Here is the next part and I apologize for the sad scene I suck at sad emotions <<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

Chapter 8

Dashed walked towards a house that had a big red check on the front door he saw several of houses with this and he was pretty sure this meant that it was a house Carla had fixed up. Right behind him was his new friend Olivia.

“Well Olivia this will be our home for the rest of the day, hope your ok with confined spaces.”

At this Olivia gave him a sideways glance and strutted to the door.

“Guess so,” Dashed dryly remarked.

He pulled out his pistol and did his feral animal check. With ever door Olivia poked her head through the door with each room check, curious little creature she was.

After every room was checked Dashed looked in the cabinets to see if he could find another letter from Carla. Sure enough there in the cupboards was the same message as last time. Dashed squatted and showed Olivia the note and said in the same voice that you would use to talk to a dog or a baby “Look Olivia, we are going to meet this person tomorrow. I don’t know who she is but she was nice enough to give me lots of food and provide me with directions. She lives in a town called Bolder and hopefully we can meet her and travel to Canada together, won’t that be fun?”

Olivia kind of looked at him with an expression that he couldn’t place although, Dashed didn’t pay much attention though because he was already picking out what he was going to eat. Even after his fest yesterday he had a lot to work with and he finally came upon what seemed to be the perfect meal.

“How does a nice bowl of cold soup sound?”

Olivia put her paw on her nose.

“Hey! Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

So he pulled out one of his cans of soup and just pored it into a bowl and TA-DA instant cold soup. He put one bowl down on the ground for Olivia. As Dashed was digging in as this was one of his favorite fast meals he noticed Olivia wasn’t eating

“What’s the matter? Come on, cold soup is great for a hot day, it cools you down quite well and it fills you up too.”

Olivia just laid down on ears flat to the ground and looked up at him.

“Fine,” Dashed sighed, “Here’s some jerky.”

He reached into his backpack, at this she perked up, and pulled out a stick of beef jerky and gave it to Olivia.

“Good things these things last forever if you don’t open the package, huh?”

Olivia didn’t answer, she was too busy gnawing on the beef jerky stick. As she ate Dashed sat there and wondered what possessed this fox to not only save his life but also tag along with him. He was sure as a wild animal the punishment for doing such a thing would be death, He, for the first time, took a good close look at Olivia. As far wild animals go she was pretty nice looking, her fur wasn’t too dirty and her white streak on her head gave her quite a personality. Suddenly he had an idea. At about this time Olivia had just finished her beef jerky stick.

“Hey Olivia, come over here.”

The young four-legged fox went over to Dashed and he pulled out a silver necklace

Dashed explained to the fox, “Listen, this necklace belonged to my late girlfriend. I know it won’t feel too comfortable but I think it’ll look great.”

And with that Dashed put the necklace around her neck. She looked absolutely beautiful with it on. With that he couldn’t take it anymore and he burst out crying. He sat there crying for several moments eventual grabbing Olivia. She struggled at first but then relaxed when she realized that he wasn’t hurting her.

“My Olivia is dead, I’m all alone, and all I have is a note by someone who might be dead.” He sobbed crying harder and harder.
This went on for quite awhile before he finally started to calm down. The entire time the fox just rested on his knee and was just there.

“I’m sorry, it’s just with that necklace on you reminded me of someone that I loved and after all these years I guess it just final came up on me. I’m sure you understand.” He said sniffling, “Plus I’ve been living alone for the past few years without anyone or anything to talk to. I’m sure you would understand if you were human but I had to let that all out.”

And with that one of the weirdest things happened, the fox not only seemed to understand but she also seemed to be looking sad as well. Dashed just stared in amazement about how sentient this fox seemed to be.

“Thanks for that.”

He got up off the floor and Olivia jumped off of him, not without leaving some hair on his shirt however, after all it was shedding season.

“Here let me take that off your neck.”

As he reached for the necklace Olivia slinked away and as Dashed tried to continue to grab at the necklace the fox eventually gave up and ran into the other room.

“Hey! Get back here your soup is going to get cold,” He said with a smirk.

Dashed decided to let the fox wear the necklace and began to eat again. After his bowl of wonderful cold soup it was about midday so he decided to take a nap and then go journal. He had a lot of ground to cover.