Separation by J.S. Frankel

Istvan whined. “I do not
want to think about food, but it is thinking about me.”
    “Fine, fine,” Harry said, trying not to be
impatient. He also hadn’t eaten in a while, but he’d been thinking
of what Allenby could be planning, and his mind was full of
possible theories. Still, he had to focus on the situation at hand.
“Okay, sit tight, let me look this over.”
    He checked their targets—yes, three of them
carried knapsacks, and while this was so not the time to think of
their next meal, Anastasia’s tummy had begun to growl, very
audibly, too. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m... you know.”
    Yeah, I know, Harry thought, and then came up
with an idea. “Leo, take a walk.”
    The mole-man turned around with a quizzical
expression on his furry face. “Take walk... where?”
    “Over there,” Harry pointed directly at the
group of thugs.
    “Are you feeling normal?”
    It had to be the oddest question around, and
in any other situation it would have been funny, but Harry had no
time to explain. “Just do it.”
    Leo threw him a nervous glance, but toddled
out with his hands held high and yelled something in Italian.
Immediately, the group hustled over and one of the men slammed him
to the ground. They stood in a circle over their captive, laughing
as though they’d bagged the biggest prize.
    Anastasia leaped out of her hiding place and
smashed two of them to the ground. Harry took care of the other
three in short order, using fists and elbows to knock them out.
After tying them up with their belts, he took their knapsacks. As
Leo had indicated with his hypersensitive nose, two of the
knapsacks contained bottles of wine along with bread, cheese, and
some sausages.
    “We eat now?” Leo asked, practically
salivating at the sight of the edibles.
    “We find somewhere safe to eat and then
sleep,” Anastasia stated, and pointed off to their right. “I see a
bunch of trees up ahead. Let’s go there.”
    Her observation proved to be correct, and
they took their booty over to the small forest where they tore into
the food. Leo immediately guzzled down one of the bottles of wine,
gave a satisfied burp, and then passed out. Istvan also ate his
fill and lay down to sleep, and Harry nodded at his wife. “Get some
rest,” he said. “I’ll stand watch.”
    She kissed him fondly on the lips. “Give us a
couple of hours. We have to get moving.”
    Curling her tail around her body, she
gracefully slipped to the earth and was soon out. Harry smiled at
the way she slept, like a small child, but Anastasia was no child.
She was with child, and he would soon become a father.
    Once again, awe overcame him. A father...
what would the baby look like, he wondered with a sense of
bemusement. He’d always wanted to get married, but this? Fear of
fatherhood, perhaps a natural feeling for everyone, filled him, but
at the same time he resolved to be strong. Bringing a new life into
the world, he had to take responsibility.
    Shifting his attention to the landscape
around them and the rapidly lightening sky, he paced back and
forth, sniffing the air, but detected no scents of anything save a
few animals that had come out to forage. Still, he stayed on the
alert until the early cry of a rooster alerted them that morning
had broken.
    They continued their journey just after
sunup, and while they made decent progress for the first hour,
Anastasia soon tired, and Leo’s body was not built for long hikes.
He plodded along, each step becoming slower than the last. “I must
rest,” he said, plopping down on the ground.
    Istvan also complained about not being able
to walk much further. They’d come to the edge of a small village
and sought refuge in a grove of bushes at the edge of a field. The
day had dawned hot and bright, and by now everyone was sweaty and
tired, but the trees and bushes gave them a bit of shelter.
    However, without any water or food, the
situation would soon go from bad to desperate, and no ideas seemed
to be