dazlious | Call me animal.

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Call me animal.

WHO: Heather Mason and Maurice Hutch (OC)
WHERE: Dogtrot, Texas
WHEN: Just easing into spring.
WHAT: What probably would have been a night spent loitering around the drug store and breaking bottles in the alley like generic malcontent youths takes several unexpected turns when a vampire hunter interrupts Maurice while waiting for his friend from up north.
RATING: Probably PG. CW for violence, mild body horror and transformation.

awsum ill be outside where the rentareel used to be

Maurice had put out the call and now he was in his place, hands in his coat pockets. He hadn't seen his friend for a while now. One thing or another would come up (said things including worrying mothers, various injuries, and plain bad weather) and now that at least the weather had calmed its bad self down, the world was ready to be trampled again.

And what a night for it! It was clear with chilly breezes sneaking around buildings and down alleyways. An orange moon hung low on the horizon and kept the clouds far on the edges of the horizon. It wouldn't rain for two more days. Spring was coming. The tiny green shoots had just barely started poking out of the ground where there was enough actual soil instead of the red clay of Dogtrot. Crispy dead leaves still hung in the corners where the buildings met the sidewalk. Easter candy all but overflowed on super market shelves.

The vampire thought of all the things they would do once Heather got there. They could graffiti the old building marked to be torn down the following week since it was technically not illegal anymore. They could eat pizza at Tod's until they were sick. And DRANKS. And Sega. If Meranda hadn't taken over the sofa for the night. An outlet in her room had blown (or so she said) so she spent a lot of time on the sofa during her WoW raids.

Something interrupted his thoughts. He had lived in Dogtrot for years now and not a lot surprised him. He knew the local vampires, he even knew a local spook or two. He knew the drug addicts and the few homeless and what they sounded like. What he heard on that empty chilly street was none of those things.

"Quack quack!" It was mechanical. Grainy.

Maurice lifted a brow and tugged his phone out wondering if Meranda had passive-aggressively changed the ring on it again.

"Quack quack!"

"The hell...?" It wasn't his phone. Maurice pocketed it and looked all around. The quack came from an alley across the street between a now defunct QUICK CASH and what was going to be a shiny new laundromat. Maurice looked both ways and ventured forward into the gloom.

The garbage can at the end of the alley quacked. Maurice screwed up his face in thought. Broken toy that suddenly came back to life? Stranded cyborge duck?

Up above on the rooftop, a long and lean and very crafty hunter was watching his prey fall for his trap hook, line, and sinker. His father had been a hunter--a normal hunter. Deer, ducks, rams. He had watched him make odd noises to get the attention of the deer. A whistle or a click to make them stop in just the right place. Sometimes to even lure them in.

Humans were the most curious animals that he knew of and though the thing in the alleyway wasn't human (not in the slightest) he had to watch it in fascination and amusement before he made his move.

Maurice peered into the trash. There was an old Talkboy straight from the eighties in the trash quacking away.

"Oh, man, sweet!" It was all his! He reached for it. Something dressed in full army camo descended upon him and drove a thin knife into his shoulder. Maurice screamed like a wildcat and the fight began.

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The eerie glow of eyeshine was something any vampire hunter probably familiarized themselves with before anything else-- how to tell a lurking allycat or a marauding raccoon apart from bloodsucking denizens of the underworld about to fly out of the shadows towards your jugular was probably pretty important.

But the two glowing circles that met Anthony as he whirled around were not the result of light bouncing off lenses and reflecting back.

They were two smoldering embers that made their own light, and also smoke. Tendrils of literal smoke drifted up from them and off into the night as they stared down at the vampire hunter, then at the faintly-glowing orange line that his knife had made on the back of its enormous hand. Then they followed the smoky trails skyward as their owner stood up. And up. And UP.

Anthony had been on his share of forest trails at night and he had seen trucks and jeeps of all kinds roar past. He had been in those jeeps before--spotlighting illegally with his uncle. They jeered together at the hapless clusters of does trapped in the beams.

His whole body shivered despite the heat rolling off of those hellish headlights. Out of reflex, stupidly, he too followed the phantom trails of smoke that leaked from the piddly wound on the monster's hand.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Maurice was still face-down on the blacktop smarting all over something fierce with the hunter perched on top of him. Anthony had severed quite a few vital wick highways during his little stabbing frenzy and one of his arms was completely useless until they mended themselves. Not to mention hitting concrete after several pounds of man muscle stunned you hurt and he ached for every poor soul he'd had to pounce.

Why had the stabbing stopped? He turned his head to one side and managed to suck in enough air to let out a growl.

The thing stood until it blotted out the street lights at the mouth of the alley.

As if to replace them, a line of searing light opened below the sizzling eyes.

A mouth. Or a beak, more accurately.

The sound that came out of the beak could barely be classified as a growl. It was the rumble that made your floor vibrate when a cumulus cloud had picked your house to grow fat and dark over, combined with a phlegmy, organic snarl that brought it down to earth just enough to stop you from forgetting the situation.

Here, 'you' would be Anthony, and 'the situation' would be the part where a god had him by the arm.

The beast narrowed its fiery eyes and yanked the hunter up into the air like a ragdoll.

Anthony's teeth rattled in his head like yahtzee dice as the thing rose. This was a wholly new feeling. A feeling he had never felt before but the lizard brain in him recognized it immediately. It wasn't the feeling you got when you feel from some place high or noticed too late that a speeding car was headed right for you and there was no time for you to get out of the way.

It was a dark, acrid feeling that sprang like a well from sticky jungles. It was the feeling a mouse gets when it comes face to face with a cat.

The would-be hunter gaped like a fish and even made a few practice mouth-motions-- as if he were going to explain himself to this dark Otherbeast. The only sound that came out of him was a hight-pitched yodle as he was hefted up into the air.

Maurice sucked in a gasp at the sudden lack of pressure and army-crawled away so that he could roll and lean himself against the trash can. Whatever this guy was up to, fine! He'd fight! At least something had convinced him to allow him to face him man to man. Blood dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. While Anthony hadn't gotten to his heart, he'd poked quite a few holes in his lungs.

He turned to spit a pink and bubbly hiss at his attacker but the noise died in his throat when he saw this...mammoth scarecrow beast holding a human man up like he was a toy. He saw the knife flicker in the light from the thing's eyes.

Oh.

For just a second, the beast regarded the dangling man with a sort of vague curiosity. Like maybe it might let go to see what happened.

... NAAAAAH!

In a sudden, vicious motion, it slammed Anthony to the wall and held him there like a poster about to be nailed up-- one giant meaty hand pressed to his chest.

Maurice was treated to a side-view of the creature as light flickered back into the alley, glimmering between the beast's splayed legs and lifted arms. It was scrawny in places and almost comically broad in others, with a thin shaggy tail that swished restlessly behind it. Feet with deceptively-extensive feathering bore wicked, raptorlike claws that glinted faintly but far more impressively than the hunter's knife. And behind it, a set of shadowy wings spread like a curtain.

It was, quite frankly, horrifying.

But fortunately, Maurice wasn't the one in danger.

The creature opened its beak, revealing a row of razor-like teeth poking from reddened gums, and then it roared. It roared right in Anthony's face.

Anthony felt sick. He hardly even registered the pain in his arm--dislocated probably. All he could do was stare at the strange ragged thing that had hold of him. It wasn't a vampire. It wasn't even a monster!

It was The Devil.

The Devil himself had rose up out of the sewers and muck and tracked him, a good God-fearing boy down and now he was going to eat him. The hunter let out a thin whistley sound as he was yanked from his self-pitying thoughts and slammed against cold bricks. When the thing opened its mouth it erased every atom of doubt that the thing was The Devil. It carried Hell INSIDE it and he felt the embers bite the skin on his cheeks as his eardrums burst.

Maurice shrank together from the sound--his own sensative hearing sending knives of pain all the way down his neck. He pressed one ear to his shoulder and clappd his working hand over the other. Maybe if he was very, very still the thing wouldn't notice him--like a T-Rex!

Was it...going to eat the dude? Maurice's stomach turned but he couldn't look away. It was like watching a car crash.

The Devil was one name for it.

The roar carried on longer than was probably necessary.

Then, no sooner than it had ended, the creature released Anthony from the wall, only to turn in place and bodily fling him out into the road. If this had been an edgy action movie, he'd have been pile-drived by a speeding bus before even hitting the ground, but fortunately for him, there wasn't anybody out driving at this time of night so the worst he would face from his spill would be some broken teeth and maybe a concussion.

But one thing he would have to carry with him down the road was the memory of the last thing he'd see before eating asphalt-- a flare of radiant light blooming behind the creature's head, forming a perfect circle. Like the ring around a full moon on a clear, cold night.

Anthony rolled. His knife spun across the street like a coin. He hit the edge of a public mailbox and for a moment he curled around it like the hurt animal he was. Then, that good old lizard brain pushed him up on an elbow--opposite of the one he'd temporarily ruined on Maurice-- and then a knee. Shock pushed him to his boots--boots that should have belonged to a soldier and not him. Blood rolled over his swelling lips and his head was full of bells. Through tears and smoke he saw The Devil in the alleyway.

He wobbled there like a newborn fawn for a long minute (and perhaps something within him was newly born--not only a crippling fear but a respect for the unknown) and promptly turned and skittered away into the night with a darkening patch running down the inside of one camo-clad leg.

As Anthony's footsteps faded, Maurice peeled one pale hand away from his ear. It still rang but nowhere near as bad as the hunter's would for days to come. He was glad the guy was gone but now he had to deal with this...thing. What was--RIGHT. RIGHT, THE PLAN.

The vampire held his breath and shrank together there by the trashcan, trying to look as small and unnoticeable as a three hundred pound man with stupid blond hair could. If he'd had a pulse, his heart would have already torn through his Ghostbusters shirt.

Please go away, please go away, please go away.

Aw yea consider yourself fuckin' SMOTE, you son of a bitch!

The creature stood and watched as the would-be hunter staggered away, making sure to let him feel her eyes on his back until he was well out of view.

Then she lifted her oversized hands and dusted them off in a way that seemed far too human to be coming from a giant specter.

It was only after that that she turned around, seemingly remembering the victim of attempted-slaying that she'd just prevented from being turned into a pile of ash. Oh, right! Probably ... a good idea to make sure he was all right.

She took a step towards the cowering vampire, hand raised-- ... only to freeze as the second thoughts hit.

And they were pretty big second thoughts.

Rescinding that step forward, she started to back away instead, giant claws balling themselves into unsure fists.

Shit.

Please go away, please go away, please goOOOOOD IT SEES ME OH GOD.

Maurice, cringing all over with pain, backed himself as tightly as he could into the corner between the trash and the brick and what looked like an old box full of empty beer bottles and newspaper. He saw those huge skull-crushing hands reaching for him. The sassy little dust-off didn't even register because he too was getting the mousy feeling. Only his wasn't full of holier-than-thou indigence.

He just knew and accepted that he had pretty shit luck.

The dead man opened his mouth and spluttered out a half-hearted little hiss.

If she weren't intimately familiar with fear and all its brain-clouding glory, she might have felt hurt at his hiss. But no, she totally got it. It was cool.

That didn't get rid of the dilemma, though.

Because GUESS WHAT? She totally didn't think this through at all.

Backing up to the mouth of the alley, she leaned back to peer out-- as much as she wanted to skidaddle, return to normal, and THEN come back as though she'd never been here in the first place, that wouldn't work. It didn't matter that barely anyone was awake right now, there were still some people awake and she couldn't go lumbering through the middle town when she was being a giant demonic bird.

She looked back at Maurice, scuffing a giant, clawed foot on the ground.

Fear wasn't easily dissipated, but Maurice's blinding panic would probably at least go down a notch or two when Slenderbird uttered a gravelly but very-human "... Um."

His eyes never left her, not for a second and they stayed wide and red. His pupils hardly existed and he forgot to blink for...he didn't remember the last time he blinked. Every twitch of every claw, every shifting feather, every drifting ember, he took it in.

However.

However there was a kinship he held with all monsters, no matter how fearful or grudging or full of wonder he felt and when the being didn't immediately launch at him or let out another of those terrible roars, Maurice started to wonder. That wonder was cut off by it speaking up. Luckily the sound The Devil made registered as a word but he didn't catch the voice.

How could he?

Instead, he swallowed all the blood that had pooled in his mouth and coughed once.

"D'...do I owe you m-money?"

Why else would it have spared him?

... You know, if this situation hadn't been what it was, Heather would have been tempted to think back on all the times Maurice's pockets had turned out empty and she'd been the one stuck paying for soda and burgers.

In hindsight, she would probably regret not doing that, because what better way to gently out yourself than by pointing an abominable hellfinger and rumbling 'YES, MAURICE HUTCH, YOU NEVER FUCKIN' PAID ME BACK FOR THAT MIDNIGHT TRIP TO IHOP.'

But the fact of the matter was that this was not only the first time she'd slipped into this skin in front of anybody, it was also the first time she'd done it anywhere but the safety of her own apartment with all the doors locked and the shades drawn.

So the giant creature stared down at Maurice sheepishly and said, "No..."

Maurice found himself in a world of confusion. It didn't act like it was going to eat him. It didn't want money...but whatever it wanted, the vampire was at its mercy because with a bum arm and his back full of holes. He coughed again.

Damn that guy. Whoever he was. Some overgrown football player it looked like. Or felt like. He hadn't been tackled in a good long time and he'd forgotten what it was like to have his bell rung.

The awkward, ember-filled silence that stretched between them started making his stomach hurt so he coughed again and offered up a new question. "What...d'you..."

No, that wasn't the right question.

"What..."

No, not that one either. It was rude.

"Who?"

That was the ticket.

Give 'em a break, Mason, he's trying to figure out why the train has just stalled on the tracks five feet away.

SHE'S TRYING OKAY.

The awkward silence wasn't so silent in her own head (though it was just as awkward)-- her brain was racing, trying to find an out. Technically she could probably climb the wall of the alley and disappear across the rooftops-- there probably wouldn't be anybody randomly watching the tops of buildings right this second.

But this had stretched onwards too long. If she'd ollied out the moment she sent that hunter packing, that might've worked, but no. Too late for that.

So after a moment or so, she heaved a smoky sigh and reached up to fluff up the tuft of scraggly blond mane (fur? feathers? it was hard to tell) on top of her head.

"What, you don't recognize me? C'mon, Zilla. I'm hurt," she said, feebly trying to sound casual.

Speaking of Heather, though Maurice was frantically worried over his own skin, he was hoping and praying that his buddy was held up in traffic somewhere. He didn't want her walking in on this.

But then the bomb dropped and pulled him out of his thoughts. The thing's beak opened and a familiar voice came out. It called him by the name only one person called him. He stopped shivering and he stopped trying to draw his head into his body like a turtle. He was going to have to do something about this because Maurice Logic dictated that one of two things had happened:

a) This being was his friend to whom something horrible (and possibly his fault) had happened and now they had to go on some complicated adventure to reverse before the next full moon.

b) This thing ATE Heather and her voice was actually coming from inside it.

Through all his fear and pain, Maurice actually managed not to pick the stupider of the two.

"I'm either...really...really drunk or you're a giant chicken."

Maurice felt dizzy.

Well, let's be real, given how many things were possible in a universe of infinite other universes, some monster eating people and stealing their voices wasn't all that weird a conclusion to jump to.

But fortunately, yeah, that wasn't the case.

And as if to prove that she still had a sense of humor even when shoved out of the closet (the monster kind of closet, not the gay closet) in front of someone, the bird creature looked Maurice dead in the eye and said "Yes. It's true. I'm a giant chicken."

Oh!

Well that was sort of a relief because he didn't remember drinking before Heather arrived. He was still on the wagon (the wagon of knowing his fucking limit). It also meant that there wasn't booze in town to make him hallucinate his friend as a giant bird monster curb stomping the shit out of army guys. Hah.

O-oh. Oh.

Maurice sat up on his knees and gestured wildly with his functioning arm. "Oh, God, Heather, I'm so sorry! W-we'll fix this! I swear to God! We'll take you to a...I don't guess a priest would know anything. My m-mom might know what to do! She knows everything!"

She lifted her monstrous hands again, this time holding them palms-out in the universal 'whoa slow down' gesture.

"--wh-- no, ZILLA, stop. It's fine. STOP."

"No, it's not FINE! This isn't fine! A-oowh! Ssshhhhhit." He tried to heave himself up but a ripple of pain shot through his back and sent him back to one knee.

What's-His-Face had jabbed a few important muscles in his sides as well. Good grief who is teaching these people how to stab a man? It's something when a vampire knows more about how to stab somebody right and proper than a vampire hunter.

Maurice looked her up and down again taking in her claws, her scraggly little tail, those feet that could stomp a man's head in. What was she? Who did this to her? Oh, God. Oh, God what if it was BLOODSPUR? That wouldn't explain why she seemed to be slightly on fire though...

"What happened, Heather?"

Edited 2014-03-15 02:27 (UTC)

"Nothing happened, just..."

You never realize how hard it is to describe something supernatural until you experience something that isn't even the norm for the abnormal. If it had been a werewolf bite, it might be rough to tell people, but at least you could always sum it up as 'Yeah, I got my ass bit on the full moon. Sucks.'

But rolling out of bed one morning with black hair and feathers sprouting in all kinds of places that people weren't supposed to have them was really weird.

"Anyway, are you okay? Who was that guy?"

Derailment for 500, please!

Maurice managed to make a face at Heather that wasn't either terrified or the blue screen of death. He shot her a little frown from his place on the concrete and huffed.

"No and I don't know! Are you okay? What...when did you get...what happened? Tell me what's going on!"

Why wasn't she telling him? Why weren't they gearing up to go kick whatever-it-was's ass? Though...after what he'd seen her do (and it was just now sinking in that Heather didn't just appear after the fight was over, she was the one who wrecked that guy's shit something awful) he was sure that she could have fucked up whoever or whatever did this to her.

He felt weird and out of the loop--like he was the only one in the room that didn't understand the ax sticking out of someone's head was a joke or a prop and everyone was looking at him funny for freaking out. Only the ax was a giant bird monster. A giant...weirdly scrawny bird monster. But that would start eating at him in a moment.

She didn't want to tell him what was going on, she wanted them to hang out like normal and she could go on being his perfectly normal human buddy who did normal things and this big fat secret could continue being kept all to herself.

But the problem with bursting into an alleyway as a giant monster and seriously injuring someone was that you couldn't exactly blow it off with 'I don't wanna talk about it'. She'd more or less revoked that right when she hurled that dude into the street.

"It's complicated. Can you like... shut your eyes, please?"

Maurice glanced around and after a moment of paranoia that he was instantly ashamed of, he sat back on his knees and obliged.

"Okay..." He covered his eyes for good measure.

The pain he was in was finally starting to seep in now that the threat was gone. Ow, his shoulder. Ow, his lungs. Ow his everything. He hoped that dude had nightmares for as long as he lived. Whatever had happened to Heather, he sure had been lucky.

Perhaps surprisingly, there weren't any grotesque crunching sounds or squelches or other weird noises generally associated with bodily transformation.

There was, however, some rustling and scraping.

She'd... she'd pretty much ruined the shirt she was wearing. 8[;; Oops. Good thing she'd pulled off that hoodie long before monstering out. And her jeans were already shredded to hell and back anyway. She yanked them both on, thanking whatever was listening for the fact that baggy clothes made going commando less uncomfortable.

"Okay..." she said at last, voice back to normal. "Nudity averted, it's safe to open your eyes."

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