against his neck.

"Open your eyes...."

Didn't most carnivores finish off their prey with a bite through the neck?

"Open your eyes," it called again, more softly this time.

Brian hesitated as he cracked an eye open and fixed his gaze on the massive beast.

The wolf gave out a sigh of breath. "Thank you," it answered.

Brian twisted his head away from the wolf's gaze.

A talking wolf.

Wait -- did he just say that? A talking wolf?

"Let me go!" Brian demanded as he struggled, but the wolf grabbed his arm in its teeth. He winced and ceased, noticing that as much as the wolf could probably snap his wrist easily between its massive jaws, it didn't. In fact, it deliberately matched the movements of his arm, so as to avoid injuring him.

Their eyes met once again, and Brian noticed the wolf's eyes shift focus from his face to the compass strapped about his wrist.

The beast shook its head, then let go of his arm. Moreover, it released him from its grip entirely, and Brian stood up.

The giant wolf was still a good twice as tall as he was, but by this point Brian didn't know what to do. He grimaced as he looked at the giant beast and forced a plainspoken question from his lips.

"What do you want with me?"

The wolf sighed -- that is, if one could call it that. But the wolf answered equally plainly.

"...isn't that question a bit cliché ?" It replied.

Brian collapsed against the trunk of a tree.

"You're exhausted," the wolf answered. "You're a good sprinter, but not much of a distance runner. And... ah, you have tire sealant spilled on your hands."

"Slime...?" Brian had forgotten all about that.

"Flat tire?"

"Wait, how did you -- ?" Brian shook his head. "Great. Just great. I'm supposed to be back at cabin before sunset, I have to walk the bike home with a popped tire, there's a cougar around here somewhere, it's getting darker by the minute -- and of all things, now I'm talking to a wolf?"

The beast nodded. "Yes, it does sound rather... what's the best word? Ridiculous?"

Brian nodded back. "I've got to get back!"

The beast placed a paw on his shoulder, firmly as if to pin him against the tree. "No, you can't."

Brian shoved the paw off of him. "Why?"

"Because you'd never make it back to the lodge without me catching you?"

Brian sighed. "So tell me -- what do you want?"

"That compass you wear," the wolf motioned.

"It's mine," Brian insisted.

"Of course it is," the wolf answered. "You never take it off . . . Brian."

Brian stared back at the beast -- it called him by name?

"That is your name, yes."

"How did you --"

"-- how did I know that?" The wolf bared its teeth momentarily, in what might be called a smile. "You're talking to a wolf. Are you sure you want to hear the answer?"

Brian sighed as he averted his gaze from the creature towards the south. He glanced at his compass, at the moon in the night sky, and now he was sure he could see the lights around the cabins and lodge from here.

The lodge!

"I've got to get back!"

"No!"

Brian jumped up and tried to run, but the wolf was over and upon him before he could take even five steps, and he found himself pinned to the ground by the hip.

"Listen to me!"

"Let go!" Brian shouted back, but the wolf was standing firmly upon him, holding him in place.

"Let go... of what?" The wolf asked back, a question that was clearly offered in jest. "I can't let you go back now."

"But the lodge is not much farther...."

"Irrelevant!" The wolf pulled him backwards, up more towards the trail, which caught him by surprise as he resisted, trying (and failing) to grab ahold of something, anything to keep his balance. He fell on his stomach as the beast dragged him away from sight of the lodge.

"Let go!" Brian insisted. With one of its large paws, the giant beast planted his head to the ground of the trail, just within view of the bike he had abandoned less than an hour ago. It lowered its head to his and began speaking softly.

"Let go of your tail?"

Tail?

",,,what did you just say?" Brian objected. The monstrous wolf released him, and he immediately stood up, looking left, right, and behind him.

The wolf began circling him. "Sit down. This may come as a bit of a shock."

Brian did as told, eyeing the wolf as it made a full lap about him and kept pacing.

"Go on, look at yourself," the wolf nodded. "Take inventory of the situation. How many fingers do you have on each hand? What happened to your shoes?"

Brian looked down at his arms, noticing that despite his upright sitting position, he found his hand planted firmly on the ground in front of him, balancing his weight between his two arms as well as his feet.

"Can you feel your ears? What is that on your nose? You left your jacket with the bicycle, but what about your shirt?"

Brian counted the fingers on each hand, four plus a thumb, each one brandished with a thick, sharpened nail fit to be called claws. His two feet unshod and four toes visible and present on each, similarly bearing their own hooks, one per toe. He rubbed his face with his hands, noting how they brushed against the sides of his nose -- he didn't have much of a mustache yet, but the prominent hairs that spread a short distance from the sides of his mouth were quite sensitive, and he found them flattened against his face as he rubbed along his jawline, before quickly sneezing from the irritation.

"Stand up. How many limbs are you balanced on? Does the ground feel soft to you? What about the wind? What do you smell? Have you considered your teeth?"

Brian found no shirt on his person, nor the set of jeans or belt he was used to wearing. In fact, now that his attention was called to it, he noticed that rather than woven sheets of cotton and polymer, the only thing shielding him from the breeze was a solid coat of hair -- his hair? No, that couldn't be right. He rubbed the back of his head as well as his ears, and at the same time caught in the corner of his vision a tuft of white hair at -- wait, was that a tail he saw? He twisted his body around for a better look, retracing the thick furred line from its end to -- wait, yes, that was a tail, and it was certainly attached to him. Yes, therefore it had to be his. But....

He looked back at the wolf in a state of confusion and tried to ask the beast for an explanation.

The wolf nodded slowly. "Is this the person you remember? You are a decent cyclist, but could you still ride with those arms and legs?"

"I... I don't know...," he stuttered. With such an imminent conclusion dawning upon him, he did not feel any different but he similarly realized that under the given observations, he no longer fit the description of a human. Dressed in a coat of dark fur, a chest and belly of white and gray, black hands and feet, and a white-tipped tail, he mentally processed his description and his imagination readily produced the appropriate label.

"... a fox?"

"A 'Vulpes vulpes'," the wolf declared with an accompanying nod. "I cannot take you back to camp looking like that; nobody will recognize you. In fact, if it wasn't for that compass you're wearing, and the bike you left behind, I probably would not have recognized you either."

Brian lay down on the trail, covering his head in his arms and curling his tail around the length of his body, finding it long enough that he could, in fact, rest his head upon its white tip. "How . . . why . . . ?" His imagination, still active as ever, posed questions he could not answer and scenarios that were far from helpful, and downright creepy. He blinked a few tears from his eyes, telling himself that he wasn't crying. But the doubts, the questions, the anxiety currently roamed about his mind without no reins to control them.

"Hey," the wolf nosed him, nudging his hands away from his eyes so Brian could look back at the beast.

"Get away from me!!" Brian shouted, quickly hopping a step back before curling up again. Really, as much as the wolf stood at twice his own height, Brian now reasoned that it was only because Brian, standing upright on hands and feet together, probably only measured about one or two feet tall himself. Not all that much larger than the family cats, and certainly smaller than the dog, who would probably dwarf him in height just as this gray wolf did.

"I know it sounds impossible," the wolf tried to assure him. "And you probably would not have preferred that I not point it out to you. But I had to. Believe me, I'm not looking forward to giving Nate this report... this isn't a first, but it has still been several years...."

Brian lifted his head and looked at the wolf, watching how the creature talked. Something about it -- no, something about him was starting to sound familiar. But did the wolf have a name? Was Brian even permitted to ask, or would the wolf take offense? Brian's imagination settled for a moment on one thing, the beast reminded him of someone familiar, and he needed to figure out who.

"I don't think ranger Vince ever told any stories like this...."

"Vince?" The wolf scoffed. "Didn't I tell you not to believe those outlandish tales?"

Brian perked up his ears at a set of familiar words. "Wait a minute...."

"Oh, I see how it is," the wolf read his expression all too easily. "You must forgive me for not introducing myself already."

Brian also noticed that the wolf wore a device about his right arm, strapped across the wrist as it was.

"What is that?"

The wolf noticed his gaze, raised the arm and nodded. "Compass and stopwatch, yes -- it is more sophisticated a model than we provide for everyone else, but for us Rangers we do consider it standard issue.

"And yes," the wolf continued. "You actually know my name already: Mark. Nathan gave me permission to search for you at this late hour, and I am glad the search was so short-lived."

". . . ranger Mark?" Brian asked. "But . . . you're a . . . ?"

"Yes, I know," the wolf nodded again.