FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 2

Off the Rails

The lift doors slid open with a muted whoosh and a cheery ping and the dark russet vixen found herself being propelled rapidly out in the middle of a scrum of larger, human bodies. With a lot of effort she managed to wrest herself free of them, holding her tail tight to her slim, shorts-and-blouse clad body so it didn't get trapped or tugged, then retreated to a nearby metal bench to wait for the crowds to die down a little.

Most of the veritable torrent of people flooding the station, almost all of them humans, poured from the numerous doors of an ugly black intercity train currently standing at the same platform her bench was situated on. The crowd was largely made up of businessmen nearing the end of their daily commute home, with a few casual travellers and even the occasional families mixed in for variety. The assortment of expressions thrown her way was impressive, ranging from the openly curious to the downright hostile. Every-so-often she'd glimpse a fellow Pelt amongst the throng, and would exchange a smile and a nod with them, the sheer volume of fast-moving human bodies preventing anything more.

Finally the river faded to a trickle and she was able to head along Platform Three, aiming for the relative peace of the waiting room, backpack bouncing gently with her padding gait. At the same time the intercity juddered into powerful motion, engines roaring at a volume that had the vixen clamping her paws over her flattening ears. As the rear locomotive roared past her she physically cringed and winced, wondering not for the first time how poor the humans' hearing must be to endure such a horribly overwhelming barrage of noise. Her hands remained pinned over her ears until the train had faded entirely from view.

"They really need to equip those things with silencers," she groaned, hurrying to the waiting room, her ears still flat against her skull.

Pushing perhaps a touch too forcefully through the heavy wood-and-glass door she found herself in a refreshingly quiet space that had changed little since the heydays of steam, its simple and subtle art deco decorative theme almost completely intact, and complimented by a few beautifully stylised reproduction posters dotted about. The only modern additions were a selection of dull grey metal benches and a large, plain black-on-white analogue wall clock, somehow a lot less incongruous than they might have been. There was still a definite atmosphere to the room, inspiring thoughts of regal, steam-wreathed Pullman expresses of yesteryear standing at the many platforms, an infinitely more attractive image than the characterless and deafening diesels of modernity.

The vixen settled on the bench nearest the door she'd entered by, sloughing her backpack, setting it next to her and withdrawing a dog-eared Agatha Christie paperback with a dark red bookmark jutting from about the half-way point. She took a quick glance at a digital information display visible through one of the windows, noting that her train was due in twelve minutes (running two minutes late) then buried her long nose in the pages of the murder mystery.

Two pages later she became aware of light, pattering footfalls heading swiftly across the waiting room toward her, as well as a sharp, angry hiss of "come back!" from an adult female voice. The mother made no attempt to chase after her errant youngster, though, to the vixen's quiet surprise. She lowered her book to find a boy of about five gazing at her in open-mouthed wonder, his mop of mousy hair a tousled mess, his shorts and t-shirt rumpled and creased. In the background a deeply uncomfortable and very young auburn-haired, jeans and flowery blouse clad mother fidgeted and fretted.

Aware of the attention they were gaining she closed her book, placed it on her lap, and smiled warmly at the boy.

"Can I help you?" she enquired, politely.

"Can I please stroke you?" the kid asked, abruptly, drawing widened eyes from the vixen, a veritable paroxysm of embarrassment from his mother, and a couple of loud guffaws from the less restrained in the waiting room.

One would-be wag gave voice to a rather crude crack that left his attitude towards both females and Pelts in no doubt whatsoever, and gained a range of cold glares in response, especially from the child's mother. The vixen just ignored it, carefully considering her reply. In the end she went for a question herself, her tone completely neutral.

"Now why would you want to do that?"

"I want to know if you feel like my dog."

"Oh, I doubt that!" the vixen chuckled. She gathered up her tail and proffered the tip to the boy. "He probably feels much nicer."

Small hands brushed white fur surprisingly gently. "No, you do."

"Thank you!" The vixen was genuinely flattered. "Er...could you let me have my tail back, now?"

The boy appeared not to hear her, continuing to stroke her brush tip, and innocently making a comment that had his unfortunate parent reddening like a traffic signal and trying to shrink into her bench.

"Mummy says you dance naked in the moonlight."

Taking note of Mummy's frantic shaking of head and hands, the vixen again took her time replying, soon plumping for plain honesty.

"Well, I haven't, but my kind does have a liking for dance, and a liking for wearing just our fur - it does make pretty good clothing on its own, after all - and the two do often go together. Moonlight means a lot to us, gives us comfort like your mother does you, so we enjoy dancing in its light. As I've said, I've not done it myself, but I'd like to one day."

"I'd like to see it."

"Ah, well, that's up to your mother to decide." The vixen aimed a smile in the lady's direction, which did seem to reassure her. "I think you'd better get back to her now."

That the little lad did, but not before thanking the vixen politely. His mother was very much relieved to have the tiny tyke back under her control, and was now looking upon the vixen with something that bordered on respect, with a hint of curiosity on the side. The latter glanced at the info display again - five minutes to go - then resumed her reading.

Three more pages ruffled past before she heard the computerised tannoy announcement she was keeping one ear out for. Dumb Witness vanished into her backpack and she rose to her feet, padding across to the exit. The mother and child were right behind her, along with several other people. The train all were heading for consisted of three carriages, the rearmost a good deal older than the streamlined others. As the tannoy had announced three times already, it was to detach at a certain station and head along a different route from the other carriages, one that took in the vixen's destination. That of the mother and child, too, going by the fact they followed her into it. Few other people did, though.

They sat either side of a table midway through the unusually quiet carriage, falling into conversation as the train eased into motion.

"So, uh what's your name?" the mother asked, in time-honoured conversation-opening tradition.

"Naomi. Yours?"

"Rose Water. This little terror is Peter."

"Rose Water?" Naomi couldn't help chuckling at that. "Is your father called 'Muddy', by any chance?"

Rose laughed. "No - the surname comes from my husband."

A bell suddenly rang loudly somewhere in the vixen's mind. "I recall someone called Water disappearing after a murder a few months back. Papers were full of it; treated him like some kind of modern-day Lord Lucan."

"That was my husband." Rose took a pouch of orange juice from her handbag and gave it to Peter. "He didn't do it, by the way."

"I didn't think so, despite the papers' conviction otherwise. He didn't have a reason to."

"Exactly!" Rose nodded vehemently. "No reason at all!"

"And yet he disappeared. You can see why people think him guilty."

"True," Rose sighed, her gaze dropping for a moment. "I just wish he'd talked to me. Left a note, even. I...I...wonder why I'm telling you so much when I've only just met you."

"I blame the ears," Naomi grinned, lightly tugging one of them. "They seem to invite people to pour things into them. Feel free to not say another word."

"Oh, I've started, so I might as well finish. Besides, it feels good to talk it over."

"If I had a pound for every time someone said that to me I could jack in the reporting and retire early."

"You're a reporter?" Rose took the now empty pouch back from her son, dropping it into her purse. He turned to gaze out of the window, watching the rain-swept countryside flash past. "Which paper?"

"Right now, none of them," Naomi admitted. "I got fired from my last job for knocking the editor unconscious with his own cigar box - he'd made one too many lewd remarks for his own good. Some people have completely the wrong impression of foxes."

"Sounds like a Sid James wannabe," Rose observed, dryly.

"Emphasis on the 'wannabe'," Naomi chuckled. "He had none of Sid's charm. Anyway, I now find myself casting about for a new job. Sadly, no paper seems to have a need for a roving vixen reporter right now. Bad timing, huh?"

"V..."

"Mummy - I need to go wee-wee." Pete wriggled uncomfortably in his seat, one hand tugging at his mother's sleeve.

"As is that. All right, Petey. Excuse us a moment, won't you?"

"Of course."

While Rose escorted her son along the carriage to the WC Naomi produced a pack of cards and laid out a game of patience. At the same time she noticed they were approaching the station where the separation of carriages was scheduled to take place. The train drew smoothly up to the platform and the doors slid open, letting a swirling aural morass of chattering voices, tinny tannoy announcements and guttural train engines inside; only two passengers, though, both Pelts.

Naomi knew the duo fairly well, having shared many a train journey with them. A pair - in more ways than one - of male cats, they cut appealingly shambolic figures as they padded along the aisle, heading toward the vixen. One sported patchwork brown and black fur, baggy light brown shorts, a loose white shirt only half buttoned up, worn brown sandals and a tatty brown cap. The other was a light sandy colour from ear tips to tail tip and clad in a white running suit unzipped almost to the navel. His feet were bare.

They occupied the table seats opposite Naomi, exchanged broad smiles and friendly words of greeting with the vixen, then fell into quiet yet lively conversation. They were extremely upbeat about something, fair crackling with eager delight, almost as if they were expecting a child, had that been at all possible. On politely enquiring she found the truth to lie not a million miles away.

"Our adoption application finally got the thumbs-up," the patchwork cat, known simply and unsurprisingly as Patch, told her, beaming. "We've got a daughter!"

"We're picking her up tomorrow morning," the sandy one, Craig by name, added.

"Oh, at last!" Naomi felt a surge of pleasure at the news. "I was beginning to wonder if the agency would ever see sense."

"Well, it isn't every day this kind of adoption comes along, so I can understand their caution." Patch was ever the diplomat.

"True." Naomi nodded. "But I can't help thinking they weren't exactly coming from an unbiased standpoint, if you know what I mean."

"Now there's an understatement." Craig flashed a glare at nothing in particular. "All they spent all of those months doing is frantically searching for some reason to refuse our application. Fortunately, they failed." His ears sagged slightly. "There's still a part of me that's convinced they'll take her from us at the last moment."

Patch reached over the small table to grip his mate's paw. "That won't happen. Trust me."

"Wish I had your optimism." Craig flashed a warm, if slightly wan smile. "Now, before my pessimism gets the best of me, we still have a few details to hammer out..."

While they resumed their murmured planning Naomi returned to her card game. Barely a moment later the doors closed smoothly up again and Rose and Pete reappeared, the latter all but pulling the former along the aisle. The train eased into motion as they took their seats. This time the five-year-old sat next to the vixen rather than his mother, gathering her tail up and hugging it to him much as he would have a teddy bear. He was fast asleep mere moments later, resting against her side.

"The many and varied uses of a brush." Naomi grinned, really beginning to warm to the child.

"I just hope he doesn't use the tip as a dummy." Rose still seemed a little less than comfortable with her son's innocent actions.

"If it keeps him quiet and happy, he can suckle all he likes." Naomi glared at the cards on the table in front of her for a moment, then gathered them all up, mixed in the few she'd had in her hands and started shuffling the pack with a touch more force then was probably necessary.

Rose's expressive brown eyes widened slightly. "I'm suddenly very tempted to hire you as a nanny. Not many come equipped with built-in dummies."

"Tempting offer, but I think I'll stick with the reporting for the time being." Naomi chuckled richly, dealing the cards into tidy tiers. "And before you ask, it's very common for a Pelt mother, or father, or sibling to use their tail tip as a kind of nipple substitute for very young cubs. My parents did with me." A yawn escaped her muzzle as she finished speaking.

"Methinks the drowsiness is catching," Rose observed, with a grin.

"Methinks you're right. I really should have slept a little longer last night." Naomi hesitated briefly, then gathered up her cards and dropped them back into her backpack. "Think I'll copy your son's example. Wake me up in an hour, will you?"

"Will do."

Naomi shifted so that Pete was resting against her chest rather than her side, curled her arms round him, and let her eyes drift closed. As she drifted off, she couldn't help thinking how nice it would be if the child she held were her own...

"Miss Na'mi...Miss Na'mi..." A small hand tugged insistently at the vixen's elbow.

"My station, huh?" Naomi mumbled, starting to stir. She yawned long and deep. "Feels like I've been asleep for years."

"The train's all wrong, Miss Na'mi," Pete went on, confusion and more than a little fear mixing in his voice.

"What do you mean 'all wrong'?" Naomi asked, sitting up, her eyes flickering drowsily open.

"It's all falling apart, Miss Na'mi."

That, the dark vixen realised, a cold chill stealing down every last inch of her spine, was an understatement. The carriage was a complete wreck, a shattered, rust-bitten shell that looked like it might crumble to dust should she so much as breathe too hard. The windows held not a trace of glass, the bench seats were shredded and buckled, the doors were all but welded shut by the extreme oxidisation they'd suffered, and the roof was so pitted and fractured it offered little shelter from the heavy, relentless rain. It looked like it had been mouldering in situ for decades on end.

It couldn't be the carriage she'd fallen asleep in. It couldn't be. She'd been taken here while she slept; that had to be it. Stripped of all her clothes and belongings, too, she noticed. Not of Pete, though, who clung to her tail like his life depended on it. She lifted him onto her lap and cuddled him tightly, protectively, into her dense white chest fur, his head nestling deeply between her breasts, gratified to feel his shivering lessen drastically as a result. Ruffling his mousy hair with one paw, Naomi set to taking in the world outside the carriage.

A huge, thistle-speckled pasture rolled lazily off to the far side, the fuzzy silhouettes of several dozen peacefully grazing sheep just visible through the darkness and the curtains of rain. To the nearer side was a platform, a broad swathe of cracked and dirty grey tiles with several faded wooden benches spaced along its modest length. Behind that sat a squat red brick oblong of a station building, apparently closed for the night. At front and back of the carriage light signals glowed permanently red. A sign was just within view at one end of the platform, rusty and dirty, but still legible.

Saxon Gate

It wasn't a station she passed along her usual route home, that was for sure, and no amount of brain wracking brought up any recollection or knowledge of it. A creased and torn poster glued to the wall of the station building offered an explanation, if not one that reassured her in any measure. It advertised a circus, big block capitals announcing it would be in the area from the fifth of August to the eleventh, in the year 1962.

"All right, so we've been dumped at a station that's not been in use for almost half a century." Naomi was determined to keep calm. "I wonder if anyone else wound up here..."

Her eyes drifted to the station building. That was as good a starting point as any, she reasoned. Keeping Pete clasped firmly against her chest the vixen rose to her feet and inched up to the window. The frame didn't look at all solid, but if she was quick...

"Hold on tight, Petey - this is gonna be a little bumpy."

The boy's arms wrapped tight around her neck Naomi carefully leaned out of the window then brought her left foot up to rest on the bottom of the frame. It creaked, a sprinkling of rust fell free, but it held. A thrust, a leap and she was standing on the slick concrete tiles of the platform, the entrance to the station building almost directly ahead of her, a pale green light set above it. She jogged straight over to it, and, on finding it unlocked, pushed through to the dimly lit, sparsely furnished and deafeningly silent interior.

She set Pete down on a nearby wooden bench before giving herself a vigorous shake, spraying droplets of water over a radius of several feet, then turned to look into the room. A brown-and-black face gazed right back at her through one of the twin ticket windows.

"Naomi!" Patch, also clad in just his fur, was in front of the vixen in the blink of an eye, first taking her paw, then once he was sure she was real encasing her in a firm hug. "By Father it's good to see you!"

"That goes both ways," Naomi assured him, returning the embrace. She led him over to the bench, where they sat either side of Pete. "I'm guessing you woke up here?" Patch nodded affirmation. "Any sign of Craig or Rose?"

"You mean the young lady you were with?" On the vixen's nod of confirmation he added, "only what's pinned to a notice board inside the ticket office. I'd just found them when you came in. They're...not reassuring..."

"I'll be right back. Watch Pete."

Naomi didn't wait for a reply, heading swiftly into the ticket office. The notice board was cluttered with memos, instructions and useless information, all yellowing and badly dog-eared. Standing out like the proverbial sore thumb were two black and white photographs pinned in the top-right corner. One depicted the façade of a large Georgian building, almost certainly a hotel of some sort. The other showed what had to be a storeroom, a large lift in the background of the shot and two items of blood-flecked clothing in the foreground - a white running suit and a flowery blouse.

Snatching the photos from the board Naomi hustled back into the main area, face set with grim determination. Her eyes ran over the dust-caked posters arranged around the walls, hoping a map of the town would be amongst them. Thankfully, one was, complete with a rather short list of local amenities and tourist attractions. The vixen stepped up to it and scrutinised it closely. Only one hotel was mentioned, the Ancient Wall, situated inside the monumental barrier it took its name from, which in turn was a very short distance north of the station. Ignoring the tiny warning voice in the depths of her mind she ripped the map from the wall and returned to Pete and Patch.

"I think I know where they are," she told the cat. "Willing to help me find out for sure?"

"You have to ask?" Patch got smartly to his feet. "Lead on."

Naomi flashed him a grateful smile then stooped to pick up Pete. Once sure the child was secure in her arms she started toward the exit. Patch darted ahead and held the heavy wooden door open for her, before slipping through himself. Directly in front of them lay a small, completely empty car park, hemmed in by sagging, battered chain link fences. The entrance to it formed part of a crossroads of sorts, one street running parallel with the fences, the other heading away at a near-perfect right angle, culminating some hundred feet later on at the base of the dark and oppressive Saxon fortifications.

Most of the buildings visible were 60s terraced houses, all of them devoid of light or life; so was the tiny chip shop huddled at one corner of the junction. Even the street lights were dead. Only the traffic lights at the crossroads somehow retained life, the ones facing the trio stuck on green, all the others on red. A small number of cars were parked along the pavements, but not a one was moving along the glistening streets. All that could be seen and all that could be heard was the incessant rain.

Vixen and cat exchanged a quick glance, reading the uncertainty and quiet fear in each other's eyes, then started walking, side-by side, gazes fixed on the wall ahead of them. Automatically they checked both ways before crossing the street, but nothing came.

A phone booth sat outside the chip shop, glass fractured, metal stained and scratched. Patch stepped into it and picked up the handset, only to find the payphone as dead as the world around it. Setting it back in its cradle he noticed that scratched raggedly into its black plastic was the short, cryptic phrase 'cat o' no tales'. Someone had also daubed a little design on the back of the booth, a foot or so above the phone - a stylised rose with a dagger through the stem. Patch indicated both to Naomi, who was leaning in behind him.

"Someone must have a really twisted sense of humour," the vixen observed, darkly.

"Watched a few too many cheesy slasher films, perhaps," Patch suggested, leaving the booth.

"Great - a would-be Ghostface," Naomi muttered, letting the door swing shut. "Best watch our step. And hurry."

Feline and vulpine resumed walking, adopting a markedly quicker pace, and ceaselessly gazing about them in a manner that verged on the paranoiac. Nothing stirred, though whether that counted as a good thing or a bad thing was open to debate. They reached the wall in a matter of minutes, and after a brief discussion turned right and began following its broadly curving path. It proved the correct choice, as the Gate soon came into view, spanning a constricted stretch of road. The traffic light in front of it was on green, seemingly frozen there. The Gate itself was ajar just enough for a body to squeeze past.

"I'll go first." Patch nullified any argument by slipping easily through the gap before Naomi could even open her mouth to reply. "Hand me Pete. I don't think there's room for you to carry him through."

"All right." Despite knowing what would happen the vixen stepped right up to the gap and gently handed the understandably unsettled child to Patch. "I'll let you carry him for a bit."

"Fine by me." The cat settled Pete into his chest while Naomi eased past the Gate to join him.

"Right..." She unfurled the increasingly soggy map. "The hotel sh..."

Her words were drowned out by the Gate slamming shut with a bang that had her ears flattening momentarily against her skull. She wasn't remotely surprised, though. Nor was Patch, by his expression.

"You were saying?" he prompted, quietly.

"The hotel should be to the left-hand side of this walled in area as we look at it," she repeated, softly, her tone emotionless. "East past two junctions then due north."

Determined to at the very least escape the rain they set off at a jog down the middle of the road directly ahead, paying scant attention to their deathly quiet surroundings. That is, until they took the turn Naomi had singled out, whereupon they discovered the blackened shell of a hatchback car buried in the heart of what had been a newsagent. Patch covered Pete's eyes, not wanting him to see the sickeningly charred corpse of a Pelt that was occupying what was left of the car's front seat. He and the vixen sped up even more, forcing themselves to focus on the hotel now looming ahead of them, and what they hoped to find within.

The duo clattered through the door of the building almost at a sprint, not stopping until they reached the reception desk. Patch lowered Pete into sitting on it then gave himself a strong shake, an action Naomi was quick to mirror.

"Surprise, surprise - it's deserted," the vixen drawled, smoothing her neck fur back into place. "I'd suggest heading to the dining room - the storeroom should be fairly near to it. If not, I intend to have words with whoever designed this place."

"Ooh, would I not like to be them," Patch chuckled, glad of the light relief. "Ladies first."

"Thank you." Naomi nodded elegant thanks, picked up Pete, then began padding toward the broad doors to the right, which had 'Dining Room' printed above them, leaving a trail of damp footprints in her wake.

Once through those the obvious choice was another pair of doors, this time with 'Hotel Staff Only' written above them. Fox and cat hustled over to and through them, emerging into the most generic white corridor imaginable. The first of the three other doors along it led into the kitchen. The second opened into the storeroom.

The first thing that struck them upon entering was the total absence of the clothing given such prominence in the photo. The second thing was the faint trail of dried blood leading from the centre of the room to the industrial-scale lift. Patch took it upon himself to approach the elevator and hit the sickly orange call button. The doors slid open almost instantly, and the cat found himself staring at a pair of naked Pelts huddled in the far corner: a russet-gold and unconscious adult vixen and a wide awake and deeply traumatised snow leopard cub around twice Pete's age. Both were drenched in thick red blood.

He didn't need to call for Naomi; she was racing past him before he got a chance to. She knelt down in front of the young leopard, stroking her head and whispering reassurances into small, rounded ears. Before long she was coaxing the cub into standing up. She clung to the vixen's waist.

"Get the fox," Naomi instructed Patch, leading the leopard out of the lift. "We'll take them outside, let the rain wash them off."

"Right." Patch dropped to a crouch, slipping his paws under the lighter-furred vixen's knees and shoulders. She proved just light enough to carry comfortably.

Naomi leading the way they backtracked as quickly as they could through the dining room and the reception room to the street immediately outside the hotel. There they settled on the pavement and set to gently cleaning the congealing blood from the coats of the snow leopard and, after removing her gore-smeared locket, the light vixen. The latter finally stirred as Patch patiently worked the caked crimson from her fur, her eyes registering shock for just a second, then overpowering relief, which intensified on realising the snow leopard cub was right next to her.

"Oh, thank Mother!" She let out the deepest sigh Naomi and Patch had ever heard, sitting back against the cat. "At the risk of sounding melodramatic you have no idea how good it is to see you."

"Oh, I think I do," Patch smiled, working at her shoulders. "Mind if we ask what you were doing in there?"

"Searching for some friends," the vixen answered, "and in the oddest setting I've ever stumbled into. It's like a video game - all coins, secret nooks and keys. Wait a minute..." She startled everyone by abruptly giving a yell of exasperation. "Shit! I didn't get the bloody room key!"

"You mean this?" the snow leopard asked, quietly, extending a now much cleaner paw, a small bronze key labelled '25' resting in it.

"Oh, I could kiss you! In fact, I will!" The light fox leaned over and pressed deeply grateful lips to the cub's cheek. "Finally, I just might get a little closer to Gabe and Bess."

Naomi worked the last specks of blood from the cub cat's back. "We're trying to track down some people, too. This boy's mother Rose and Patch's mate Craig."

"Seems we're all in the same twisted, bloodstained boat," Sarah observed, dryly. "It'd be stupid not to join forces. What say we retire to room 25 and compare notes?"

"I'm with that," Patch agreed, helping her up. "Anything to get out of the rain."

Five bedraggled figures headed slowly back into the hotel, every one wondering just how long it would be before they came back out...