After a long day of classes or—more accurately—a long day of listening to debates over the same topic, William Anderson's day at Moon Lake College ended and he looked forward to going home.
Unfortunately, with only one vehicle between the entire Anderson family at present, that meant William had to walk.
It was only a couple of miles, especially if he cut "cross country" through the various woodland sections that the town had plenty of to appease its were population.
If he had still been a regular human being, William would definitely not be looking forward to the trek and probably would have called a taxi or some other ride sharing service.
But since becoming a werefox, William found himself enjoying these "nature moments", as he called them.
Since it was already twilight, a part of him wanted to find someplace to totally strip and assume his fursona. Maybe even romp in the woods for a bit to kick back and relax en-route to his "den": aka the family home.
Yet given everyone's unease over the impending agenda of the Town Council to develop and execute a plan to reveal were existence to the world, maybe heading directly home was the best approach to take.
After all, then I could be in Martha's loving arms sooner, he realized, thinking of his wife.
With that, William started out for home, but it would not be an easy journey...
The first obstacle, for lack of a better name, was a pair of amorous werewolves who were getting hot and heavy by a couple of trees.
"Oh yeah baby. Give me that hard red rocket fast and deep!" the she-wolf on her hands and knees screamed as her partner took the lady from behind, the male's tail wagging in time with his hip movements while his paws were underneath, playing with the woman's breasts.
William couldn't help but smile as he thought of some of the more intimate moments he had shared with Martha, before and especially since they had joined were society.
Out of respect for the couple, he gave them a wide berth, being careful not to disturb their sexual bliss.
The next hurdle was much more serious!
William could hear the raised voices long before he actually saw anyone.
"I'm telling you, the Council's stupid decision is going to be the death of us all," one voice growled.
"Well, maybe we should be the death of them before they can hurt us!" another voice said, which got a few cheers from whoever else was present.
Even though he was still in his human form, William's sensitive werefox sense of smell was picking up a lot of scents now. Tiger, wolf, cat, fox, and a couple he didn't recognize off hand.
Thankfully, the way the slight breeze was blowing, William realized that he was downwind from the group. He could smell them but none of them could sense him.
Yet he didn't need a were's hearing to pick up their shouting.
"Look fellas," another voice began, "I agreed to meet with you all after work because I'm just as unhappy as the rest of you over their idea, but violence isn't the answer."
"But what if they don't listen to us?" the first voice asked. "Or worse, they do listen but still reveal our existence anyway?"
"Then we MAKE them listen!" the second voice said.
"Look. Maybe Joe is right," a fourth voice began. "While I'm against the reveal too, if we do something bad, especially something that we can get arrested for, then we're no better than the normals we're afraid of."
William could sense where the conversation was probably headed and quickly started backtracking on his trail.
The voices continued to rise in both volume and anger until the first punches were thrown.
DAMMIT! he silently cursed, stopping to pull out his cellphone from within his jacket, but cursed even more when he saw no signal bars on the reception meter.
A couple of minutes later William finally made it to a sidewalk, but his luck was no better now than before.
Not only was there still no signal indicator, but now his cellphone was displaying the RECHARGE message as an empty battery symbol began blinking in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Well, whoever you folks are, I hope you don't wind up hurting each other too badly before I can send help, William thought to himself as he started out for home again.
He didn't know anyone within this part of Moon Lake. It was usually just a blur driving to and from the college, so he didn't stop at any house.
Besides, given everyone's current emotional state, they might be afraid to open their door, especially to a total stranger.
William definitely would have stopped any passers by, especially a police officer, and try to let someone know what was going on, but alas there was no one in sight.
It's as if everyone's afraid to be out and about if they don't have to be. Then again, can you blame them?
With the wagon wheel format of the town to give weres plenty of open areas to enjoy, it took him well over an additional hour than originally planned, but William Anderson finally saw his house in the distance.
At this point, he realized it would do no good to call the police because even though he could probably find the exact location again in time, the angry mob had to have broken up by now.
So with that, William Anderson just went home.