Chapter two: tooth and claw
#3 of Shifties
"Why do we survive?"
"I don't know."
"I am the last of the Daleks."
"You're not even that. Rose did more than regenerate you, you've absorbed her DNA. You're mutating."
"Into what?"
"Something new...I'm sorry."
-Doctor Who(2005 series)
At some point in the feverish haze, Anna realized that there was someone in her room. Her eyes cracked open, and picked out a slim, shaggy haired figure in a t-shirt.
Win.
"Win?" she coughed. "I'm sick. You shouldn't be here."
"I won't get sick," said the boy. He came closer. "I never get sick."
Silence.
"Why are you here?"
"I'm scared. Of everything." He looks away, out the window. "I don't want to grow up."
"Too late," ripostes Anna, with a weak smile. "You already started."
Win grins back, just as weakly. "Ha ha." His smile fades. "What's it like?"
Anna thinks for a second. "Faster."
"Really?"
"Everything happens faster. More kwompac. Thquithed dun." Anna was vaguely aware that her tongue seemed to be getting heavier. Or maybe that was the fever? "I haf to resh nuh."
"Oh, right," said Win, backing out. "I'll leave now." There was the slight sound of a door opening and closing. Then, silence. Anna laid back down.
It was several hours later when she woke up. She recited the alphabet backwardall systems goand stood up, to get a glass of water for her suddenly dry mouth. There were yells and struggling coming from Win's room, and she froze. A second later, footsteps came toward her room. Anna dove back into bed just as her door creaked open, and lay there, shivering, like a good fever patient. The person watched for a few seconds, and then closed the door. Then someone was carried past her on the way downstairs, kicking and screaming. "Let me go!" he yelled.
It was Win.
Anna leapt out of bed, and started dressing, fast. These people were kidnapping their own kids; she certainly wasn't safe. Maybe they were even some cult, or something. She was going to find out what the frick was going on, then hot-wire a car or something and contact the county sheriff or whoever. Complex plans were for losers. She spent several minutes wondering why the door wasn't opening before she realized she was turning a bottle of lotion. Oh.
Door, hallway, stairs-don't slide down the banister. Don't say "whee!"-Check to see if they're out of the house. Sneak to the kitchen door and look out. They're gone. Leave.
The night was cool, with some low-lying fog. Anna's heart jumped into her throat before she reminded herself that it was not going to devour her, to swallow her alive, but she shivered anyway, and stuck to the bushes. Fog couldn't eat bushes. Too much to pick out of its teeth.
The family and their burden walked calmly toward the center of town, towards the rock Anna had seen earlier. A lot of other people were going there, too, and she caught a glimpse of the librarian leaving her house, without locking it. It was a moment's work to slip in and grab a bunch of keys off of the table in the hall, and then Anna made a beeline for the library. For a bee that flitted from bush to bush, checking to see if the coast was clear, anyway.
Anna opened the back door, and held her breath for an alarm. Nope. Apparently that was for big-city folk. We don' need none of those fancy gizmos and doodads.
She giggled. It seemed oddly funny, of a sudden, and she suddenly realized she was still hot of a sudden. Everything was slightly fuzzy, and she couldn't find the lock. She just kept poking at the door, the key making a sad little sound when it hit the metal. Suddenly, everything tilted, and then Anna found herself in the library, the book in her hands. She must have been reading it: she could remember things about it, like how Shifties in this world were only vulnerable to cold iron, and how they could look like humans and could breed with them, and how the half-breeds had to-mate-with a Shifty in its unconcealed form to gain their full potential, and how any of them near a large group of Shifties would get "sick". The book had described it in the same tone as getting a cold, and Anna figured something like nausea, mysterious maladies, like in all the books she had read. Humans could turn into Shifties, either through voluntarily having sex with their full form, or repeated sex, over as much as years, in their human form, though there was some kind of footnote about "secretly wanting it" and "nearness to a priestess". Children conceived between two concealed Shifties would be as hybrids, merely to have sex with a Shifty, in any form, before changing. They would be slightly stronger and in better health than ordinary people.
If only I had studied this well for midterms, Anna thought blithely.
Something moved outside.
Anna's found that she suddenly couldn't breathe. She hastily scrambled toward the front doors, to find them locked. From the inside. Well, she had shown a remarkable amount of foresight. She needed to give herself a gold star. She would have giggled, except for the heavy breathing she heard outside the door. She curled up, trying not to make a sound, trying not to breathe, not to exist anymore, leaving not a single trace upon the universe, anything that would keep the ragged-edged shadow slipping under the door from finding her.
The shadow huffed, and moved on.
Anna made herself breathe. It had been easier back before her childhood nightmares were made reality, walking and breathing outside of her very door.
(little pig little pig let me in)
Well, it wasn't her door, exactly. Anna giggled, and everything tilted again.
The book was under her arm, and she was hiding behind some trees outside of a clearing. It was dark, and she could see that the clearing was covered in large stones. The wind, curiously, made a sound like dozens of different breaths, all at once. Maybe she was still feverish, but they looked like they were rippling in the wind. The moon cleared the clouds, and Anna though her heart would stop.
They weren't rocks.
They were Shifties.
The reason they looked like rocks was that they were all perfectly still. The rippling was their fur, and the breathing noise actually was breathing. The wind was blowing from them to her, and some dim, logical part of Anna's mind noted that there was a pale, pockmarked stone in the middle of the ring. All of the creatures stayed a respectful distance away from the stone, and she couldn't figure out why until she saw a tall, slim silver figure approaching the stone. It seemed less androgynous than the others. It had wide hips, a slim waist, and was incongruously wearing a white robe.
"Children," she said imperiously. "The time has come to welcome these into our fold." She gestured, and Win and two twins were bought into the circle, the crowd of creatures parting like water. Win and one of the platinum-haired girls were held tightly, struggling to avoid touching the things on either side, all of which were eerily silent. The other twin walked calmly, unmolested. No one laid a palm on her. She was naked, as they say, as a jay bird. The girl approached the priestess-where had that come from?-trembling slightly.
"My child," said the priestess, laying her hand on the girl's head. "Do you accept that which thou was born to be?"
"I do," replied the girl. Even from the bushes she was in, Anna could hear the slight hitch in her voice. She was reluctant, if not outright scared. The priestess gathered her in her arms.
"Then be consecrated, and born anew," she said, as the girl buried her face in the robes.
Nothing happened.
Then Anna noticed the girl poking out her not-unattractive rear. Farther out and farther up it went, until her feet were entirely clear of the ground. How could she...?
Then the priestess turned to the side, and Anna realized what was going on. The thing's dick was so huge that it was literally lifting theblonde off her feet. The priestess gently untangled the girl's arms, and laid her gently on the stone, lifting her off the massive length.
Anna couldn't help but think that the thing should have split the girl in half, and briefly wondered what it would have done to her. The effects on the girl were already apparent. Already, her modest breasts were starting to rise, and her rail-thin figure filled out. Fur started to sprout from her skin, and then she stopped.
"What's happened?" she said, sounding like a child. "Why'd it stop?" The priestess leaned over her, and kissed her. She then thrust into the girl, again and again, with what could only be described as "gentleness". As she thrust, fur grew on the child's body. Her feet shifted entirely, becoming claws. Anna could hear the bones shifting, cracking, even from a distance. Her legs lengthened, and her face stretched, crackling even louder than her feet had. And it didn't change evenly, like in the movies. One eye bulged out alarmingly and her teeth grew first, so for a few seconds, she looked like a candidate for some sort of Really Extreme Makeover.
Anna found it strange that some part of her brain was still thinking up pop-culture references.
The rest of her face caught up. However, her skin hadn't, so it was stretched over her face like some sort of hideous, third-rate Halloween mask. Then her ears crawled over her head like slugs, and her fur did the same as her hair shortened. There were odd popping noises as her torso's bone structure rearranged itself, and a tail grew out of her rear. It, too, was without fur, and as the priestess withdrew, it looked like a rat's tail for a few seconds.
A wolf.
She was becoming a wolf.
The once-girl gripped the rock with her hands, leaving small holes in it. That explained the pockmarks. Her claws grew out at the same time as her penis erupted from her crotch, spraying the rock and herself with silver. Anna suddenly realized that the girl's own slit had something black dripping out of it, and the same substance was on the priestess' cock. Ew.
Slowly, the new Shifty pulled herself up, still a little dizzy. She looked at her new body for a few seconds, then turned to face the other two captives.
"Now you, sister dear," she said raspily.
Anna shrank back farther into the bushes, as if the gimlet gaze could fall on her. The wolf walked over to her sister, and the Shifty holding her immediately released the sobbing girl, who collapsed, crying. Anna thought, for a second, that she could hear the girl's heart. No, wait, that was her own.
"I told you," said the wolf, in a tone eerily like that a normal sister would use to tell off her sibling, not a monster confronting her next victim. "I told you not to fight it, that it was going to happen whether you liked it or not." She reached down and lifted her sister as easily as a mother would grab a toddler. "And now," she continued, "I have to hurt you."
The human girl flew through the air and collided with the rock. Anna clearly heard one of her knees break with an audible crack and winced. The wolf, who had no real reason to throw her, strode over. "This is for your own good!" she yelled over her sister's screams. "This is me, at my most masochistic!"
"Get away from her!" yelled Win. Anna jumped. She had forgotten he was there, and she realized, for the first time, he was naked. And rather well-endowed. She tilted her head to see better, and then shook it. No time to be inspecting the merchandise.
The wolf pointed a finger at him. "Wait your turn," she growled. Win went quiet, but kept wriggling.
There was no hint of gentleness, no tender caresses, no exchange of words. The wolf simply ripped her sister's clothes off, and slammed herself into the girl with technique most porn stars would envy. Anna wondered how, exactly, would a girl know how to handle a penis, much less an impaler like the one she wielded now? The priestess' participation was limited to taking some of her black stuff on her fingers, and putting it in the whimpering girl's mouth. It seemed to make it go faster, as the girl's limp leg twisted and straightened, even as her skin glossed to a sheen, and her face stretched into a snout. Unlike her sister, her shift was much smoother, and the horns erupting from her forehead curled gently. Her skin continued to change to a hide, and her length grew and dripped semen down her leg. It hardened, and her spray hit the rock where her sister's had earlier.
Now that's marksmanship, Anna thought.
The girl staggered to her feet, and clutched at her sister in a manner that the Olsen Twins would never be able to match.
"Now you," said the priestess.
Win struggled as he was bought to the rock, and held down. The priestess took his mouth, the wolf milked his cock-already hardening-with her muzzle. The dragon forced herself into his rear. It plunged, in and out, like some hellish dagger, covered in red. Anna found herself seized with fear, or something else entirely.
Before tonight, she had never watched someone's rape before.
Well, except for some anime; a few brief flashes when she accidentally walked into some guy's dorm room that one time, but those didn't count. They weren't real, you couldn't see the victim's struggles turn to twitches, and their twitches to vigorous sucking. You didn't have to watch a small, bushy flame grow larger and longer at the base of his spine. Something cracked, and Anna stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from crying out, even as something grew on the boy's chest, like mushrooms
(fourofakind beats   twopair)
and he pushed himself up on his hands
(the better toblowyou with my d e a r )
and leaned into it, so he could have more leverage. His already-large dick was getting bigger, and something dripped down his leg. Though she couldn't see it, she knew that he hadoh my G
She put her hand back, preparing to back away, and a twig snapped. The heads of those nearest to her turned, like raptors.
And her heart stopped.
Two stepped toward her, hesitant, their muzzles high in the air.
Go away, thought Anna. Go away go away goaway goawaygoaway
The two turned away to face their priestess, and Anna found herself looking directly into thething'seyes.
And it smiled.
The two turned back, their calm muzzles turning into growls. Drool dripped from their jaws, and Anna doubted they were just peckish.
So she scrambled out of the bush and ran.