ShapeShifters

Featured in The Mystery Newsletter - dated July 16, 2009

Winner - The Real Word Contest - Round Two

"Worst day ever . . ."

I stepped off the back porch and out into the yard.  Looking out over the wide fields of timothy grass rippling in the light breeze, I knew that it would have to be cut soon.  The sky was clear and bright.  Hard to tell how long it would stay that way.  Even though I was new to this farming community, spending summers on my grandparents’ spread had taught me just how fragile that small ‘window of opportunity’ for perfect haying weather could be.  I’d have a bite of breakfast and then fire up Ol’ Bessie, the ancient tractor I’d bought along with the farm, and get on with it.

A short while later I was heading toward the barn to retrieve the cans of diesel that I stored there to use in the tractor.  I grabbed up the first can I came to and nearly threw it into the loft.  Empty.  Grabbing the second can, I frowned at its lightness. 
“Damn.  Can’t be more than a half-gallon there.  What’d I do, forget to refill them after the spring planting?”

It’d take a good hour to drive into the nearest town and back.  If I lost that much time, I wouldn’t be able to get the mowing done today at all.  I’d have to forget about getting a better price and take my chances on that little general store I’d seen down along the river.  I seemed to remember noticing a couple of gas pumps outside, maybe they’d have diesel.

I picked up both cans, poured the remainder of the one into the tank of the tractor and threw the empties into the back of the pickup.

The truck bounced over the rough, rocky road that wound its way down around the steep hillside.  Huge trees crowded the rising slope on one side and seemed to appear fully-grown out of nowhere from the sharp tilt of the cliff on the other.  They formed a spreading canopy above and dappled the narrow track with shade.  Sure would be bad to meet another truck here,  I thought as I maneuvered around a tight turn.

As I neared the bottom of the hill, the trees thinned, the slant of the road lessened and houses began to appear.  I rounded a sharp curve and saw the store I had remembered.  Pulling in front of the pumps, I noted with relief that one of them indeed contained diesel.

I shut off the engine and swung down from the cab.  Grabbing the gas cans from the bed, I proceeded to fill them.  While the level in the first one slowly rose, I looked at the building.  Must be at least a hundred years old.  The two-story frame building was long and narrow.  Half-dozen wooden steps led to an open landing in front of the door.  I noticed a small knot of men gathered just beyond the entrance.  From their dress they were obviously farmers; they were waving their arms and talking excitedly in low tones.  I wondered what they were so upset about. 

When the cans were full, I left them beside the pump, climbed the steps and entered the dark interior.  On my left was a small, wooden box-like room with a grilled window in the middle and the brass words ‘U.S. Post Office’ arched over it.  I peered through it and saw that the wall behind contained a small number of wooden cubbyholes, some containing pieces of mail. Did my mail come through here?  A naked light bulb suspended from the ceiling by a wire was the only lighting, except for a similar bulb that hung over a small counter at the rear.  There a gray-haired woman sat on a high stool reading the newspaper that was spread out on the counter before her.  The woman looked up from her paper.

“Howdy!” she said.

“Mornin’,” I replied as I crossed the length of the store.  “I just got 10 gallons of diesel.”  I fished out my wallet while she tallied the total on an old adding machine.  “What’s all the excitement?” I asked, nodding my head in the direction of the men out front.

She frowned.  “Shape shifters,” she said in a tone that I couldn’t decide whether it was anger, disgust or something else.

I stared at her.  This old woman must be crazy!  “Shape shifters?”

She nodded sternly.  “People’ve been having things disappear, young calves, dogs and things like that.  Some say it’s shape shifters and some think they might be living in one of the caves up there.”  She tilted her head toward the hillside that began to rise just a short distance behind the store.  “Don’t know how they expect to find the right one, or ones, for that matter.  There’s hundreds of caves up there.”

I paid my tab and exited the building.  Descending the steps, I glanced again at the group of men.  These guys would be my new neighbors.  I might as well introduce myself.  At least I’ll find out what they think of this whole shape shifter idea and whether or not they think the old lady’s crazy.  When I approached, the men ceased their conversation and turned as one to watch me come toward them.

“You new around here?” one asked, surveying me suspiciously.  “Ain’t never seen you before.”

I stuck out my hand.  “Name’s Jack Parker.  I just bought the old Hudkin’s place.  Just got moved in time for spring planting.”

The man nodded and took my hand, suspicion still in his eyes.

“Relax, Joe,” the man next to him said as he stuck out his hand to me.  “I’m Bill Barnes.  You missing any livestock?”

I shook my head.  “Don’t have any yet.  I’m supposed to pick up a half-dozen young heifers in the next couple of weeks, but I got to check out all the fences first.  The lady inside,” I said, tilting my head toward the store, “said that some people have come up missing things.”  All of the men nodded.  “She said something about shape shifters.”  Again the men nodded.  “I never heard of . . .”

“Nasty critters,” another man offered.  “They gotcha before you even know they‘re around.”

So it isn’t just one old woman.  They look as if they really believe all of this.  “What’re you going to do?”  I asked.

“Only thing we can do,” Bill replied, “try to hunt’em down and get them before they get us.”

“The woman inside . . .”

“ ‘Er name’s Frieda,” another offered.

I began again.  “Well, Frieda said something about caves on the hill.”

Bill nodded.  “We think that’s the most likely place.  We’ve already combed all of this valley and not a sign of ‘em.  Maybe there’s too many folks living around here.  They’re scattered, but mostly in sight of each other. The cliff, on the other hand, ain’t nobody up there except the bears and an occasional panther.”

“There’re panthers around here?” I asked incredulously.

Bill shrugged.  “Well, one evening last fall my son, he’s seventeen, saw a big black cat of some kind streak across the field next to the house, heading back up toward the cliff.  Next morning we found a deer I had strung up to cure clawed from one end to the other.”

“So what are you going to do about these . . . these shape shifters?” I asked.

One man shrugged.  “Only thing we can do.  Go after ‘em. ‘N’ hope we can get’em before they get us.”

There’s only one way to find out about all this crap.  “Maybe I should go along.  Won’t be long before I have livestock and that’s a big investment.  You want me to go?”

The men all looked from one to the other. 

“Sure,” Bill said.  “We’ll go in pairs.  You can go with me.”

Now I was committed.  Maybe it won’t take too long and I can still get the hay cut. I glanced back at my truck.  “I’ll have to move my truck.  It’s blocking the pumps.  Any place around here I can park it so’s it’ll be out of the way?”

“Why don’t you just back up a bit and pull it up alongside the store.  Frieda won’t mind and it’ll be fine there.”

I walked back to my truck, picked up the gas cans, put them in the bed and climbed into the cab.  A couple of minutes later when I rejoined Bill in front of the building, the others had dispersed.

“Ready?” he asked.

I shrugged.  “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

We began crossing the slight rise beside the general store, heading toward the cliff towering in front of us. 

“What’s the plan?” I asked, as we left the field and tramped through the brush and small trees that bordered the woods.

“We’re all fanning out, starting at this point and moving on down the valley.  Each team is taking an area and searching it, then we’ll move on.”

As we fought our way through the brambles and briars, the climb became steeper and I began to realize just how out of shape I was. 

When we entered the deep forest, the going got easier, I turned to Bill and asked.  “Just what are these shape shifters supposed to be?”

“Well,” he said slowly, “I don’t rightly know whether or not I’ve actually seen one.  There’s always been a sort of legend around these parts.  According to it, they’re beings that can change their physical appearance whenever they want.  One minute they can be some sort of an animal and within a blink of the eye they’ve become something else.  The story is that they continue their existence by biting other living beings that then become one of them.  Supposedly they attack and the smell of the would-be victim’s fear incites them to bite.”  He shrugged.  “Like I say, I ain’t sure I’ve ever seen one, but folks say that the only thing to do is to just relax and then kill it.”

Mulling this story over in my mind, and wondering how it could actually be true, I silently continued the climb.  It’s probably just one of those tales that spring up after some sort of incident, I thought, and everybody else starts expanding on it.

The deep forest was miserably hot and sticky, with no hint of a breeze getting through the dense growth of trees.  Swarms of gnats flew around our heads while noseeums attacked every inch of exposed skin.  For several hours we searched through the woods, finding a few caves, some shallow and some deep, and  spending some time watching for any sign of activity around each of them.  It was late afternoon when Bill said that we had covered our assigned area and we began our descent to the valley.

Well, so much for the so-called legend!  Here I’ve wasted the entire day and the hay still isn’t cut.

We hadn’t gone very far when we both heard a rustling in the underbrush on our right.  Bill held up his hand and we stopped short, listening hard to confirm the sound’s location.  I didn’t like the idea of being out here with wild animals prowling around and without a gun.

Suddenly I saw, over Bill’s shoulder, a dark blur of movement between some nearby bushes.  I touched Bill on the arm and pointed in the direction I’d seen the motion.  He had just turned that direction when the thing leaped upon him, moving so fast it could hardly be seen.

I stared in horror at the large tawny cat, smaller than a lynx, yet much larger than a regular housecat.  It clung to Bill’s body, back paws bracing against his chest, front paws resting on his shoulders and was staring him directly in the eye.  Terror filled my body and I slid a step backward as it began slowly licking his face.  This is no ordinary wild cat.  What is that thing doing anyway?  How can Bill stand there so calmly with it licking his face like that?  At any second, it could open that huge mouth wide and tear away half of his face. 

In horrified fascination, I watched Bill’s body visibly relax and I remembered what he had said about the legend and the smell of fear.  The big cat continued to lick his face.  Then, in a lightning-fast movement, Bill had his hands clamped around its throat. Its body writhed as it tried to twist its gaping mouth toward his hands and arms and lashed out with its lethal claws.  Bill held it at arms length and kept his hold on the throat, squeezing it tighter and tighter.  His muscles bulged with the force he was exerting through them.  After what seemed like an eternity, the beast’s body went limp.  Bill continued to maintain his strangling hold for a few moments more before dropping the body to the ground and turning away.

“What’re you going to do with it?” I asked, nodding toward the carcass and wondering if the legend dictated some special disposal procedure, like burning on a pyre of sassafras wood.

“We’ll leave it for the predators in these parts.  It can’t hurt anyone now.”

We silently continued our trek down the hillside.  We had gone quite a distance before I said, “We should have brought guns.”  My voice, in delayed reaction to the horror I had witnessed, was so weak and trembling that I barely even recognized it.

Bill shook his head.  “Wouldn’t work.  According to the legend, the only way you can kill one of those things is one on one.  It’s your physical and moral strength against its strength.”  He gave a small shaky laugh.  “And, believe me, that thing had some kind of strength!”

I nodded my agreement, still marveling at how he had triumphed.

When we came to the edge of the woods, Bill said, “I just live a little piece down the road.  Why don’t you come on down and have a beer with me?”

I glanced up at the angle of the now visible sun and shrugged.  “Might as well.  It’s too late to start mowing hay today.”

When we staggered out of the undergrowth and came into view of the back of the store, I suggested, “Why don’t we take my truck?  We’ve done enough walking for one day.”

Bill laughed.  “And then some.”

A few minutes later, we were seated on the steps of Bill’s front porch savoring a cold beer.  A large flatbed truck, with foot-high wooden side rails, came along and parked on the other side of the road.  A middle-aged man with shaggy hair and a grizzled beard climbed down from the cab and, from the other side of the bed, began uncovering the large shallow boxes that covered the bed.

I turned toward Bill, who was sitting on the step above me, “Who’s that guy?” I asked.

“I don’t rightly know.  I think he must be with that bunch that’s building a new drilling rig up the hill there.  He shows up here most days about this time.  Seems to be selling them sandwiches or something.”

Curiously, I watched the man arranging his wares.  Then I could hardly believe my eyes when he reached into one of the boxes and picked up an obviously dead mouse by its tail and slung it around behind him.  Surely that guy’s not going to sell food that has had a dead mouse in it. 

As I pondered this thought, a boy, looking to be in his late teens, appeared at the front of the truck on the far side and walked behind the man toward the back of the vehicle. Where’d he come from?  I hadn’t seen the boy get out of the truck and I would’ve sworn that the man had been alone when he had parked there.  Then I remembered the mouse.  Had the mouse not been dead, as it had appeared?  The boy had definitely come from the same direction that the man had thrown the mouse.  The horrifying thought sprang into my mind. He’s a shape shifter!

I had no time to ponder the idea.  The older man and the boy seemed to be in quiet conversation.  Suddenly the man ordered, “Go around there!”  He pointed in a direction that was between the rear of the truck and the place where Bill and I were sitting.

The boy started running around the back of the truck and up Bill’s horseshoe driveway.  With every step, he seemed to move faster until he was no longer a visible form, but merely a dark, blurred streak.  The old man must be a leader of them somehow! 

The dark streak went by me in a flash and I felt the rush of wind from its passage.  I watched a nearly formless black blob of a being land in the grass a little to my right and slightly down the sloping yard.  It quickly wriggled or rolled into the cover of the higher grass bordering the gravel drive.

The rest of my surroundings disappeared while I watched where the long blades of shuddering grass tracked the creature’s whereabouts. It's on a path that will put it directly in front of me.  This thought had no more than passed through my mind when the blades parted and a rather large black cat was leaping directly at me.  As if in slow motion, I watched the angle and power of its jump, saw its white-edged, wide-open, red mouth and its sharp glistening teeth.

My beer went flying as the thing landed on top of my head and my panic rose rapidly as I felt its paws gently padding on my hair.  How long would it be before my rising terror incited it to bite?  I then remembered how I had watched Bill forcibly relax and knew that I must, somehow, manage to do the same.

First, I willed my rate of breathing to slow down, and then I concentrated with all my might on calming my racing heartbeat.  The seconds crept by as I worked to bring my physical responses under control and ignore the paws still patting on my head.  I tried not to even think about what would have to occur if I were not successful at relaxing, or even maybe if I were.

When I felt serene enough to try what I knew I had to do, I suddenly slung my torso forward, catching the cat as it fell and clutching it around the throat.  Its sharp teeth glittered as it whipped its head back and forth trying to bite into one of my confining fingers.  At length, its struggle lessened and, finally, its body went slack.  I turned to face Bill, still holding the creature in my hands.

“Another one,” Bill said.

“I guess so,” I said weakly.  “That man in the truck . . .”  I looked at the road where the truck had been parked, but there was nothing there.  There was no sign of either the man or his truck.  “Where did he go?”

Bill, too, looked at the road.  “I don’t know.  I didn’t see anything or hear anything.”

“Do you suppose that he’s the leader or something of all of them?”

“I guess it could be.  He certainly seemed to give that one an order.”

He nodded at the beast I still held and I looked down at it, shuddering as I remembered the feeling of its paws on my hair.  “How many more of these things do you suppose there are out there?”

“I wish I knew, but I’ve really no idea.”  He shook his head.  “I do know there’ve been a lot of animals disappear around here.  If they were all taken by one of these creatures . . .”  His voice trailed away.

“So we’re likely to have to go through this time and again.”

Bill shook his head.  “I don’t think so.  According to the legend, once a man has killed ‘his’ shape shifter, he doesn’t have to face one ever again.”

“I certainly hope that part of the story is true.”  I laughed weakly.  “And I’m sure glad mine wasn’t as big as yours was!”

Bill laughed.  “Come on.  We’d better bury that beast, and then we have to warn the others and tell them about these two.  They need to be on the lookout for more.”