Albany wasn’t deep in the middle of the forest like Fox Hollow, but it had nice, large parks for a city of its size. Scott drove a few miles out of town to a park known for its wooded areas and trails, the spot where he usually went when he needed to let his other side out.
There weren’t a lot of hikers at this time of day, but Scott still parked in an out of the way spot right next to the tree line. He put on a collar that had tags attesting to his shot record, worked out with a local veterinarian who knew about shifters, and listed himself as the owner. His car key fob was clipped to the collar. He left the rest of his clothing in a neat bundle where they were unlikely to be spotted and trotted off.
The woods came alive with scents and sounds. Every time Scott became his coyote, he marveled that his human side seemed nearly blind and deaf in comparison. He followed a squirrel’s trail for a while for the sheer joy of tracking, not hunting. Bird calls entranced him.
Scott picked up the smell of grilled meat, and his stomach rumbled. Given his heightened senses, the cookout could be a mile away. He snuffled along skunk tracks, then nosed at the entrance to a groundhog burrow, and tried to parse out all the different scents left by hikers who had passed this way over the last few hours.
Isn’t this more fun than being human? You miss all the good stuff,his coyote said.
Some of it,Scott admitted.But we can’t drive with paws.
Sometimes Scott had to dodge people near the trails, but today he only had to go into the brush twice to let clueless humans pass him by.
He glanced at the sun and realized more than an hour had passed, and while he hadn’t gotten any research done, shifting left him feeling steadier and more hopeful.
To his relief, no one had parked close to him, and his stash of clothing was where he had left it, unbothered. The autumn weather chilled him in the brief time between fur and clothing, and he started the car to turn on the heat even before he unbuckled the fob from his collar and slipped it into the storage compartment.
Scott stretched and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to hold onto the feeling of freedom and relaxation that running in his fur gave him. He angled his neck from side to side and rotated his shoulders, still sensing tension in his human body that hadn’t bothered him in coyote form.
See how good it feels? We should do this more often,his coyote nudged.If we moved in with our mate, we could shift more often.
I’d still have to work. You don’t have to worry about paying the bills or arranging to move. Fuzzy freeloader,Scott thought affectionately, and heard a derisive sniff in the back of his mind from his other side.
He checked his phone and saw there was another hangup that he had missed while in his fur. Scott felt certain they were intended as intimidation to make him drop any negative coverage, and he wished he had a way to let the caller know that he didn’t intend to cause problems.
I don’t want to get “snuffed out.” I can take a hint, he thought, never intending to tangle with the Mafia.
We can always bite them,his coyote offered, a little too eagerly.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,Scott replied.
A hot shower when he got home helped him shake off the last of the blahs, something his coyote was just as happy to leave to the human side. That left just enough time to log into a late-afternoon holiday committee meeting before dinner. Familiar faces greeted him.
“Hi, Scott!” Valerie said with a big smile. Bobby, Brandon, Elias, and Drew waved. Scott waved back.
“Hey, everyone. How are things going?” Scott sipped the hot coffee he’d fixed right before sitting at the computer.
“Pretty well, actually,” Valerie said. “The pumpkin shipment is on track to get here in time, and we have nearly all of the entertainment contracts signed and received.”
“We’ve already started building the jack-o-lantern maze,” Brandon said. “It’s going to be even more epic than ever before. We raised a lot of ticket money from it last year, and I think with the buzz we’ve gotten, it will do even better this year.”
“I followed up on the pledges that haven’t come in yet,” Scott said. “Nobody changed their minds. Everyone’s just been busy. Watch for those to come in this week.” He crossed his fingers that the donors kept their word.
“We’ve got the banners up in and around town,” Bobby said. “This year, we have more stores with posters about the event in their windows than ever before. I think people have really caught the Halloween spirit.”
“The high school art teacher offered extra credit for students to design handouts about the festival, and they get more points if they take the printed copies around town for businesses to give them out,” Elias added.
“If we get the maze done early, and I think we will, I wondered about adding a new dark ride,” Drew said. “There’s an equipment garage downtown that is currently not being used.The owner offered it for an indoor attraction as long as we did all the setup and clean up after ourselves.”
“That could be fun.” Valerie sounded intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”
“What if we did a haunted mine attraction?” Drew asked. “It could be fun to do a spooky walk-through indoor maze with a haunted mine theme.”
“It would be something new,” Elias said. “We just have to hit that sweet spot where the teenagers and the older kids both like it. They’re the ones spending ride money. The adults just buy junk food and beer.”
“All in favor, say ‘aye,’” Valerie said, and Scott joined in the unanimous agreement. For once, he was glad not to be close enough to be expected to lend a hand. The idea of going inside a mine, even a fake one, gave him the creeps.
“Great! I’m sure the new fun house will be good for ticket sales, and it’s the kind of thing that gets people talking,” Valerie added. “Let me know if you need more helpers, Drew. You might find people want to volunteer to have the inside scoop on what’s inside.”
