18. Found Home?
Red sat and looked at the sign, a worn broken piece of wood with a painting of a white deer on it, shafts of soft sun light shone through the broken gaps illuminating Red's face. It had been well over a year but he was finally here. It felt unreal, this was a place that was talked about in stories he never used to believe, yet here he was on its doorstep.
"Aren't you going to go in?" said Crow.
"I'll go in when I'm good and ready," replied Red.
"Caw! The big fox is afraid."
Red looked up at the bird perched in the tree. "What would I be afraid of?"
"She's in there! She's in there! Caw!" said Crow as he leaned forwards on his branch "she doesn't bite you know!"
"The big fox would like you to shut up now!" answered Red as he turned and begun following the boundary fence around the edge of the park.
"Caw! Where are you going?" asked Crow.
"For a walk," said Red as he continued on "thank Boss when you see him, for everything. His crow saved my life, make sure to tell him to look after it for me?"
Crow cocked his head to one side. "Caw!"
Red followed the fence almost the entire way around the park, making a mental note of all the landmarks that could be seen from outside, the warden's cottage, the stream, the pond, and the circle of stones. Eventually Red approached the far west of the park, here he found the fence ended abruptly at the base of a vertical cliff face that rose from the parks edge. Red was curious and he followed the sloping edge of the cliff west away from the park. The cliff dropped down to ground level inside a thick forest that was well outside of the park's boundary. Red stopped and turned around, climbing up the slope that led to the top of the cliff. Around two hundred meters from the top the forest gave way to a patch of almost manicured grassland that inclined up all the way to the edge of the cliff. Rows of trees lined both the left and right of the grassland, slowly thinning out as they reached the top. Red continued on, shortly arriving at the cliff edge, as he did the whole park spread out in front of him. He felt an unexpected sense of awe, the sun was setting and the whole park appeared to be giving off a magical warm glow.
Red sat and watched for longer than he realised, the sun had almost disappeared by the time he moved again. It was getting dark and he needed to find a place to sleep. He scanned around, looking back towards the trees and then down at the land below the cliff edge. Something caught his eye, there appeared to be an opening in the cliff face about a quarter of the way down. It was too far to jump but maybe there was some other way to get there. As Red paced the length of the cliff edge he noticed a partially disguised tunnel opening, it looked like the entrance to an old badger set. He pushed his head inside and immediately recoiled, there was an intense smell of rat coming from below. Red took a deep breath and thrust himself back inside.
The tunnel ran a long way down and opened into the cavern that Red had seen from above. The entire eastern wall of the set was missing, allowing you to see out over the park just as you could from the cliff top above.
"Well, well, well, a foxy," said a voice from the back of the set "did you get lost on your way to your precious White Deer Park?"
A pair of red eyes approached Red from the gloom followed by an uncountable number of others. "See this ere is White Rat Park, very different place from that nasty park next door!" continued the voice as the owner stepped into view, it was the largest whitest rat Red had ever seen. "And see ere we don't allow no foxy's or snakesy's or w…w…weasely's here, only ratty's! Don't we boys! Who am I?"
Red had heard enough already, and he lunged forwards unexpectedly, taking the giant white rat in his jaws he tore it in two before swallowing the top half in one gulp. "I don't care!" growled Red. As he had expected the nerve of the other rats broke at the sight of their leader being killed so quickly and brutally. The rats began squealing and scrambling to escape, some running up the tunnel, others just threw themselves from the cliff face. Red stuck out a paw and pinned a light brown coloured rat to the floor. "There is no rat park here, is that clear!" spat Red, the brown rat nodded its head slowly. "Spread the message to the rest of your kind, this," Red raised a paw around the set "is now mine."