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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Maurice stretched his arms above his head. "Oh, hours, usually. Sometimes all night." He paused and leaned back toward the backpack. "I did bring snacks."

Something off in the woods screamed and Maurice paused to listen. The scream was joined by another. And another--a chorus. Coyotes. Something strange was in their woods and they didn't like it.

"Now what's got into them..." Maurice leaned back up and stared off into the dark trees.

When the yapping shrieks started up, the hair--or feathers-- it was honestly a little hard to tell WHICH she was covered in-- stood up on end. She whipped her head around to look in the direction of the screams, glowing eyes wide and unblinking for a moment.

The sound brought back memories, although it was a wilder sort of noise than the howling of the roving packs of double-heads she'd had to evade on the streets of Silent Hill.

"... Well, that's fuckin' creepy."

She wasn't used to being the biggest baddest thing in the woods yet.

The coyotes screamed on and a frown started to form on Maurice's face. He could see Heather's hackles raised. This was supposed to be a peaceful trip!

"Some dog or something must have them stirred up...they sound really agitated."

He was tempted to fly out and see what it was, but even if she was a giant leggy crow monster, he didn't fancy leaving Heather all alone by a very haunted pond.

"Just...try to ignore 'em."

"Preeetty hard to ignore."

But she stayed where she was sitting, although she started to squirm every so often.

The effect of SITTING STILL was starting to sink in.

It was hard to ignore them because as the hour stretched on the howling and yipping grew closer. They were getting brave. Maurice hadn't caught a damn thing and decided that it was time for a break. He reeled in his line and dug a couple of sandwiches out of the backpack.

He looked at the sandwiches...then he looked at Heather and her giant freak hands and nearly hurt the roof of his mouth snorting as he imagined her taking bites out of the thing.

"Are you hungry?"

"Starved."

If he was hoping for the fish in his little area to remain un-scared-off, his dreams were about to be dashed because in a few big loping steps, Heather makes her way over to the vampire and now there's a big black bird head peering down over his shoulder to see what he had.

The surface of the pond rippled as the tadpoles and fish darted out of the reeds they had been lazily hiding in. They hadn't feared the vampire at all but the thing that had come into their woods...

"Wh--hey!" Maurice noticed it too and he frowned between Heather's big storky feet at the water. Then he looked up at Big Bird and managed not to shudder this time at being towered over. He offered her the tiny sandwich.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious about what happened to things she put in her mouth.

She took the sandwich delicately in her big sharp fingers-- the thing was comically small in those hands.

She tilted her head, frowning about as much as something with a beak could.

"Is this all there is?"

WELL HEATHER IT WOULDN'T SEEM SO PALTRY IF YOU HADN'T HULKED OUT.

"Uh yeah, I packed for me and you, not me and Birdzilla." And before she could ask if she could have his half he crammed his own sandwich into his mouth.

He likes you a lot, Heather. You're his little sister. But he worked hard on these sandwiches, dammit.

"Well, if you hadn't turned the lights out on me, I wouldn'tve had to resort to this."

That didn't explain why she didn't turn BACK, but the truth was, she was a little scared her jeans had ripped a little too much in the wrong places and turning back might mean being in the middle of the woods in a bunch of shredded clothing. Next to a haunted pond.

Not Heather's idea of fun.

She lifted the sandwich to her beak, but hesitated. She'd munched on things in this form before, but nothing that ever really required biting chunks out of it.

"Well if you had minded your own BUSINESS and left things well enough alone I wouldn'ta had ta turn out the lights!" Maurice barked back.

He wasn't truly angry but it made him feel brave to sass something that could fit his entire upper torso in its mouth.

"Well if YOU hadn't gotten so worked up over a pile of shoes in the woods, I wouldn'tve been so interested!"

SO THERE, MAURICE.

She gave up wondering and made a first attempt at sinking her beak into the sandwich. ... Beaks were not built for sandwich-eating.

Maurice jutted his jaw out but his grouchy expression soon dissolved because the image of Heather biting into that sandwich like it was a cheez-it was too funny. A jagged grin crawled across his face and the vampire started to snort. He tried to make it look like he was coughing.

The spiky feathers on the back of her neck bristled slightly. But she didn't say anything. If she opened her beak, the food would just fall right out of it. And then he'd laugh even more.

So she just flicked her eyes over to him as she tilted her head back, trying to get the lump of sandwich into a position where she could actually maneuver it towards her gullet.

Tears started to prickle at the corners of his eyes. He fake-coughed louder but the coughs were turning into yips of laughter. Then he stopped caring and slowly slumped over his packpack hee-hawing at his friend trying to eat a damn sandwich.

Heather lifted a monstrous paw and gave the most impressive middle-finger she'd ever displayed to anyone. Bigger was better.

"Shh'dup."

Finally tossing it into position, she gulped hard. Chewing wasn't really an option-- the sandwich went down whole.

In the shadow of the most colossal bird to ever be flipped Maurice burst out laughing and fell to his side holding his stomach. She was so mad.

"Please don't choke! I'm not big enough to give you the Heimlich!"

Her shaggy throat bobbed as she swallowed, glaring at Maurice the whole time.

Then she said, thickly, "You're gonna need the Heimlich in a moment, buster."

"No-ho I'm not because I can chew!"

PLONK!

That's the sound an entire fishing rod makes when it's jerked into a pond-Heather's pole to be exact. The surface rippled where it went down and a dark shape sank down into the depths.

"Yes you are, because I'm gonna shove that sandwich down your--"

And then came the splash.

Eyes widening to circles, Heather's head whipped around fast enough that a human's neck would have snapped had it attempted the same thing.

She stared at the spot where the fishing rod had been for a second or two, bristly neck feathers standing straight up, before figuring out what had happened.

Letting out a harsh squawk of indignant surprise, she leaped upright and hurried over to the spot.

"HEY!!"

Maurice was still laughing when she turned away from him. When he didn't get buffeted with a giant claw hand he leaned up and noticed that she had tensed. He followed her with his eyes to where she stalk-jogged and noticed that her pole was gone.

"Dadgumit." That was one of the poles he'd brought home from Tworock! He leaned up, briefly caught his foot on the skeleton of the lawn chair he'd busted through earlier and walked up beside Heather.

"Well...I can see if I can find a long stick and dig it out of there."

"What the hell! It took the whole THING? What?"

She stalked back and forth a few feet at the water's edge before stopping and staring at the ripples where it had gone in.

"Dammit!"

Either deaf to or ignoring Maurice's suggestion, she lifted one foot and put it in the water, resulting in a low hiss of steam.

Maurice tensed up and reached out but caught himself. At the hissing and steam he clenched his teeth. What if his friend went out like a candle! But-- she didn't seem to be screeching or writhing in pain.

"Heather be-- be careful! There could be snakes!"

"I dare a fuckin' snake to mess with me."

The pointless bravado wasn't entirely stupid-- just ignorant. Poisonous snakes weren't really a thing up north.

But ignorant or not, she was determined.

And when she failed to like... evaporate, she took another step. The water hissed again, but didn't bubble or boil. However much heat was radiating off of Heather's strange new body, it didn't seem to be enough to do much other than make a noise like when you stick a hot frying pan under a faucet.

Maurice worried with a twig that he'd snatched from the bank. He eyed the murky water but decided that she was right. What was a snake going to do to Heather? If it sank its teeth into her it might just burn up. Or perhaps she would poison it back.

"Well o-okay..."

In the sooty blackening water something moved against the birdmonster's feet and slithered deeper into the center of the pond.

"If you can't find it you can use mine..."

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