Something was different. Karin knew that from the minute she woke up that morning, but it was so unusual that took her a few moments to figure out what it was.

She felt good.

NO, not perfect. Her head still ached a little, and her forehead was turning several interesting shades of orange and yellow. But most of the pain was gone, replaced by a nagging itch that she was not totally successful at leaving alone. There were the usual minor aches and pains from her joints or from old injuries. But, overall, she felt good.

And that had not happened in a very long time.

She was also quite hungry. Normally, Karin waited until hunger almost overwhelmed her before dragging out some of those survival rations and mechanically stuffing them in to her mouth. But this time, she dragged herself out of bed and in to her kitchen and ate a real breakfast. Of some dried fruits and nuts and a little of the canned bacon.

Oh! Why did I try this stuff, she thought, grimacing in disgust? Now what sick sadistic man ever thought about canning bacon?

She gave up fast on the bacon, though. Not good, she thought, staring at the remainder of the canned food with disgust and a slight queasy feeling. According to its date, it should not have expired, but still …

Leave it up to my old man to try this stuff. There's one for the compost heap, Karin told herself. I bet the bears won't even eat this when I dump it out.

Finishing her breakfast, she put the scraps, mostly the horrible fake bacon, in to the pail she used for just such a purpose. Then, she rounded up her empty plastic containers, and pulled out the foldable cart from the kitchen closet. She loaded it up and headed outside, Time to go fetch more water.

The rain barrels were situated out back of the house. At first, the long rips in the cloths Karin used to help filter the water did not concern her. Occasionally, a thirsty bear might come along, and not bother to remove her filter but tear straight through it. But After she had filled her last container and heaved it in to the cart, something next to the barrels caught her eye. One barrel had a very small slow leak, and in the damp soil, there was a footprint. A large footprint that did not resemble a bear.

Maybe … maybe it was Maurice?

But the print did not match Maurice's foot, and she knew it.

Her good feeling was rapidly evaporating, being replaced by a definite feeling of being plain old spooked. As she rushed to refill all her water containers, her eyes kept scanning her surroundings. She thought she felt eyes on her back as she worked.

But if he/she or it doesn't want me to see, I won't, she thought. Not until it's too late, anyway.

"Stop that!" she hissed out loud to herself. "Karin Evans, now you just stop that!"

But the sound of her own hoarse whispering voice creeped her out even more.

She grabbed the handles of her cart and marched around to the front of her house. But before she could go inside, a rock came whizzing past her face.

With an involuntary cry of fright, Karin ducked, but not fast enough. It grazed her cheek, drawing out a long thin line of blood. Wincing, Karin touched her fingertips to the spot. They came back red.

"Son of a …"

Without thinking, she bent down and seized the rock, cutting her hand on a very sharp edge, a finely-honed edge. The think could have done a lot more damage than just a scratch, she thought.

Remembering her miserable childhood, and the only few good memories those of playing ball with her older brothers, she gripped the rock harder, ignoring the sharp pain. The rock became slick with her own blood. Then, with a scream of fear and rage, mostly rage, she wound up and hurled it as hard as she could in the direction she thought it had come. She did not really expect it to find its mark, but it made her feel a little better, anyway.

Karin pressed her back against the solid stone wall of the house for some protection.

"Hey," she shrieked in to the supposed empty woods around her. "Hey you! You want me out, you're gonna have to do a lot better than that! I'm not bothering you so just leave me ALONE!"

Trembling, Karin grabbed her cart full of water and dashed in to her house, slamming and locking all the locks on her very solid door.

She was so flustered that she did not even notice the smears of blood she left across her door.

Dad, I'm sorry about all those times I complained about your paranoia, Karin silently told her long dead parent. It looked like the old man's mental illness just might come in handy after all.

Maurice's mind was still in a bit of a whirl even as he made his way to Karin's house. She was not his secret anymore, not now that both Caesar and Cornelia knew what was going on.

Had he done the right thing? The poor old Orangutan just didn't know.

And what will those two cook up between them, Maurice wondered as he swung through the trees. Knowing the pair, there was no way to guess. None.

How am I going to break this to Karin, was his next set of worries? She was unlikely to be happy when she found out that more Apes know about her. Maurice knew she was frightened of Apes in general, frightened of almost everything, really, and not just Apes. Was it her isolation that had done that? He did not think so, not entirely.

What he did not know, and had not yet come up with a gentle way to ask, was why she was so frightened of Apes? Had something happened, maybe in the recent past? Had she met other Apes, and not in good circumstances?

I hope Apes weren't directly responsible for the death of her child. Maurice did not think so, being almost certain Karin had mentioned something vague about her daughter being ill. He prayed it was not Apes who killed little Lisa.

It was almost a shock when the Orangutan found himself entering Karin's little clearing. He had not realized he had been traveling so fast.

He smiled as he approached the house. And then, he froze in his tracks. Lifting his head, he sniffed the air.

Blood! Human blood!

There was not a lot. He found a few small drops soaking in to the dirt, but what really got his attention was the several smears of drying blood on Karin's front door.

The big Orangutan struggled to keep himself under control. He did not want to frighten her again with another needless outburst. But the blood was nearly dry. It had obviously been there for hours, maybe since that morning.

All the worst possibilities flashed through Maurice's mind as he raised his hand, and pounded on Karin's door. Yes, it was not his usual polite knock. He hoped she would forgive his lack of manners in the current situation. And, if he had to break her door down, he hoped she would forgive that, too.

I'll help her fix it!

Hearing nothing, he pounded again, harder.

"Karin!" he cried her name in to the silence. "Karin!"

Something at the back of the house shattered, and he heard a woman swear quite colorfully.

Well, at least she's awake, he almost grinned as footsteps rushed towards the door.

The peephole in the door slid open.

"Maurice?" Karin's hushed voice said through the tiny slit.

He softly rumbled at her, trying to sound less threatening and more soothing.

"Jesus!" was all she said before closing the peephole and starting to open her door.

It took her a moment. Maurice could hear her disengaging locks that he had not even known were present on the door. Once she had it open, he had to fling his arms out quickly to catch her. The poor woman practically threw herself at him. She clung tightly to him for a moment.

"Get in, quick," she urged. "and for God's sake, close that door!"

He allowed her to pull him in to the house, and nudged the door shut with his foot. She released him then, turning back to her door and re-engaging her locks. The sound of so many locks clicking in to place was not a pleasant one for Maurice, but he let it go. He knew she was not trying to cage him. She was obviously trying to keep something else out.

And, in the faint light thrown by her battery-powered lamp, he knew right away that something else was wrong. As she turned back to him, he reached out one large hand and gently cupped her face. She started to flinch away, then sighed with resignation. She held up a bandaged hand, also.

To his credit, Maurice did not let his basic protective instincts overwhelm him this time, though he badly wanted to let them.

"What happened here?" Maurice asked gently, leading her back to her battered old couch.

Once she was sitting down, Maurice could almost see her weighing what options to tell him. But she caught him a little off guard with a question.

"Maurice, have you been behind my house in the last day or two?"

He blinked.

"No," he answered. "I have never been behind your house. Why?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she replied. "But I hoped … Oh, who am I trying to kid. I knew it wasn't you."

Maurice gently took her uninjured hand in his own, and he waited patiently. She was obviously working her way to telling him something important, and he was in no hurry to have to tell her about his conversations with his Leader and his Queen. So, he waited, softly stroking her hand all the while.

"I have rain barrels back there to help collect water," she explained. "One of them has a slow hairline leak in the bottom. And, next to that one I found … I found an Ape's footprint."

Maurice did not like the sound of that.

"When?" he asked.

"This morning, just a little after dawn."

Oh no! Someone else besides Caesar and Cornelia know about her.

Maurice did not like this one bit.

The big Orangutan squeezed his friend's hand, in part to comfort her, and in part to keep himself under control. His protective instincts were at war with his higher intelligence again.

"Did an Ape attack you?"

She gave a start, then lowered her eyes before answering.

"n-no," she said very hesitantly.

"Why is it," Maurice said a little irritably. "Why is it that humans often say the opposite of what they really mean?"

"I didn't," she started to protest.

The old Orangutan fixed her with a stern look.

"Oh, fine then," she relented.

He watched as Karin turned her head, and with her free hand clumsily peeled back the bandage on her face.

Maurice gasped out loud when he saw her wound. He was certain he knew what had caused it.

"Someone or something threw a rock at me," she told him unnecessarily.

Not just a rock, Maurice thought, his anger rising.

Maurice let go of her hand and got quickly to his feet.

"What—What's the matter?" she cried, jumping up and following him to her front door.

"Open this, please," he growled at her.

"But where are you going?" she asked even as she fumbled with her various locks.

"To look around," he told her. "I will be back soon. You locked yourself in here when I am gone."

"I'm coming with you,""

She started to follow him outside.

Females! Maurice thought annoyed. Ape or human, why do they never do as they are told?

Whirling around, Maurice easily caught the woman by her waist, and firmly set her back inside.

"No! You stay safe here!"

"But it's too dark!" he heard her calling out after him. "You don't know you're way around here!"

Her anguished voice tore at his tender heart. All that was probably true. But he did still have her little light with him. And he would be careful.

"Close and lock your door," he snarled back at her. And, finally she darted back in, slamming the door shut.

He looked back one last time to see her glaring at him from her living room window.

I'll make it up to her, he thought sadly as he headed for the back of her house. Just as soon as I make sure she's safe.

Karin paced the inside of her house, fuming. She did not know what there was about a nasty scratch that set Maurice off like that. She had been wishing that she had saved the rock to show him, but now was glad she had thrown it away.

"idiot," Karin muttered to herself as she stomped back and forth helplessly. "Silly old overprotective Ape."

Eventually, she got tired of pacing and stomping around. She flung herself down on her couch, and pulling a lamp close for some light, she pressed her face against a window, waiting for Maurice to return.

But when more than an hour had passed, and there was still no sign of Maurice, her fear overrode her anger in indignation.

"I don't care what he wants," she muttered. "I'm going out to look for him. If he's gone off in to the woods behind the house …"

Actual terror flooded her. What if he gets attacked by a wildcat or a bear. What if he misjudges in the dark and falls? What if …

Stopping her privatewhat ifs, Karin collected a couple of knives, tying one on a rope around her waist and fixing the other smaller one in to a holster that she strapped to her thigh. Again, she blessed her Father's paranoid tendencies for leaving her all this stuff.

I wish his mind had not gone bad before I found out where the old fool buried the rest of the ammo, though, Karin fretted. She had plenty of guns, but her Father had buried the remainder of his ammunitions, and she did not know exactly where, except that it was somewhere in the overgrown back yard.

No time to go digging for it now, she told herself.

Grabbing an extra-large and heavy mag light and a few batteries, she switched on the light and hung it by its strap around her neck and headed out towards the back of her house.

It was easy enough to find Maurice's footprints near the one leaking water barrel. After that, it became more of a challenge, and Karin was not a trained tracker of anything, let alone an orangutan who would probably be taking to the trees.

"Maurice," she stage-whispered as she entered the surrounding woods with much hesitation. "where are you? If you get us both killed, I'll never forgive you for it."

It did not take long before Karin had to face the fact that she would never find Maurice in the darkened woods. Not unless he wanted her too, and he wanted her to stay in the house. She was just about to start back, when a rending crash made her jump.

"Oh, God! Maurice?" she shrieked, running towards the sound.

It was not hard to find the toppled tree. She nearly fell over it, in fact. And beneath it was a large mound of fur.

"Maurice?" Karin cried.

She tried to pull him out from beneath the tree, but he was too heavy. And he was good and pinned down. The weight of the giant old tree was not helping matters, either, Karin pushed and pulled and clawed uselessly at the old tree, but the only thing that did was to re-open the wound on the one hand while badly cutting and scraping the other.

Getting hold of herself, the frantic woman stopped fighting with the tree.

"One of my crazy old Dad's stupid traps," Karin sobbed. "I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen."

But the old Orangutan was not listening now. He was unconscious. It appeared to Karin as if the tree had first fallen and landed on his chest. Before he fell unconscious, he must have been able to shift it lower to where it only now pinned his lower body, instead.

"Busted ribs, punctured lungs. Oh God, Maurice."

Karin was openly weeping now. But she knew what she had to do.

"Don't you dare die on me before I get back," she commanded the unconscious Ape tearfully.

Then, she fled back to her house, running faster than she had ever run in her life. Snatching up a compass, she headed away from the house in the opposite direction.

Karin did not even try to find easy trails. She just kept running, barreling her way forward. She ran and jumped and tripped over limbs and rocks, but always got up and kept going. She was sure she was heading in the right general direction. And, making enough noise to wake the dead or any predator nearby.

Though she was already badly scraped and bruised and bleeding, her fear for Maurice outweighed any fears for her own life.

When she thought she might be close enough, Karin mustered her strength and began to scream with all her might.

"Help?" Karin screamed in to the darkness. "Caesar! Anyone, help, please? Maurice needs help! CAESAR! CAESAR!"

She kept screaming out the Ape Leaders name as she ran. Dizziness and her own blood loss began to overtake her, but she would not let herself fall. Then, she reeled forward and slammed straight in to something very large, solid and very hairy.

Bear! That was her first panicked thought. But before she could go for one of her knives, she was hoisted up off the ground by her upper arms. Still crying out for Caesar, Karin kicked and screamed until the thing slapped a hand over her face. This still did not completely quiet her, so she was pulled in to its big chest hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She was roughly searched, her knives taken. She was held out away from the big furry chest, dangling in mid-air by her arms, and before it was ripped away from her by another big furry thing nearby, her light showed the heavy-browed face of King Kong gaping at her in utter astonishment.

The huge gorillas amazed expression might have been funny, if things weren't so serious. But Karin had done what she'd wanted to do. She had found Maurice's people.

Karin Evans had found the Apes.

A/N:

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this from the start. And, a huge welcome to any new readers. Reviews and/or PMs are always welcome.