A Wolf's Call (complete)

Chapter 11

My day had sped by, the excitement for my breath of freedom running wild in me. I had worked well with Holly and Brooks all day. I could feel my paws yearn for grass beneath them, for the wind through my hair as I ran with the speed of my wolf pack. This was as close as I would be to them. I knew that running, howling and keeping all they taught me regardless of what the twowalkers taught me, was the only way I was ever going to stay connected to my family.

The door clicked its familiar click as it swung open. In front of me stood Brooks and Holly in very weird clothes. Instead of the usual white or blue clothes they usually wore, they were now in more colour and seemed more relaxed.

‘Come on Shilo,’ called Holly to me.

I stood and followed them out of the door. Walking through the hallway I could sense the twowalkers who passed us by, watching me with interest. Unlike Brooks and Holly I walked more hunched and would prefer to have gone on all fours, if they had not taught me how unallowed it was in twowalker life. I didn’t really like twowalker life, it was all do’s and don’ts. With my family we did not think of what not to do. We only knew what to do. We understood why not to do something if we should ever not do it. I did not understand the twowalkers, and it was often that I found they did not understand themselves.

I could wonder why it was now they would let me out, for I knew that twowalkers always had reason for their action. But twowalker reason wasn’t like wolf reason. Twowalkers not only acted for food, or their pack, no twowalkers were more complex, and I knew it. But even though I felt suspicious of twowalkers, I could not help but be happy at their action, whatever their reason may be.

We moved out of the ‘hospital’; as the twowalkers named it, and into the black ground that had hurt my paws moons before. I followed Brooks and Holly now more closely; unsure of where we were going. We approached a strange thing; it was like a skybeast, but not for the sky. Wolves had never seen anything like this; we didn’t know how to fight it or how to run from it. Twowalkers had things that none of us could defeat. Holly and Brooks opened doors on the landbeast and waited for me to get in.

‘This is a car,’ explained Holly ‘we’re going to use it to get to the park.’

Car. I repeated the word in my head. They would test me on the words I knew, and I would need to remember the twowalker tongue to answer them. But to me this was a landbeast, and it would always be a landbeast.

Slowly I moved into the landbeast, finding it small and cramped. Holly closed the landbeast’s door behind me before she, and Brooks got into the front of the landbeast. Gail did something that made the landbeast growl deeply. It was a few seconds before the landbeast began to move. Its movement felt unnatural to me, it was almost like the skybeast but it appeared as though the landbeast was restricted to paths that seemed to appear and go in every direction. I felt the smooth movement of the landbeast; a movement that had no flow, no natural feeling whatsoever. This was one of the twowalker creations I knew it was.

I didn't understand how the landbeast could move so smoothly, with no feeling of life at all. All I knew was that it was a twowalker creation and that meant it was bad. Slowly the grey buildings around us lessened and were replaced by much-missed bushes and trees. I could see the occasional inhabitants of the forests, all timid and fearful of us. Soon however, and much to my dislike, I could see twowalker in the trees and grassy plains. Of course I knew that twowalkers were often present in parks, but I had hoped to get away, to be there alone. I caught Holly’s occasional glance at me, and sensed nervousness in her.

Finally Gail steered the landbeast to a stop. She and Holly escaped its belly but I had to wait as they spoke to each other, Holly looking worried the whole time. Eventually they came for me and placed something they called a harness around me. They said it was to prevent me from getting into trouble, but I knew it was in fact because they feared my escape. It irritated me as I had seen these harnesses on naughty or untrustworthy dogs. It was a great dishonour for me and made me feel the burning I felt at an animal that had harmed my pack.