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12 December 1999
It lay dormant. It had shifted much of its mass elsewhere, including
nearly all of its recent, heavy meal, and kept just a few pounds of
new food inside itself. Its energy requirements were not high; it digested
its meals slowly, and would not need to eat again to for quite a long
time. But, as always, it planned ahead.
"That," said the cop, "Is the second biggest stuffed
animal I have ever seen." He poked at the cartoonish lion-stuffy
with a booted foot. The cheap fake hair of its mane ruffled around his
foot, and he turned away, his momentary amusement forgotten. "So,
the couple, the kid and the dog? Anything else missing? Car's still
here…."
It felt the prod, and watched the human withdraw through its button
eyes. It had withheld the urge to grip the foot with its 'hair' tendrils,
to begin to draw the man into itself; it was not only satiated from
its meal, but by nature cautious. Still, it knew irritation at such
treatment, and had the man been alone…the stuffy moved its head
a fraction. Sewn-shut muzzle parted, and something like a pink tongue
moistened its chops.
It knew what would happen next. It had done its research before feeding,
and its meals had been without relatives.
3 March 2000
"This isn't what the label on the box says." The teenager
poked at the fur wadded in the big cardboard container. "It's a…um."
He tilted the heavy box, spilling the rolled-up fur out, and grinned
as it took on a recognizable shape. "Hey, it's a bearskin rug!
Head and paws and all!"
"Whatever…actually, that's great." The auctioneer blinked
at the thing. "We should get a primo price for this thing."
"Shouldn't we, y'know, let somebody know we got the wrong box?"
"Nope." The man knelt, and began to roll the rug up. "Our
job is just to auction it off."
It examined its options. The change had burned a quantity of its food-reserves,
and it considered the two humans from its glass eyes. Black fur across
its pelt began to stir against the fingers that lifted it…but then
voices from the next room caught its attention. It relaxed before it
had even begun to feed. It would wait.
6 June 2000
"Honey, have you seen the sunblock?"
"Yes, dear, it's in the bag with the shampoo."
The cabin was just one of twenty at the upscale resort, but you'd have
thought it was the only one. A space-wasteful layout left it all by
itself in the pines; the path that led to it through the damp woods
had a carefully arranged untravelled look to it. Inside, it managed
to combine the cabin look, with creaking wooden floors and cast-iron
stove, with big windows and a kitchen nook with the most modern appliances.
The resorts' waiting list was a year and five months long.
"Oooh, look at this thing." Karen sat down on the bearskin
rug, and ran her hands though the long, coarse fur. The thing was thicker
than she's have expected, and felt almost like a furred mattress under
her fingers. It was about seven feet long and four wide, not counting
the clawed feet, and the glassy-eyed head was frozen in a sharp-fanged
snarl.
Bill followed her to the rug, going to his knees and kissing his wife's
exposed shoulder. "You know what they say about bearskin rugs in
front of fireplaces." His hand went around her hip, stroking her
belly.
"Oh, you are incorrigible." Ignoring him, she knelt down at
the head, and rubbed her hand over the bear's snout. The fur there was
very short and bristly, not at all like the cheeks with their ruff of
hair. She felt the dry, but still somehow rubbery-feeling black lips,
and scraped a fingernail over a thumb-sized fang before patting the
leathery tongue.
It considered, but only briefly. Since the humans had arrived it had
listened intently, and felt for vibrations through its 'fur'. It knew
that no other human was anywhere nearby - as of last night, there was
not even anyone in the nearest cabins. And it was very hungry now.
"Oh, I'm incorrigible, and you love it." Bill was rubbing
upward over her belly, just beginning to fondle her breasts, and had
to lean downward as she suddenly stuck her arm in the rug's mouth. "Stop
wriggling and pay attention, love."
Rubbing fingers over a dress-covered nipple, he accepted his wife's
silence as an invitation to continue; the way she was sprawling out
on the furry rug to explore its mouth just made the seduction a little
easier. He sprawled out on his side on the fur - its was rough and lush
against his arms and legs, where clothing didn't cover - and put his
other hand between her thighs. Preoccupied with his own growing arousal,
and with gently convincing her to become ready as well, he paid no mind
to what she was doing with the thing's head.
It took a muffled groan to distract him from his work; he looked up
with a little smile. His fingers were on the button of his shorts, and
his wife's back moved against his chest, almost violently. That, and
the groan, got him to look….
He froze. Not only his wife's arm, but her head now, was in the bear-rug's
muzzle. The black, rubbery lips were clenched tight around her shoulders,
pulsing up over the bare skin an inch at time. Something long and pink,
like a tentacle…or tongue?…was spiraled around her upper body
now, squeezing into her breasts and pinning her other arm to her side.
As he watched, the glassy artificial eyes brightened, took on a wet,
living sheen, and looked downward; his wife's shoulders were sucked
into the rug's throat with a gurgle.
"What the fuck!" He jerked up off the rug, reached for his
wife…or tried to. He managed to rise only a few inches, then flopped
back down. Something was holding his arm, where it had lain against
the rug, and both of his ankles. He tugged, and looked at himself.
The thing's pelt was alive. The foot-long, coarse black fur moved as
in an invisible wind, and waves rippled through the upstanding hairs,
from all directions, in toward him. Strands of the tough, dark fur had
wrapped around his arm, his legs, and were weaving themselves into his
shorts and shirt. He pushed frantically at the pelt with his free hand,
and in an instant tendrils of bunched-together hairs wound around his
fingers, pulling his hand down out of sight into the lush fur.
"Oh, god…." He struggled in the thing's grip, his eyes
locked on his wife. On what was left of her; the tongue had shifted
down to her hips, and her breasts bulged out of the thing's muzzle for
a moment before her torso was drawn smoothly out of sight. Her legs
kicked frantically, her heels thumping into his chest, and the bulge
behind the bear-rug's head grew as she was sucked deeper.
By the time he thought to start yelling for help, the fur had wound
itself around his legs, giving them a black, hairy mummy look. Both
his arms were caught to the elbows, and the strands around his shoulders
and chest stretched longer, beginning to meet across his back. Tendrils
of fur were plucking at his neck, and he strained to keep his face up
out of the mass of reaching fur.
He screamed once as his wife slid out of view, her beautiful, toned
butt, tanned thighs below her shorts, flawless calves and white-sneakered
feet, all pulled inside the rug in seconds. She was just a long bulge
in the furry surface now, and the fur twitched as she kicked and squirmed
underneath. Part of her was against his belly, and he felt how the enveloping
rug smoothed her shape; there was a couple of inches of thickness between
her and him that wasn't fur, but rather flesh and muscle. He didn't
delude himself that she was inside a dry, preserved rug; she had been
eaten, and lay in something like a stomach, swallowed alive.
He managed a second, wailing cry as the fur-tendrils reached his neck,
and then his voice was smothered. His face was yanked down into the
pelt, and the fur wove itself into his hair to hold him still. His chest
was almost completely enveloped, he saw from his one exposed eye, and
he knew the bear's muzzle would be coming for him next.
It didn't. Still squirming, though held in a million strands of iron-strong
fur, he felt the skin beneath him change. The leathery pelt developed
a long slit, and something like soft slippery wet flesh opened up around
his feet, knees, hip, and lower arm. It slithered up over him with terrible
speed, the wetly pink flesh soon covering the lower half of his face.
He struggled; kicking and wriggling, but the long slit-maw was gripped
along the length of his body now, and it sucked hungrily. His groin
was enveloped, along with his right leg, the right half of his body,
and all of his head. His last sight was of the long, weakly twitching
bulge his wife had become, and then all was darkness, and wet sucking
sounds.
He felt the flesh slide up his chest, take in his other leg, and then
he shifted somewhat. The 'lips' pushed at him, rolling him onto his
back, and the fur let go bit by bit as the muscular walls closed over
his top. Another glimpse of the outside, made hazy by the fur along
the edges of the slit, and then the wetness sealed itself above him.
He struggled in the form-fitting coffin of flesh, but he knew it was
hopeless. He could move - the muscle around him was only a few inches
thick, and it wasn't squeezing. But there was no way out. Nowhere was
there a breath of air, just more of the same, hot, slimy flesh wherever
he reached.
His fingers finally brushed something not-flesh, not-stomach; a hardness,
scratching against his fingers. He gripped at it convulsively as he
strained to hold his last breath, and felt the smooth softness it surrounded.
A wristwatch.
He managed to grip Karen's hand. She had been inside longer, and was
weaker, but she gripped back, and he relaxed as the fleshy rug-stomach
pushed them snugly together. The walls kneaded over them, squeezing
ever more strongly, and he felt the first itch of what must be digestion.
He kissed his wife's wet cheek, and gave up his held breath.
8 June 2000
"If they left a message, why, exactly, am I here?" The cop
tapped his foot, and glanced around the cabin. It even had a black-bear
pelt in front of the Franklin stove, and replica rifles crossed on the
wall. Nice place; he wondered what it cost a day.
"Because the note they left on their door said they were going
shopping for the day. However, when they didn't show up for breakfast
the next morning, we got curious. Their car was still in its slot, so
we assumed they would show up. This morning, I came out here to check.
They're not here, and now that I've asked around, I find that their
SUV never left the lot on the sixth." The manager handed over the
note, using a couple of pencils to move it.
The cop smiled inwardly at the care. Too much TV, but it was clever.
"And all their luggage is still here. You were right to call."
The manager watched worriedly as the policeman called for his partner,
and for a crime-scene forensics team.
It lay where it had taken its meal, quiet, satiated and seemingly
lifeless. As before, it had shifted most of its meal elsewhere - once
it had been softened - and there was no incriminating bulge to betray
its activities. It watched the men move through glassy eyes, and considered
the future.
The note had delayed suspicion until it had digested its meals to a
malleable state, and now it had enough stored to last it many months,
assuming it wasn't too active. However, as always, it would be necessary
to move. Best to do so without using its own energies.
It knew that many people would come here soon, investigating the vanishment
of its meals. It also knew that the shape it had taken was one highly
prized by the natives of this world; there was a good chance that it
would be taken from here, 'stolen', if it was just patient enough
The thief, or thieves, would be a potential next meal. Failing that,
it might have to take on a new, more mobile shape, and relocate itself
before resuming an attractively harmless trap-form. It might even be
able to take one or more meals here, but it would be careful. It very
rarely took multiple meals in one form; suspicions might be roused among
the locals.
For now, it would wait. It was sated, and like all its kind, it was
very, very patient.
The end.
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