FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Charlie walked along the road beside tall grasses under the blazing sun, and surveyed the dilapidated barn some fifty feet away to his right. The dead foliage crunched under his boots, adding to the surprisingly loud cacophony of insects buzzing and chirping, as well as the calls of birds in sparse trees. In fact, the only presumptive noise missing from his walk was a nice breeze moving through those very trees.

It was hard to tell whether he was comforted by the sounds or not. Logic told him that quiet would be more advantageous; he could hear the noise of approaching steps, of car engines in the distance growing closer. But he knew silence would make him jumpy. He'd snatch his head around at every tiny sound, seeing ghosts everywhere.

He wasn't supposed to be here. This stretch of road had been defended by a long abandoned outpost on the side he entered, complete with a rotting guard tower flanking a rusted gate. He'd navigated the gaps in the old barriers, avoiding the decaying razor wire by removing his shirt and covering the blades as he crawled over them.

Beyond the old outpost lay what he was voyaging for: loneliness and history. It wasn't just the road itself that the outpost had been design to protect; there were thousands of acres of open space, including flat prairies like he was in now, as well as deep canyons with genuine rivers flowing through, forests unaffected by the blights that killed so many others, and buildings such that he'd never seen before.

Around the time he turned thirteen, Charlie had begun to make a habit of exploring old locations he oughtn't, for he found that places where people weren't supposed to be tended to be the places that were most valuable to visit. They were so often untouched, and they let him escape from the realities that persisted outside of those spaces guarded by ancient barriers.

It wasn't without risk, of course. He was on his guard for a good reason. The groups that still technically owned these lands were ruthless and violent, and wouldn't hesitate to hurt him, even if he was still technically a kid at seventeen. It was said, though, that they never came around here anymore, and instead preoccupied themselves with holding lands to the north and west where real threats to them still existed.

What was nicer was that despite the gorgeous sprawl of scenery and life in this closed-off refuge, there wasn't much in the way of resources for its owners to bother with. It was the perfect place for a person to be alone. Charlie had been told these things, other than that last thought, and he tended to believe them, for he found the rotted outpost and lack of sentient life within were self-evident.

So for that reason, he took the risk of certain harm if not death by those malignant landlords on the premise that being caught was a near impossibility. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he forced himself to take a deep breath. It was fine; he was safe here. He was far safer than he was at his home, anyway. There was something quite relaxing about this old place, taken out of the past, alone and serene.

Charlie looked at the barn again as he prepared to pass it. Something within the broken and rotted walls looked out of place, something that almost looked like a strange vehicle. Such interesting sights were his usual prompt to deviate from the road, as exploration was the second pleasure of this place and those like it.

The grass changed from tall to waist-high in some parts as he deviated from the cracked road and into the unexplored. He reached down automatically to flick prickly seeds from the calves of his pants as he carved his path around the side of the barn, where he could vaguely see a way in on the far side from the road. He glanced up at the towering, decrepit structure, and wondered how it might've been used in years past. Given the vehicle he thought he saw within, perhaps it was used as a garage of sorts.

Before he could return his gaze to earth, his foot caught on something heavy and soft that sent him sprawling to the brown grass. He caught himself, sort of. Certainly he kept his face from hitting the uneven ground, but one hand planted directly onto a spikey bit of foliage, and the other fell on something unpleasantly squishy and oddly shaped.

Grunting in pain, Charlie lifted his injured and bleeding hand and clamored awkwardly to his feet, bowleggedly avoiding the large thing he tripped over. Then gaining his balance again, his eyes were drawn automatically back to the road, to ensure no one had heard nor seen him.

He was still alone, of course. He had just fallen onto mostly soft grass, so even if there had been someone less than a mile away, there was no way he'd have been noticed. So, Charlie looked forward again as he grasped his oozing, throbbing hand with his remaining good one. He turned his attention down to what he tripped over, and his heart froze solid in his chest.

It was a body. A short, pale green, naked body. A woman's, and a goblin's, so his shock-addled brain concluded. She was face-down in a shorter section of the tall grass, with her legs and admittedly plump butt facing him. She wasn't moving, not even a little, and his eyes traveled up her body to find her arms spread to the sides, and then--

Charlie involuntarily clasped his good hand to cover his nose and mouth as he yelled in fright and disgust. It hadn't been immediately apparent because of the wild foliage surrounding her, but her head was gone. The stump of her neck was ragged, like her head had been roughly sawed off by a knife.

He staggered backward, eyes glued on the corpse lying so silently under the hot sun. His breathing was uneven, as if he'd been punched in the chest and had the wind knocked out of him. There wasn't nearly the amount of blood he would've expected, but he wasn't going to wait around to wonder about it. As he worked over the ground without looking where he was going, he tripped again and fell awkwardly to the side. Charlie shot to his feet in a panic, realizing he had drifted closer to the barn as he had fled. Down at his feet was another body, this one covered in red and peach colored fur. It was on its, or rather her, back. This one was far more obvious as her nude breasts and womanhood were brazenly on display as she lay spread-eagled with one arm draped limply over her stomach.

Her head was gone, too. Crying out in terror and shooting backward so quickly he lost his footing once again and landed on his backside, Charlie was nearly hyperventilating. He clasped his hand over his mouth again, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing that for. Looking desperately around, as if for answers, he found himself alone still. No movement came from anywhere but the occasional blade of grass twitching when a bug flicked away from it.

Shaking violently, Charlie just sat there like a helpless child. He had to get out of there. He had to get out of there. The words echoed in his mind, but they meant very little. His body was out of his own control, and it was not interested in listening to his reasonable arguments.

Slowly but surely, he made it to his feet again. It was hard to stand, as his legs were weak and wobbly, but they worked enough to get him back to a shivering standing position. He walked around the body of what he could only assume had been a young red fox, and shuffled parallel with the road, looking for an easy way back through the tall grasses and staring hard for any additional surprises. As he neared the other side of the barn, something caught his eye to the right.

Charlie didn't want to look, but he wasn't in command anymore. What drew his eyes turned out to be yet another corpse of a young woman, this one peach or yellow furred with what might've been patches or spots. It was somewhat larger than either of the other two, in that there seemed to be more heft. Fat, or maybe muscle. It wasn't clear from his angle of view whether this one had her head still attached. It was hard to tell, and he didn't want to find out.

But there was something else in that direction, too. A pair of eyes met his gaze, and he nearly shouted in fright again. Someone was looking right at him! But wait...

No, there was something very wrong. He was pretty far away from the person, about fifty feet or so, but as he looked harder, he saw the person was really just a head. A floppy-eared female rabbit's head, with strikingly red hair and a dull, lifeless expression. She was up at his height, but that was because someone had taken her and placed her on a wooden pole, appearing to be part of a fence. There were dozens more posts like it, stuck at varying heights in the ground, and to his horrible realization revealed themselves to hold the heads of at least several others.

He took a step toward them, and then another. What was he doing?! He needed to run! Why were his legs carrying him toward the horrid sight? He had no answers, for his own disobedient body dragged him unwillingly forward. Was it curiosity? I'm not curious, he pleaded with himself, as if that would help. He was carried onward, avoiding the splayed out body he now realized belonged to that poor rabbit up on the fence.

There was another corpse as well, near the fence, nude like the others, and in a terribly unfortunate position. This one was on her stomach, kind of, but while her chest was one the ground, her butt was up in the air and leaned against the poles as if she'd been violated before, or possibly after she'd been killed. That thought sent an icy chill up his spine. As he drew close, it was clear she'd been beheaded as well, and with a jolt Charlie saw her missing head up above her body on a pole. This was a yellow spotted leopard, next to a snow leopard whose own body was nowhere to be seen.

Charlie's legs finally halted just two feet from the display of five heads before him. They were all, as he could see properly now, not just stuck on top of the poles as he'd thought, but rather the slender pieces of wood had been shoved up their throats to render the victims like grotesque puppets. The expressions of the unfortunate women in front of him ranged from the dull nothingness of the rabbit to a wide-eyed shock that belonged to the red fox. Her ears were still perked up, somehow.

He looked sidelong at the snow leopard at the far left end of the display. Her closed eyes and pale fur were partially hidden behind a mess of flowing dark hair that was pulled into a very loose ponytail down below her nec--

No, not below her neck. She didn't really have a neck anymore. He drew in a breath, realizing in that second that it'd been a full minute since he'd last done so. It came in shuddering, and lacked any kind of smell he now expected from such close proximity to this gory sight. In fact, despite the great heat, the only thing he could smell was the earthy foliage around and maybe some kind of manure, like that of a cow's.

His eyes were now drawn in spite of himself to the creature on the far right pole. She was different than the others, not covered in fur, and possessing large eyes and pointed ears that told him this was the head that formerly sat atop the goblin whose body he'd found first. There was something strange about her, beyond the morbidity associated with the others. She was different, and at first he had no idea why.

Charlie looked her over. Her bleach-blonde hair was pulled back into a style he couldn't quite recognize, like a ponytail with extra steps. Her expression was a little paradoxical; her raised eyebrows and slightly opened mouth belonged to that of surprise, but her eyes were lazily half-shut and unconcerned.

It was then that it struck him all at once and out of nowhere: she was attractive to him. That's what was strange. Even in this grotesque display, with a pole shoved harshly up her severed throat, even as the last blood that ever serviced her dying brain trickled down the old splintery wood, he found her to be the loveliest girl he'd ever laid eyes on. And that made him want to throw up. Still, carried by an urge that he couldn't hope to explain, Charlie reached out with his non-injured hand and touched her cheek. It was disturbingly warm to his trembling palm, which he attributed to the intense sunlight that beat down upon her. Her skin was silky smooth, without blemish or flaw. Up close, her half closed eyes, while dull, told him that just a short time ago she probably lit up any room she walked in to.

Charlie let his hand drop from the face of the deceased goblin and turned slowly on the spot, looking around the area near the barn where he found her body earlier. He left her there among her fellow victims, and paced back to where he first discovered all of this.

There it was, the body that until recently belonged to the beautiful young goblin up on the fence. His eyes were drawn all over her, but differently this time. This time he was admiring her, what she used to be, and his stomach leapt as his gaze passed over her rear, which he now judged to be attractively round and gorgeous, or at least it used to be. As he looked at her, a sadness crept into him as he wondered what kind of person she'd been.

Charlie imagined she must've been the subject of desire for any man or boy who crossed her path. Did she look on them in friendliness? Openness? Or was she aware of her own beauty, and haughtily dismissive of potential suitors? Had she ever been bent in the throes of passion with a man she'd fallen deeply in love with? Charlie looked back at her head, still calmly staring out into the distance, not hearing what he thought. Perhaps she had been a wonderful person, though it didn't matter now in the slightest.

But something occurred to him then, with that chain of thought. Blood had trickled from her neck stump, but it hadn't fully dried yet. And her face was still, despite its lifelessness, like the face of a normal person. Enough so that he found her attractive. Then there was the fact that none of these poor women smelled bad in the scorching heat of midday. He put it all together, and was filled with fresh dread.

This couldn't have happened long ago. Feeling as though his heart had suddenly stopped in his chest again, he turned to see the barn and past it to the street and beyond. Whoever did this might still be nearby, his thoughts warned.

With that, the spell that had been placed on him to bring him forth into this maddening terror was lifted, and he ran around the side of the barn back toward the street. Once his feet hit the rough pavement, he broke into a full sprint, back to where he came from and as far from that violence as possible. He didn't even slow down until he reached the old gate again, and didn't allow himself to stop until he was back in his home, locked away in his only private space from the other people that lived with him.

He couldn't talk about what he saw. He knew that. It was his knowledge to carry alone, as he would be in great danger if the others knew what he found. So he sat there, silent and consumed. He was far away in spirit as in body, and would remain so forevermore.