Wolf Inside

Pets are prohibited. Allen cried on and off for days when he learned he’d be leaving Rigsby and Zuzu with his aunts. Rigsby had been in the family since before Allen was born. Zuzu showed up from seemingly nowhere to follow Allen around the farm.

“Goodness is drawn to those who need it most,” his Aunt Pepperdene revealed to him. No matter if she meant Zuzu was the goodness or the seeker, seven-year-old Allen was moved to joyful tears.

Ma promised her husband that in the New World, “where the dirt is orange and the grass is scarce, we’ll find him a new pet,”. Pa added, “Even if the farm is a little smaller than we’re used to.” She appreciated his efforts to ease the sting of downsizing.

Eighty days later, Allen feels fleeting loneliness as his brother navigates life independently—a brooding, yet loving teen. “All living beings have a contagious Spirit,” Aunt Pepperdene would say. Perhaps Allen had adapted a semblance of Zuzu’s animal instincts.

Alone in the field, he felt himself watched. Much off the grasslands were dried and withered, yet Allen had discovered, if you’re willing to wander far enough from home, you may indeed find greener pastures lush with pampas grass taller than Allen’s four-foot stature, manmade, and unfit for children who wander alone.

No longer counting his steps as he often does to stim, Allen high tails it through the field. Feathery and only greenish at the base, the weeds no longer felt like home. Suddenly the field felt like a threat. As if the blades of the planted grass had been laced with something toxic. Something invigorating. Warning that every next step may be the final destination.

Allen’s ears detected movement. Clumsy snapping of twigs. Stalking lightly. Walls of wispy plumes gradually diminished on the run. Allen sprinted for his life.

Sensing the predator ready to pounce Allen leaped across the imaginary threshold where the grass dies, and orange dirt and clay carpet the planet. He realized his mistake in falsely applying the rules of hide and seek to the unlawful reality of genuine, wild life.

A flash of black fur, barking softly, the tiniest pup jets out of sight.

Their eyes meet. The pup stumbles backward.

Firmly seated like a potted plant, Allen calls downward, “Aw, it’s okay,” he pats the clay, poof-ing little orange clouds by happenstance, “Come here.”

Not responsive, the wolf plays as young often do. Clumsy, heavy, furry paws bat at stems of the grass. The fuzzy body reclines and tiny fangs gnaw at the bases of the weeds.

Giggling Allen coos and awes. It is an adorable, new creature.

“Where’s your,” mortality pulses through Allen’s veins. Electricity expedites a reminder of what wolf pups come from.

Snarling, she leaps into view! No chance to stand, Allen’s shin is sliced beneath merely the standing weight of her paw. Heat emanating from her prickled underbelly warmed Allen’s legs like the Sun’s rays to a withering snowball.

Ready to dismantle, the mother wolf barks and slobbers as she prowls. It’s cruel. Unreasonable. Inhumane. It’s not Allen she fixes her gnashing bites toward.

High pitched whines assure Allen that it is nature which makes a baby cry. It is nature which teaches helplessness. It feels like nature who won’t let Allen watch this wolf eat her own pup!

Its tiny eyes must only have been open for so long, and now they’re going to be closed forever? It’s not fair. “No!”

Nature taught him to flee. How he’d mustered the inner strength and speed to dive forward and cease the little one in his arms, he’ll one day wonder. He’ll, for as long as he lives, hear the heartbreak of the pup crying into his chest. He’ll never stop to wonder, though, how it is the predator permitted him to flee.

Regaling of that day like fantasy warrior hero, Allen cramps his ribs from laughing so uncontrollably. Attention from Britton always had that effect on him—what lonely child couldn’t fall drunkenly in love with the approval of an older sibling. Especially one so smooth, cool, and collected as Britton.

“Our little hero saves the day again,” he sang in a steady, one-note tone that warms his little brother’s heart, “And you found your own pet after all.”

Ma and Pa stared into one another’s eyes with an intensity that proved they’d done well to raise such loving boys together. Granted, it’s only when the family’s entertaining guests they’re this communal and connected. Cousin Saleese blessed the family with a visit, rejoicing of her coming destination wedding.

“Being here so long without family, I’m just over the moon thinking about seeing you all on my special day,” Saleese sang as polite and charming as ever, “but enough about me. How’s your growing farm doing?”

Ma, already standing at the picture window with a mug in her hand reading, ‘Free the piglets’, threw back the curtains with gusto. “You’re looking at it,” she mocked. Sad and hardly toiled, a neatly edged square of rich soil sat bearing no visible life. Like a small, browned lifeboat floating in a sea of orange dust and clay.

“It looks like you’re making the best of what you have, Ma Ellie,” Saleese softened, “Must be nice to not need so much heavy equipment. Right?”

“My tools get smaller and smaller,” Ma hummed into her black coffee, oblivious to what she’d done, “But I guess it gets the job done.”

After spitting out a plug of laughter, Britton corrected, “She means the garden tools.”

“Oh, I know,” Saleese tilted her jaw, dropping an eyebrow, “Some of us like to keep our own six-inch tools tucked away in—”

Exaggerated laughter did its best to interrupt the sentence. Britton hadn’t talked with his parents about it yet, but Allen was perceptive. He knew what Saleese was referring to before she even mouthed to Britton, “a little red box.”

Sexuality was a non-topic in the Kingson household. Ma and Pa had only ever told Britton to “Think of what’s best for Allen,” which was a confusing sentiment leaving Britton’s identity even more difficult to discover on his own. Allen, still embarrassed for his brother’s secret being leaked, felt the urge for defense fade as Britton and Saleese let out muffled laughter clearly meant to be shared together. “Friendly fire,” he whispered to his pup before tossing a piece of his own breakfast toward the pup’s mouth. Aftershocks resembled chewing, yet it was clear the portions were swallowed whole.

Late morning approaching when Saleese departed with, “Next time, y’all see me, my name may change,” she paused, and it pained Allen to think that she’ll no longer have that in common with them. He’d always appreciated the cousinly, namesake bond between Britton and Saleese, though it made him jealous when she got to join in on making fun of him. Britton could pick on his own little brother, but—other than Saleese—no one else was free from Britton’s wrath for defending his baby brother’s honor. Wiping an imaginary tear from her eye, Saleese continued, “But I will always be a Kingson at heart.”

Dinner that night was distant, to say the least. Saleese created a vacuum of company, which left the Kingsons without urgency to show off how much they love one another. Silence would have been the main event of the night had the pup not run off after dinner. After the dishes were all washed, after trips to the toilet were completed and the family settled in for bedtime rituals, the pup squealed and darted out the door Britton foolheartedly failed to close—likely, aching to get to the contents of his red box for a night of exploration.

“Pup! Wait! Come back,” Allen tried through growing tears in his voice not to lose another pet.

“Aw, Allen,” Britton sobered up, “I’m so sorry,” he sincerely promised, “Pa! I’m going to find the pup. I left the door open. He ran out.”

Feeling the heavy hand of his protector, Allen’s tears retreated when Britton assured, “I’m going to find him, okay?”

Ghosts of Britton’s palms on Allen’s shoulders were more than enough to keep him feeling safe, but the pup was his pet. He owed it to his furry little pal to quest through the darkness until a rescue mission is successful.

Only minutes passed before he heard its howls. Frightening. Chilling as it echoes through the vacant night.

“Pup,” he questioned, sprinting toward the sound, arms outstretched awaiting optic adjustment to the expanse of low light. Mere moments passed before his body, hauled off with the power of a banshee through the night, surrendered. Only after hearing the pup sounding off in the growing distance did his tiny hands claw futilely at the darkness. Not another word until Britton got his brother into the house commanding, “Stay here.” Allen obeyed, watching his older brother paw at his eyes like he’d just taken shards of a shallot to the face. “Oh, my dear God,” echoing from Ma and Pa’s room intrigued Allen enough to paralyze his own Body in anticipation.

“Goodness is drawn to those who need it most,” replayed in Allen’s memories as the pup—larger than he’d let himself notice before—seeped back into the opened kitchen door, whined politely, and nuzzled its boy, smearing blood onto his calves.

Sirens blared in the old world when the police were called, yet in the New World the police force was different. Each emergency warranted a different Emergency Service Professional. Investigator Brandt spoke to the family at the kitchen table as midnight closed in around them. Allen had been ordered to hide away in his room, though he knew it was Britton’s way of helping him hide the pup from the law.

“So, the body of one Davis Jenkins was mauled pretty aggressively,” Investigator Brandt sounded off, “But there was no sign of an attacker,” he chewed his lip, regretting ever having sipped the courtesy cup of coffee the family shared with him, “You get that this is a little hard to process, right?”

“Surely,” Ma slipped an elbow onto the table, “You’re not surmising we had anything to do with this.”

“Oh, of course not! That’s the least of our worries,” he backpedals, “It’s just the first wild animal attack I’ve had reported in my many months of service. I’m concerned you may not be as alone out here as you’d like to believe.”

“So, what do we do,” Pa requested, rubbing his wife’s shoulder, “in the meantime?’

Rising to exit, he tipped his hat with the warning, “Lock up your home—windows, doors, and the like—and no one leave the house until I return. You have enough necessities to get you through a potential few-days of lockdown?”

Knowing it was rhetorical, Ma nodded to the man. He refused to walk back to his car until he heard the front door lock from the other side. The very moment it did, the Kingson household lockdown began.

Things were fine through day one. Pa chatted with his brother and sister-in-law on speaker phone, and Saleese moaned in the background, forgetting she was supposed to pretend not to be listening. Sure enough, she later called back to talk with Britton, lightening the mood with jokes about his sex toys and difficulty finding guys without a cell phone in the New World. This helped him “appreciate the little things”—another comment Saleese hounded him with innuendo for. Even remotely, Saleese bonded the family. Spirits lifted, Britton placed the phone handset back onto its base, and adjourned to, instead of his bedroom, the sitting room where Allen and the pup together had just learned to roll over. Where Ma and Pa sat grimly in an old, noisy lounge chair peeking through cracks of the boarded windows.

“It’s hard enough,” she whispered into his chest, hands clasping one another, “not being able to garden, but not being able to go outside—” Feeling foolish, she caught her words as they slipped out, “I just hope whatever’s out there gets caught soon. I can’t fathom what would become of us had that been one of our boys killed like that.”

Britton joined the pup in keeping Allen busy, goading him on to teach the pup “new tricks even cooler than that one.”

“It’s okay, Ellie,” Pa kissed her forehead, “I know you care about the boys. I know your garden is important to you too. You’re allowed to worry about two things, El.”

His smile above her head warmed her without even having to see it. She felt it.

“Oh, what bother,” she chuckles, “I’d misplaced my old gardening tools days ago anyway.”

A new in-home security system, the pup twirled over onto its paws like a sleeper cell activated. What began as a fearsome growl, snarling—showing its maturity—graduated into a dropped-ears whine. Once an astute protector, now a quivering furball behind his boy’s legs.

“There,” Britton clarified, “Something’s out there.”

Daylight eased the fear of a night stalker. With Ma and Pa as sentinels in the sitting room, Britton migrated to the kitchen window. A thin gap between two boards showcased a narrow framing of the backyard. Ma’s garden, unattended. A single tree, soon to die in the orange, desert clay. A half-fence under construction since the day they’d arrived in the New World. A bushy tail disappearing at the edge of sight.

“A wolf!”

“Oh, heavens!”

Relieved, Ma gazed up at Pa’s eyes. She’d actually let herself worry that her boy was involved in killing Davis Jenkins. New terror in his eyes, Ma knew this meant now they’re all truly in danger. Pa snapped his fingers, unsure why he’s trying to keep quiet, “The phone,” he hissed at his oldest son, “Get the phone.”

“Hi,” Britton started seconds later, receiver pressed to his ear with one raised shoulder as he’d seen his mother do, “I think we found out what attacked Davis Jenkins. There’s a wolf in my Ma’s garden right now.”

“Stay put,” Investigator Brandt commanded, “We’ll be there ASAP.”

Before he could relay the information to his family, they’d all caught ear of the sharp yelp at the side of the house. Eerie silence. No sign of a struggle. Then, three gentle, rhythmic thuds on the bolted front door.

Ma escorted Allen to his bedroom. He cradled the pup like a baby, only muzzled with one hand.

“Greetings,” the visitor called, detecting a presence behind the locked door, “Got a call about a wild animal. Just wanted to ask a few questions,” his voice pinged off the walls of the small coat room, “Could you let me in?”

Allen listened through the wall, tucked away in the closet of the farthest room from the visitor. The pup was compliant, but still whined occasionally. He could swear the pup was trying to speak to him, but he needed to hear what he was missing out on. How the visitor introduced himself. How he explained that the wolf was hunting something evil—a presence not easily detectable by humans. Britton interjected, “What does that mean?”

“Wild animals,” the visitor commanded, welcoming an additional guest in the room who apologized for taking so long to get the wolf in the truck, “they have a sense we don’t all have access too. See,” he rocked onto his heels, “this creature we’ve secured is drawn to something here. Any chance you’ve seen a young pup this one might have been after?”

Pa supplied, “Why would a wolf think a young pup is evil,” trusting he’d lured the man into a trap. Catch him in a lie.

“We found it, yeah,” Britton took over, ever the defender of his baby brother one way or another, “and we loved it like family. But it got away from us. We assumed, when this one showed up, it might be its mother,” Britton shared his almost truth, weaving fiction in to sell it as trusted reality, “and that maybe we’d get to see the pup one last time.”

“And?”

“That’s it,” he concluded, “It never returned,” smooth as ever, “Then you guys showed up. Thank God!”

As they often do, another visitor of the Kingson house faded away with a dampening message, “Do let us know if you see anything unusual.” Only Pa found it suspicious that they’d never provided any contact info. That night before bed, he pondered quietly nothing else but, “How did they get here so quickly?”

Safe again, the boards came down from the windows. Investigator Brandt may not have given his exact blessing, but the men sent here resolved their issue. Life, back to normal, felt even sweeter than before. The garden could be tilled with a new hand tiller Pa gifted his wife—he’d wanted to wait for a special occasion, but new freedom seemed special enough for the moment. Britton could access his special box without having to sneak away to the bathroom—he’d actually figured that he enjoyed, more, taking its contents outdoors to explore his growing pleasures in the desolate, vast emptiness of the farming region of the New World. Pa could study the land again and discover new ways to make it fertile. Allen, however, refused to leave the house until the pup was also allowed.

As young often do, however, the pup found a way. Ceasing a blip in security, the pup scampered out of the bedroom just as Ma opened it to check on her baby boy. It darted out the kitchen door just as Pa kicked it open to waltz in with his new samples of soil destined to accommodate the conditions of the strange terrain. Like a bullet, the pup was off to pursue its instincts. Allen and Pa recruited Britton on the way. He’d heard them coming, and kicked his toy behind a rock, unbeknownst to anyone but Allen. With fervor, and evident lack of difficulty, they kept up with the pup. Tail not wagging. Ears pointed. Abreast to the ditch before them, the pup glanced back with a tongue panting for air in the dry desert. Below them, contorted in the crater, two bodies in official ESP gear. Bloody. Torn apart. Allen rushed to his pup and hugged it for dear life’s sake. Britton fell to his knees, at last speechless. Pa feared having to call the investigator again. Feared the eerie feeling of the men who sedated and subdued the adult wolf. Feared the interrogation. Feared that he may have to break his son’s heart by turning in the young pup to proper authorities. Above all, however, he feared he was unfit to protect his family from the reality of life and death. Pioneers of any new world face the dangers of the old unguarded by the social convention which drives wild life away.

It wasn’t easy, but Ma convinced Pa to enjoy his time at his niece’s wedding. Morning had rolled around before Investigator Brandt got his people out to identify and remove the bodies of the recent victims. By noon, it was time for the family to depart for the wedding. Four days in town where Saleese and her husband plan to build a new life together might be just what they all need to feel normalcy again. Ma, stronger than she looks, always knew she was only family in name. The in-laws were polite, but they didn’t really need or even necessarily want her at the wedding. Saleese wanted her only uncle and favorite cousin there.

“I’ll stick around,” Ma ordered, “I can’t fathom making Al lose another pet, and it ain’t stayin’ in this house for four days without either starving or tearing my home to shreds.”

Pa knew this was what she wanted. He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that she never felt quite at home with his side of the family. The family who buys vague gifts to appear just thoughtful enough to shake suspicion.

Allen waves goodbye until the truck disappears over the horizon. He already feels emptiness in his organs for being apart from Britton. Four days alone in a place that hardly feels like home is like months to him.

“What is it, Pup,” he chuckles, releasing the curtain to float back into its resting place, sealing the window light into coffin of periwinkle blue.

The phone rings.

“Where are you going,” the curious little boy whispers—he knows better than to make noise when Ma’s on the phone. Especially when harboring a secret, maturing wolf pup in the midst of a triple murder investigation.

“Investigator Brandt,” she sings, more surly than ordinary though she really was grateful for his call, “I had hoped to see you stop by.”

Embarrassed, Allen laughs and shouts before covering his mouth with his own paws, remembering Ma’s on the phone, “No! Get out of there,” giggling, “That’s Britton’s—special box.” Bubbling out of him, laughter seemed to only encourage the pup more.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to make it out there,” Brandt hums—voice lagging like a flight attendant with disappointing news about the arrival time, “The bodies your family discovered—I’m so sorry for them being exposed to this,” he ad-libbed, coughing politely to guise his own crying, “they happened to be my men. They were supposed to visit you yesterday afternoon to investigate the wolf you called in to report.”

“Stop,” he giggled, more joyous and curious than ever before. He’d never spent much time in Britton’s room without Britton around. The pup had sparked new adventure in him. “You don’t want to know what’s in there,” he said, putting on his best Saleese voice, “six-inch tool tucked away,” before bursting with laughter.

Ma glared up the hallway with a palm over the receiver. She’d told that boy to keep quiet while she’s on the phone. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Brandt. It’s horrible what those wolves did to those men. I’m grateful your other men were able to help without any harm coming to them—though it’s no cancellation, I understand.”

Motivated, the pup flipped the lid off the red shoe box. Allen, covered his eyes, closed them, and even turned his head, vowing to keep his brother’s secrets so—albeit he’d already known what’s in there. “Pup,” he conceded.

Interrupting her practiced kindness, Investigator Brandt firmed his tone, “Mrs. Kingson, I’m sorry, I don’t think you understand. My men never made it to your home—I haven’t been of any assistance to you, and my forces are fearful of venturing out to your property without protection. I’m calling to tell you I’ll be passing on your case to the Armed Services. They’re better suited for the severity of your situation.”

“Wait,” she claps back, “What are you saying? Who was in our house?”

“If someone else approached your home, I assure you they are not with us,” he sounded serious, “I strongly urge you to keep your family barricaded until the Armed Services arrive. I’ll be travelling with them as soon as they’re able to get here,” assuredly, “That will likely be tomorrow afternoon. It is a long drive for them from the other side of the border.”

Stunned, she dropped the phone, “Al! Allen, get in here!” The silence down the hall was un-nerving. She curled upward like a dead spider, the fear in her blood crippled her flesh. She hadn’t even heard the voice on the phone clarifying, “And another thing: Unless the wolves have only three claws, there’s absolutely no sign of a wolf attack on Davis Jenkins or the most recent victims.”

Sensation depravation, like a collapsing lung, overtook her witnessing her son saunter down the hallway with the six-inch toy in his hand. An unsung hero.

“Look, Ma,” he boasted, “I found your hand tiller!”

He’d never learn that, though the New World is strange, its dirt, clay, and soil have never stained a garden tool blood red.