- Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
this story is just too much fun to write.
The wolf had incessantly stared at him for over ten minutes. Ten minutes of utter silence after Baylee had made a feeble attempt at explaining what he thought had happened. He couldn’t read his father’s mind, but his best guess was that Dad was thinking of all the reasons why he shouldn’t tear his son a new one.

Baylee hoped he came up with some good reasons.

“M-Maybe if we go back to the swamp, we can somehow, I dunno… undo it” he tried helplessly and the wolf narrowed its eyes even further, not buying his proposition. “Well, you can’t stay here!”

Five days was a long time to be missing. Baylee was actually quite impressed by the fact Mom hadn’t completely freaked out by now. It was only a matter of time before she went to the basement and found the wolf there. That would be bad. Baylee could already imagine how she would call animal control to get the wild carnivore killed.

Maybe if he told her the truth.

No, she wouldn’t buy that. He couldn’t blame her, cause it did sound kinda insane.

“Come on, we gotta go!” he urged his father. Dad gave him an angry snarl, but when he did follow his son closely, all the while grumbling things only he could understand.

They walked the basement stairs slowly, quietly. Or, as quietly as possible when you were accompanied by a clumsy wolf that had no idea how to properly behave like a wolf. Baylee did his best not to laugh at his father’s outrageous antics, cause he knew Dad would have his throat if he so much as snickered.

“Wait here,” Baylee whispered, holding up a hand to clarify his suggestion. “Imma see if the coast is clear, I’ll be right back,” he promised. Dad halted instantly.

“Good dog.”

Baylee closed the door before the wolf could jump him for that remark and chuckled slightly. He slowly crept through the house, trying to see if there was anyone there who would be severely disturbed by the sudden appearance of a wild wolf. That counted for almost anyone. Just when he thought there was no one in the house, he heard his Mom’s voice coming in from the back door. Cursing silently, he followed her voice and heard she wasn’t alone.

“We should really call the police,” a male voice suggested. Baylee would recognize it anywhere.

“And then what, Kevin? Have the entire press on our heads?” Mom countered. “They would just love a story like this. Imagine: Backstreet Boy leaves family and friends for no particular reason.”

“Is that what you think?” Kevin replied heatedly. “What if he didn’t leave, what if someone made him leave?”

Baylee’s eyes widened. They were talking kidnap. They were talking violence. They were talking police search parties on his ass.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Mom whispered lamely.

“Do you know something I don’t, Leighanne? Cause if not, we have no way of knowing how bad it is.” Kevin fired.

“It’s just four days, I mean, he’s left before, he always comes back. Aren’t you just a little overreacting, Kev?”

“Maybe, but he’s never missed a bandmeeting before, so I’m kinda worried here, and you should be too.”

“Do the others know about this?” Mom questioned concerned.

“Well, I’ll say. It was pretty obvious when he didn’t show up during the conference.”

Mom sighed. “Okay, if he doesn’t show up before tomorrow night, we’ll call the police.”

Baylee decided it was time to show his face at this point. He found his mother and Kevin sitting at the dining table, obviously engaged in a heated discussion.

He hadn’t seen his father’s cousin in months and was amazed by how different Kevin looked. His hair was slowly but surely turning grey, as he didn’t care to dye it anymore now that the band was on hiatus. His green eyes were as piercing as ever, but held such a worried glance that Baylee physically shrunk back at the intensity in them.

When he came in, the conversation silenced and Mom and Kevin turned to look at him. “What’s going on?” Baylee asked as innocently as he could manage.

“Nothing honey, we were just talking,” Mom tried to reassure him immediately. Baylee did his best to avoid rolling his eyes. It was always the same. Nobody told him anything ever, because as far as they were concerned, he was just a kid. If only he knew what he’d done. If only they knew he was the cause of the whole problem to begin with.

Mom would ground him for years. Dad for life, definitely.

He shrugged, pretending not to care. “I’mma go outside to play with Keeko.”

“Keeko is back?” Mom asked, surprised.

“Yeah, guess she was in the basement and got stuck. I got her out though.”

Mom raised her eyebrows, “Wow. Well, good job.”

“Thanks,” Baylee replied softly, not looking at her.

The lie stung even more if he got praise for it. He walked out of the dining room quickly, returning to the basement. His father was obviously not happy with Baylee shutting the door in his face and it was fairly creepy to see the look of human disdain on a wolf’s features.

“The halls are safe, they’re in the kitchen,” Baylee said quietly, “Kevin is here.”

The wolf grumbled something before sliding past him into the hallway. Keeko yapped once and Dad growled at her. Keeko silenced immediately. As strange as it was seeing the wolf in his father’s studio, it was even more unsettling seeing him in the large entry hall of their home. The light was more natural here and Baylee was amazed by the crystal clear whiteness of the canine’s coat. It didn’t help that this particular wolf would be stupidly easy to spot from a mile away.

“We should go outside,” Baylee whispered and Dad nodded. Both Keeko and the wolf flashed past him when Baylee pulled open the heavy front door. “Wait!” Baylee yelled.

The animals turned to look at him, the wolf immediately started to pant because of the warm afternoon summer sun that was heating up the pathway. The wolf’s thick coat was meant for cold environments, Baylee knew and it wasn’t a particularly good idea to keep a wolf in a southern urban area in any case. “You gotta be careful,” Baylee muttered, “what if someone sees you?”

Dad narrowed his eyes and shook his head, obviously not used to his son telling him what to do. Baylee shrugged and led the animals around the house into the backyard, making sure to avoid being seen through the windows of the house. Mom and Kevin would have a fit if they could see him now. Although Baylee knew that Dad wouldn’t hurt him, the wolf looked positively starving. They’d need to find a food source soon, because Baylee didn’t think Dad would be particularly good at hunting wild rabbits for food. Carefully looking around, Baylee snuck between the two large trees on the right side of the backyard. When he was little, he used to call this place their own private little woods. It wasn’t big by any stretch of the imagination, consisting of maybe fifteen trees, but whenever he played outside, it had felt like he was in some kind of wild forest. When he was about six years old, Dad had even built a fort between the two trees in the middle, with wooden planks and metal pallets. The wood had gone a bit weary since then, and the metal was starting to rust, and Baylee was sure he hadn’t really played here in years. He looked back at his father, who was still perched on the grass right outside of the ‘woods’. The idea of getting into the old fort didn’t seem to appeal to him.

“Come on,” Baylee waved at him, “Nobody will find you here,” he said. Dad looked back nervously; then seemed to make up his mind and followed his son into the woods. He sat down right outside the old fort and looked up at Baylee questioningly.

“It’ll be cooler here,” Baylee explained, “Wolf’s don’t really do summer in big southern cities, you know?”

Dad growled quietly, reminding Baylee that it was his fault all along. Baylee sighed and opened the plastic flap that served as a door. “I’ll see if I can get some water and some chicken from the fridge,” Baylee mumbled, noticing his father’s mouth immediately started to drool at the mention of food. “Mom won’t find you here, but she thinks you’re missing, so we gotta get this right again before she calls the police for real.”

Baylee bit his lip, wishing his father could communicate in other ways than growling and grumbling and looking angrily at him. “Can you howl?” he added as an afterthought.

Dad tilted his head in confusion. “Just try, like this,” Baylee muttered, closing his eyes and trying to imitate a wolf’s howl as best as he could. Dad looked at him, unimpressed and shook his head. “We need to have some sort of code,” Baylee sighed, “when something is up, you howl and I’ll come.”

Dad rolled his eyes, but threw back his head and howled anyway. It sounded loud and eerie and sent shivers running down Baylee’s spine. “Wow,” he whispered. He could blame the howling on the neighbour’s husky. It should work.

“Alright, tomorrow we’ll go to the swamp and we’ll get you back to normal,” Baylee nodded, trying to convince himself. “You stay here for now, I’ll get the chicken.”

Dad’s glare followed him all the way to the edge of the woods.