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Jonathan and Daniel huddled in the finished basement in the arms of Jonathan's mother as a small battery powered radio broadcasted static. Occasionally, the emergency broadcast tone would crackle through the speakers but the distortion was too bad to make out the automated voice that followed it. The storm sirens had gone silent hours before right after the lights in the house had flickered and died.

The young fennec felt his mother shiver and he looked up at her. Her brow was tight and her muzzle contorted into a grimace. "Mommy?" he said quietly. "Mommy, are you okay?" He waited for her reply, but her face stayed unchanged in the dim candlelight.

Looking to his wolf friend, he saw Daniel lying against her taking shallow breaths. There were no signs of discomfort like his mother, but the time between the breaths was far too long for peaceful sleep. "Danny," he whispered. "Danny, wake up. Something is wrong with mom." The wolf laid still and unresponsive.

Jonathan slipped out from under his mother's arm and stood up. He grabbed the shoulder of his mother's blouse and tugged on it. "Mommy, what's wrong?"

Her eyes opened and they scanned the room. The whites were glassy and her gaze was distant. It fell on the small fennec multiple times and seemed to stare right through him. Her teeth stayed clenched as she drew labored breaths in through them and exhaled with a hiss.

"Mom, where's daddy? Danny won't wake up. We have to do something."

Her chest heaved up and down in a pained and slow movement, then once more in a sharp one with a pained groan on the exhale. Her arms went limp as she sagged back against the wall. Her head drooped down and her glassy eyes, half-closed, sat still and unmoving.

"Mom." Jonathan grabbed her shoulder and shook her. "Mom?" The jostling was the only sign of life in her body. "Mom!"

He scrambled over to his friend and pulled him from under her limp arm. The wolf was still breathing but it was still the stuttered and long paused rhythm. "Danny! Wake up. Wake up, now." Jonathan grabbed his shoulders and shook him. He cried his name over and over as he started to feel tears stream down his face.

#

The fennec clawed at the wooden floor as he struggled to pull himself up. His ears were focused down the hallway as he heard heavy steps. They weren't in any rush as his tattered BDU's snagged the splintered wood around him. Something about the current resident not being alarmed at a crash through the floor made the situation more terrifying.

He could see the silhouetted figure with the light from the room behind him drawing closer. Reaching back he felt the rifle pinned tight against his body and the broken floor. As soon as his paw grazed the timeworn blued barrel, he hear a holster unsnap. He froze, not clawing at the wood, his short legs dangling free in the crawlspace, and he didn't even chance taking a breath.

"I'd ask for you to show me your palms, but you look pretty unable to do much right about now." The voice was deep and gruff, like a two-pack a day smoker when things such as cigarettes were more common. "I'm curious how you got so close without me smelling you. I took you for the living-dead when you first woke me up."

The fennec's ears flattened as he looked up at the dark figure. He heard a hammer click back and a cylinder rotate and lock into place.

"You talk? English? Espanol? Gotta warn you, my Spanish is rustier than my old truck out in the back yard." He waited a few seconds before he sighed. "Look, I'd be a lot less keen on shooting you if I knew you could talk."

"I..." the fennec gasped as the floor cracked and he sank into the crawlspace a few more inches. He was about to claw at the floor again when a paw wrapped around his button line and lifted him straight up. Before he could react any further, in a swift movement he was facing the other way and the sling of his rifle was pulled off him.

"Anything else I should know about?"

The fennec didn't answer, but he felt the back of his blouse lift and the bowie knife in the small of his back was pulled from it's sheath. He felt himself move back with the one holding him and then his feet sat gently on the floor. Before he could turn around, he felt a paw on his shoulder that stopped him.

"Introductions first," the voice said. "You smell like a fox, but...wrong. What's your name and what are you?"

"You can't tell?" the fennec asked as his ears twitched. "My name is John. I'm a fennec."

"A fennec? I thought for a minute you might be a kid as light as you were. This Remmington 700 and bowie are bigger than you are." He took a few steps back and slung John's rifle, then holstered his revolver. "My name's Daniel, but folks mostly just called me Danny."

"Danny?" John said as he turned around. Given his more even footing, such as it was looking up at Daniel who stood twice his height, he could make out the features of a wolf. One of his canines protruded out beyond his lower jaw and was chipped in half. Around his head was a white improvised bandage covering both of his eyes.

"Wolf?"

"Timber wolf, thank you."

John chuckled and shook his head. "I used to know a wolf named Danny."

"Used to implies you don't anymore." Daniel scoffed and shook his head. "Well, I guess you can say you do again." His expression shifted to a toothy grin that showed off his broken canine even in the dark. With a practiced precision, he swung the rifle around and opened the bolt. Pushing his thumb in the magazine until it bottomed out, he closed the bolt and clicked the safety over.

"The little .223 a little more manageable for you than a .308? These three rounds all you got? I wouldn't want to get stuck in a crowd with only three shots of varmint rounds from a bolt gun."

"The gun store was closed, and this was all the walmart had."

"I get the joke about the gunstore, but something tells me you're being serious about the walmart."

John laughed and shook his head. "Like everything now, I found it. Under a bed. Years ago."

"It was old when you got it, I think." Daniel's paws slid along the wooden furniture. "It wasn't taken care of before you got it, and I'm willing to bet you've never even once ran a bore snake through it." He slung the rifle again and looked down at the fennec as though his eyes were wide and alert, despite the bandage. "Now, what brings you to my home?"

"There's a storm on the way. I was looking for somewhere to take shelter when I saw your light."

"Uh-huh," Daniel said as he held up the bowie and inspected it. "And you thought the one occupied house here in Holden was the place to do it? Looking to slit my throat while I sleep and take whatever I got?"

"No," John said. "I've never been able to just...do that." His tone was laced with disappointment.

"Well, you can wait out the storm, but your rifle and knife stay with me until it's past."

"I...yeah. Okay. Thank you."

"Not so fast," Daniel said as he tucked the knife into his belt behind him. "What do you have to pay for the stay? Not to mention the hole in my floor. Food?"

"I haven't eaten in three days," John replied.

"Those three rounds all you got?"

John nodded.

"Speak up," Daniel said. "I can't hear your head rattle when you nod."

John cocked his head as his ears flicked. "But you knew I was nodding."

"Don't confuse facts. Three rounds all you got?"

"Yes," John said as he scowled.

"Hmm..." Daniel turned around and started to walk down the hall. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at the fennec. "You suck?"

John winced then nodded.

"Can't hear your head rattle."

"Yes," he replied through clenched teeth.

"Good. My room." The wolf continued on his way.

#

Johnathan opened the door and looked out on to the front porch. The neighborhood was silent. Not even the summer cicadas were calling from the trees. The multicolored fog had blended into a sickening shade of gray and it hung low as it idly wisped over the ground. He had expected to hear police sirens, or dogs barking, or anything.

The phone in the livingroom was dead. It was a cordless and it wouldn't even turn on. The old rotary in the office was also dead. When he had held it up to his ear, there was no dial tone. He spun the numbers he had been taught since kindergarten anyway. The mechanism clicked for nine and then two ones, but it did so going to no switchboard.

While he was in the basement trying to wake Daniel, the radio got quieter and quieter until the light faded and it made no sound. The flashlight in the kitchen drawer turned on with a dim glow, then went out and refused to turn back on. The spare D-cells that he swapped out didn't change its effectiveness. It seemed as if everything that drew power was just dead.

He sniffled and wiped his tears on his sleeve looked around. There had to be someone that could help him. "Hello?" he called into the fog. "My mom is hurt. My friend won't wake up. I can't use the phone." Jonathan looked the other direction. "I need help. Mom needs help. Please." His voice quivered as he resisted the urge to cry.

From the driveway, he heard a bump against something metal. He jumped and gasped as he looked over to the noise, then sighed in relief as he saw the figure of a lion with a well groomed mane standing against his mother's sedan. "Mr. Bradley. Please help me. Mom is hurt."

The lion stood up in a rigid position, then moved its head around like it was sniffing the air. Then let out a scream that was a mix of a roar and a shriek. It looked right at the fennec then bound at him in a dead sprint.

Jonathan gasped as he stumbled backward. The lip of the doorway caught his heels and he fell. His ninety year-old neighbor jumped from the walkway toward the porch and crashed through a wrought iron support. It splintered as the lion tumbled in the air then skid across the smooth concrete toward the door.

The fennec hurried to his feet and slammed the door closed. He stood on his tippy-toes to move the deadbolt to a locked position just in time for the door to jostle hard and push him back. The small glassed window in the top of the door shattered and shards fell inward. Jonathan shielded his eyes with his arms as the glass bounced off him.

There was another thud against the door, and then a third. When the doorjam held, the lion throwing himself against it stopped and started clawing. Jonathan could hear the deep gouges being torn in the wood as he rolled onto his stomach and crawled away.

When he got off the marble in the entryway and to the carpet at the hall, he stood up and made a quick turn into the office. Right beside the door was a gun cabinet with his dad's hunting rifles and shotguns. It was locked and he didn't know where the key was, but he grasped at the door and pulled.

His grip on the lower corner caused the door to flex and the thin glass cracked. The plates fell back and in, but it was enough for him to get access to the firearms inside. He grabbed the only one he had ever handled, a small break action .410. The small drawers under the cabinet were not locked, and he pulled one out with such force it went off the track and clattered onto the floor.

He looked for the brown and red box. It had mercifully stayed in the drawer but had jostled open. Picking up one of the high brass shells, he flipped the break lever down and opened the breach. It slid in place and he closed it, cocked the external hammer, then pushed the slide safety up.

Though it had been a year since his dad had taken him out to the old farm to plink tin cans, he remembered well enough how it worked. Going back to the entryway, he put the shotgun up to his shoulder and pointed the bead as the sound of the scratches. His finger pulled back hard and the hammer fell.

There was sharp pop and then a deafening hiss. The flash had blinded him and he felt disoriented. He could remember letting go of the shotgun, but he didn't see it fall or hear it land. The hiss turned to what he thought was mix of static and rushing air as he alternated between rubbing his eyes and trying to dig an obstruction out of his ears. Whatever was blocking the sound was too deep for him to get, and his pained grunts came through only in faint reverberations from his chest and throat.

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