The Woods Part IV

We been here in the Fold for 'bout six weeks nows. We run around so much, Senator Jim -- the deer who runs things 'round here -- said me and Meredith might have some deer blood in our family hair'tidge.

Tell ya the truth, there's been lots a times lately when I don't wanna leave. We got plenty of good grass and tree bark to chew on, and now and then I come 'cross a mess of garbage to eat -- thank God for foodgiven' slobs! At night we sleep in the Fold, all curled up with each other, hidden and protected by the woods. It feels good to wake up in the middle of the night and here the other deer all sleepin' safe and sound.

But I know Chloe's waitin' for me, so we gotta move on now. Sen. Jim says it's time, too, since the spring's comin' on and them bucks are gettin' randy. He says some of 'em been lookin' at Meredith with "unpure thoughts."

So we're taking off this morning, bright and early. Sen. Jim gave me some good directions, and said if we follow the creeks, we're sure to get out by the highway eventually. But I'm still a litt'l scairty. Meredith and me seem awfully small compared to the other things out there...cars and people and them things that eat grass.

Here comes Sen. Jim to say goodbye, and the whole herd's with him! Lordy, ain't that a tear running down this old goat's beard?

The Woods, Part III

“Don’t drink the water,” the deer told us, but after the fire, Meredith and me had drank plenty of the creek water already. Hell, we was thirsty, and how was we supposed to know the water had something called fecal bacteria in every other tongueful?

“You’re lucky you stumbled across this park,” the deer said. He was taller than us, with a decent rack of horns that I kept thinking would get caught in the foliage, but somehow never did. I could tell Meredith had a crush on him, the way her nose got all moist, but he was way out of her league.

“There’s this new concept called ‘forested urbanism,’” he explained, “which means these parks are connected all through the city. If you know how everything’s laid out, you can go just about anywhere without leaving the woods.”

“Even out by the highway?” I asked, ‘cause that’s where the old lady lives.

“Absolutely.”

I liked the way the deer talked. He was a smart ol’ boy, but nice, too. He stopped every few feet to let us catch up. Us goats ain’t used to clopping over dead trees and such. We’re used to yards.

After about an hour of walking, I was completely turned around. It was dead dark inside the forest, and I wasn’t even sure what time of day it was. All I knew was how tired I was, and I knew Meredith was, too.

I was about to open my trap and ask for a stop, when the deer said, “We’re here.”

“Where?” Meredith says.

Our guide stepped aside, and let us pass through a tight opening in the brush. Coming out the other side, I blinked. In a large clearing, standing in the moonlight, hundreds of deer stood in a circle. They was all looking at us.

Near the middle, the biggest deer I ever seen came forward. He said, "Welcome to the Fold."

The Woods, Part II

Chloe lives out by the highway, in the backyard of the guy who once beat me with a fan belt. God, that seems like a long time ago, don’t it? Anyway, I never really knew where the highway was, and now I gotta try finding my way back. Laws, that ain’t gonna be easy.

The groundhog sure as hell wasn’t much help. He said he never crosses the divider, which is a narrow strip of blacktop with a dotted line running down the middle. Every now and then you see a foodgiver joggin’ along, or one of them two-wheeled contraptions that whiz right by.

“You’s in a park,” the groundhog says to me and Meredith. He was a chubby little bastard, and his whiskers held tiny drops of dew that he’d picked up from sniffing the morning grass. “All sorts of ‘em in the city. They wrap all ‘round, ever which way, but I never leave my little patch ‘ere.”

We moved along, careful to cross the exercise path when no foodgivers were in sight. I was hoping to find a stream; we were both thirsty and needed a quick shower. My plan was to follow the water till it reached a river, which might take us out of the city.

Then I met the deer…and everything changed.

Everything.

The Woods, Part I

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to walk through the woods with a goat. Meredith stops to smell any unusual scent that makes it up her moist, pretty little nose, which happens every, oh, two seconds. Centipede on a leaf? Gotta check it out. Spider web? Gotta check it out. Rusted beer can? You get the point.

Can you imagine what I've had to put up with?

Sure, I'm a goat, too; but I'm also an exception, thanks to my medical experimentation shots. I'm smart enough to know that the only way we're going to make it out of these woods alive is by moving along. Sooner or later, the humans are going to find us here. And make no mistake, they are looking.

See, we're tainted, Meredith and I -- two domestic animals with untested chemicals running through their bodies. The scientists will chase us down and...well, we need to keep moving.

And I know where, too...

Back to Chloe. Back to my home.

Inferno, Part II

Ba-aa! Ba-aa!

Meredith's bleeting cry for help pulled me forward, filling my erect ears with her pain and fear. I dropped and rolled, a la, Dick Van Dyke, under the black, acrid smoke, heading toward the noise.

The sprinklers rained overhead and I used them to my advantage, hopping from one wet oasis to another.

Ba-aaaaa...

There! Backed into a corner, her black hooves skittered on the water slickened floor. I dashed past an exploding rack of test tubes, feeling the flaming liquid singe my fur. "Bite my tail!" I shouted, lifting it toward her mouth. She clamped down hard, making me grimace, and I bolted toward the loading dock with her in tow.

We tasted fresh air, and there was a temptation to flee into the open. But I held Meredith back, analyzing the situation. The rest of the animals were running wild to our left, being rounded up by animal control.

Thump! Thump! Tranquilizer darts being shot in the distance, missing.

"See those woods?" I said, pointing to a line of scrub oak a hundred yards away, on the other side of the parking lot. "We're going to run for it. Go!"

We sprinted across the asphalt, through the flashing red lights of the firetrucks and the flickering orange light of the fire behind us.

"Run, Meredith...run!"

And then we were in the forest, cloaked in the hidden glory of the dark animal world, safe...for now.

Inferno, Part I

The animals sensed the attack long before it materialized, and so the flash-bang explosion and shouting voices just after 2 a.m. came as no real surprise. A security guard ran by my stall, shouting into his portable radio.

"We've had a breach! A breach!" he screamed. "Get your ass down here now!"

ALF fighters flooded into the building, smashing computers and torching the paper files. They ripped open the loading gates and unlocked the pens. The pigs ran first, squealing as they tore down the ramp into the ashphalt parking lot. Then came the chimps and the dogs and the groundhogs.

I left calmly, with my horns held high, ignoring the helter-skelter confusion behind me. But in the grass outside, with sirens bleating in the distance, I realized somebody was missing. Where was Meredith?

"Hellllllp!" I heard from over my right haunch. "Helllllp!"

She was disoriented in the smoke. The fire was spreading from the offices to the stalls, and the feed was catching. If the smoke didn't get her, the heat soon would. I had to do something.

And so I, Patrick Ryan Fitzgerald III, dashed up the ramp...and into the flames.

Born to run

Meredith is worried. Though you couldn’t call her smart by any objective standard, she is an animal. She does have certain instincts.

She knows that ALF is coming…probably tonight.

I’ve tried to soothe her, make her feel better. I’ve even promised to take care of her when the inevitable happens. No matter what I say, though, she continues to urinate uncontrollably, then roll in it. Since I’ve already offered her a haunch to cry on, I’m in a rather disgusting predicament, wouldn't you say?

Oh, well…things are going to get worse before they get better. What Meredith and the others don’t understand is that once the lab is burned to the ground and we’re set free, we have to keep running. If the researchers catch us afterward, they’ll have no choice but to put us asleep. Why? Because by leaving the controlled laboratory environment, the data inside of us will become spoiled. There will be no reason to keep us alive.

Whilst setting us free, ALF will be dooming us.

So our only option will be to run. And keep on running.