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(Horror)

Bert was terribly bored, looking out the side window of the rickety old truck as it bounced down the dirt road. Bert is an anthro cat- adorned with tiger stripes though with the build of a house cat. Beside him, actually driving her father's truck is Amalise; an anthro cockatiel. It was amusing watching her nerves tense up and down as the truck bounced on the poorly paved, dusty old road- because whenever she gets tense the long thin feathers on her head that normally look like human hair will suddenly stand up in a crest, then relax back down when her nerves settle. Since the truck isn't hers; she will be in big trouble if it gets dinged up, so every time they hit a bump- her 'hair' stands on end.

It is the middle of nowhere and late at night, so there is absolutely nothing to look at. It is just pitch black for miles, and even most of the road is black- the streetlights are few and far between and a lot of them are leaning dangerously far over- like the wires were holding the polls up instead of the other way around. Making Amalise even more nervous is her rearview mirror is essentially useless- the truck kicks up so much dust that they can't see if anything was behind them. They have both just come from Humancon- where everyone dresses as their 'Husonas' to meet up. The event was fun enough but now the flaws in their plans exposed themselves as it was passing midnight and they had nowhere to stay. It was held in the middle of nowhere and they left when it was already nightfall.

Bert taps a claw on the window to call her attention to a building up ahead. It looked like an apartment complex, but it had a sign up stating that it is an inn. There is a laundromat and a grocery store sharing a lot, but both other structures appeared to be dilapidated and long closed down. Several other people from the convention ahead of them appeared to head off to the inn, so they might as well too. Amalise did not want to drive all through the night, and the next nearest stop to this was a gas station they stopped at on the way out- and there would be nowhere to sleep there. The building had been repurposed- that was obvious. It used to be an apartment complex but the cities expansion project out here fell through and the structure was never finished, whoever wanted the property got it for dirt cheap, because the city did not even want to flip the bill to demolish what they already built. You can clearly see what parts of the building the city made, and what parts were tacked on- it seemed very DIY.

It is rather crowded when Bert and Amalise arrive- many other conventioners had the same idea and booked rooms for the night, luckily there was plenty to go around. The man at the front desk is a well-dressed anthro jackal with a smooth voice. Amalise and Bert did not have the money to buy two different rooms, so with a weary glance at one another and a deep blush from them both- they booked a single room. The courtyard in the middle was well lit, but by strings of lights strewn around the balconies on each level- they looked like colorless Christmas lights. Bert joked that they would almost be as well off sleeping in one of the two other abandoned buildings for free, this building looks like a Frankenstein's monster of building material. Before they left the main office, the jackal motioned outside toward another, more casually dressed, younger jackal man. The man sat in a cobbled together vendor stand just outside, selling VHS tapes to entertain the guests for the night- all rooms had a VHS player. Wow, VHS in 2023... how luxurious. The man at the stand is the younger brother of the man in the front desk, no surprise there. They doubt this place gets enough guests normally to afford to actually hire anyone outside of their own family. Bert shrugged and rented one of the tapes- why not? The rental was dirt cheap since guests just return them on their way out anyway, it was literally just a couple of cents.

Amalise was a bit less eager to rent the movie- they are all titles she is unfamiliar with, and she isn't a fan of horror movies... and every single one of them is horror. She was already nervous about the truck, the drive home tomorrow, and uncomfortable sleeping in a place this big that is both run by and built by one guy and his family in the middle of nowhere. It was not as though the place is messy or smelly- as the two of them walk to the stairs and go up to their floor to look for their room, the place is well kept. But every so often you will see a step in the stairs that isn't the same color as the rest- of a section of wall that was plastered over that wasn't repainted. Some of the doors to the apartments were made of a different material than other doors! Some of the room numbers are just drawn on with permanent marker! There is an elevator shaft with no elevator in it! Some of the apartments had been demolished to make open areas, or only two walls removed to turn what had been an apartment into a hall. They had been modifying the place as they seen fit over the years which made it architecturally confusing. There is halls where you did not expect there to be. Seeing other anthros from the convention laughing and goofing around in the court and around the balcony areas was comforting, but they were not familiar enough faces to put Amalise entirely at ease.

The found their room and as soon as they stepped inside Amalise called the blankets and Bert grunt in frustration. There is only one bed and two people- she gets to sleep under the blankets and he has to sleep on top. They were expecting moldy mattress on a rusty bedframe or something but the furniture did not look bad at all. Again- it was maintained well enough, it just... didn't match. You could tell the furniture was just... whatever they found cheap at the time, they were not at all a matching set. Amalise immediately went to the shower in the bathroom to get cleaned up and help relax. Since Bert had to wait for her he just flopped belly-down on the bed and popped in the VHS tape to watch the horror movie. The movie started out so corny Bert immediately had to smile. Horror in theme, but probably so cheesy that it is more like a comedy. It is recorded on a VHS and the quality of the film is very much what you would think of when thinking about very old VHSs. The movie immediately starts with the villain, apparently a gator anthro wearing the skull of another, larger gator as a mask. His huge gut hangs out in front further than the blade of the knife in his hand, and the base of his tail is so thick because of the transition between the two that it barely clears the ground. Cheezy music plays as the camera shows the villain in various clips from close-ups so you never see his whole body at once, and the opening credits flash on the screen toward the bottom right before ending with the title of the movie and then the actual film starts. Bert did not pay the actual credits any mind- otherwise he may have questioned the fact that the same three names were repeated for essentially every role. The entire movie's cast is only three people.

Amalise let out a short scream from the bathroom and Bert pulled a very cat-like move, leaping straight into the air off the bed in shock.

"Are you okay?!"

The sound of skin sliding across the bottom of the shower could be heard as she struggled to compose herself, almost falling over in surprise as well. "U-uh, yea. Oh my heart... I am too on edge. I tossed the towel over the top of the shower curtain and forgot it was there. I caught the shadow of it on the other side of the curtain in the corner of my vision and thought someone was standing there..."

Bert let out a long sigh. "You're making ME tense. Try to relax, would you? It is going to be hard enough getting to sleep, even though I am tired."

"Sorry... not like I did it on purpose."

The hot water of the shower helped her relax a little bit, but only on a surface level. Amalise had to be mindful of her talons- when handling the softer portions of her body. Unlike Bert- her claws are not retractable. She also grumbled about not having a toothbrush with her- and obviously the inn did not provide one for guests because that would be rather wasteful; you'd have to throw it out after every guest because that is definitely not something you share. As an anthro bird; Amalise has no teeth- but she definitely still uses a toothbrush to polish her beak to a shine. Her animal aspect unfortunately did not configure itself in a way to grant her flight- she has no wings. Her only feathers are on her head, imitating hair when in resting, and a long but narrow tail. She has down feathers over her crotch, where pubic hair would normally be. Her cheeks are always a bit rosy- imitating the red circles of a cockatiel, but she doesn't have any actual feathers on her face.

Bert resumed watching the movie. Though the camera work was amateur at best, and the quality of film lacking; the acting was pretty on-point. It was also filmed in a way where no two characters ever seemed to be on screen at the same time. It could have been two people filmed on two completely different times and just spliced together to look like it was a conversation between them. Bert started to pay closer attention and watched the background. Sure enough- subtle things like a can sitting on a table, or the positioning of chairs in a room changed between the back and forth. They are different times! Every time the camera shifts- it's actually a clip filmed at a different time and just mashed together into sequence. That is an odd way to put a film together. The deleted scenes reel is probably longer than the actual movie. Bert tensed up again and his thin pelt of fur stood on end, making him look suddenly fluffy for a moment. There was another scream- this time from down in the court yard though.

He sighed again. "Jeeze. How do people still have that much energy to be goofing around at this time of night."

Normally Bert is not one to spook easily- but given that he is entirely engrossed in a horror film he is entirely off-guard against anything jump scaring him in the real world. Amalise's nervousness was also rubbing off on him a bit. She had been a ball of stress ever since they looked outside when leaving the convention and the realization of how paper-thin their travel plans were fully hit her. Amalise emerges from the bathroom after a while, resting the towel on her shoulders still to steal any leftover moisture from her head feathers. She plopped down in bed but then groaned in disapproval at the horror movie and hunched over, pulling the covers up over her head to block out the movie. Bert just shrugged and continued watching, undeterred.

When the first victim was caught by the killer, she was murdered rather brutally. Bert fully expected ketchup-packet level of blood and the camera to cut to their shadows against the wall and show virtually nothing, but the camera never cut away. He was grossed out but at the same time fascinated. It showed... everything. He jammed the knife into the back of the much smaller male knocking him down, but then dug his stumpy gator claws into the wound on either side and tore it open wider with his bare hands! The man was wailing and crying and kicking, trying to get away but the gator man is nearly three times as large and far, far too heavy to get out from under. The gator's pursed fingers erupted from the FRONT of the man, and his facial expression glazed over and he stopped kicking around. The blood, tearing skin... it all looked extremely realistic. Bert could not believe such a cheap cobbled together movie would be able to pull off effects like that, ever. Maybe it is real? Maybe they went to a butcher shop and got real blood and scraps to use, and then managed to superimpose it onto their real actor to look like it was his own blood? Watching this movie became like watching a train wreck- horrific and disgusting but also you cannot look away. Your mind trying to comprehend the scope of the disaster before you and look for a crack in the facade, to convince itself it isn't real.

Amalise managed to go to sleep long before Bert- she was already hidden under the covers after all. Bert eventually went to bed, turning the TV off and resting his head on the pillow. He had to sleep on top of the covers because of their sharing a bed, so he had no blankets to curl into. Bert closed his eyes to the dark room- very dimly illuminated by the strings of lights around the court. He was already half asleep when he was startled awake again, so his mind reeled trying to figure out what woke him. It sounded like voices? There was several stomping footsteps in the room beside theirs and then a loud, 'NO' that was cut short. Bert's heart tightened into a rock on his chest as his eyes focused in the dark above him. A knife blade slowly slid back out of the wall over his head and several thick drops of fresh blood smeared off the blade onto the sides of the hole to drip down the wall towards his face. Without saying a word his hand immediately grabbed Amalise's arm to wake her.

The movie effects look so real because they are real. He films his murders and then makes his newest victims watch the previous ones die. Those hundreds of VHS movies... are a long list of missing persons over many, many years. This inn is outside of city limits- unmonitored land. There isn't even any cellphone signals this far into the middle of nowhere, you cannot call for help.

Bert did his best to both remain whispering and to frantically inform Amalise of the situation as quickly as possible. At first she assumed he was trying to fuck with her, knowing she was already jumpy- but a quick point to the knife wound in the wall convinced her. Whoever their neighbor was, just became the star of their own horror flick. Amalise went to bolt to the front door but Bert quickly grabbed her arm to stop her, and they both heard the neighbor's door open. Bert asked her if she locked the door and she nodded. He pulled her arm and dragged her to the doors leading to the balcony at the back of their apartment room. The shadow of the killer passed the window at the front and they heard a key in the door- the lock will only slow him slightly, he can open the doors regardless. Knowing he just came from their neighbors' place, Bert walked out onto the balcony and managed to stretch his legs far enough apart that he could put one foot on either balcony, and climb to the neighbor's apartment, then helped Amalise across. They dashed through the apartment, only glancing briefly at the gored mess of a person slumped against the wall between apartments and then out the already opened front door. The killer entered their apartment as they exited the neighbors' and then made a run for it. The killer does not simply murder the victim; he seems to tear out most of the organs first each time, and always sits them in an upright position. Amalise muffled her own scream, pointing across the way for Bert and he seen what she had- two people hung by their throats by the string of lights, their guts having been removed and pooled on the walkway under them.

The killer stepped out and immediately spotted them! He knew their room was supposed to be occupied, so he knew they were on the run and they had not gotten far enough away that they were not still in his field of vision across one of the corners of the central walkways. He angrily pointed his knife toward them and they bolted for the nearest stairs. You can see people across the entire court very easily- but getting to them is another thing entirely. They froze on the way down- seeing a large dresser blocking the stairs with a blood splatter from someone's crushed skull between it and the wall. The killer is closing the gap. Bert is a bit confused, though thinking about anything at all in a panic isn't the easiest thing. The killer in the movies and this killer are two different people. In the movies it was a gator, but the person hunting them now is the well-dressed jackal who was at the front counters. The front of his nice suit sodden with blood now. The reason Bert fixated on that fact is... there may be more than one killer. He did not want to blindly run from one, directly into the arms of another. The brother who manned the VHS stand is more than likely also a murderer, so they had to keep an eye out for him too. They could not use these stairs but there is three flights of stairs total. Since the jackal is catching up to them, they try the nearest apartment door to get in but it is locked. Bert quickly scans for blood drops or smears and points to a door two apartments down and sure enough the door opens. The killer has been leaving the doors of the murder victims open, so wherever there is blood, there is also an open door. They once again ran through the apartment and to the back, this time passing a woman whose rib cage was cracked open- her spine bent at an impossible backward arc, catching on the kitchen counter to hold her upright in spite of being extremely dead. They climb onto the balcony yet again and start shuffling from balcony to balcony- they passed an apartment with two people hiding in it, terrified. Bert motioned for them to come out and escape with them, but the two shook their heads. Too terrified to move, and Bert didn't have time to argue.

By travelling across the balconies at the back- the killer has no line of sight, and thus no way of knowing where exactly they went. He knows they are on the third floor but that is it- he can't know what apartment they are at. They look nervously at the darkness below- if they fell they would be killing themselves. There is a slope at the back of the building too- so even falling off a balcony on the ground floor would still result in quite a tumble into a cactus grove. They scramble through a vacant apartment and unlock the door from the inside, peeking out to scan for the killer. Even more terrifying than seeing the killer near them- they did not see him at all. That is much worse than seeing him because now they don't know where he is. They can't run from him if they can't see him. Did he climb out onto the balconies and try to follow them that way? He could also be on the reverse side of the front door, since they can only see out to the right without fully opening the door. The two open it fully quickly and look around it but still do not see him. This apartment is right beside the stairs down to the second floor, so they dash down. On the second floor they both freeze up as all the hanging lights in the court suddenly go out in a wave- flickering out from one side over to their side. The moonlight was partially blocked by the shade of the building itself, so there is very little light to see by now without any man-made lighting. The two remained frozen still for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the dark so they did not blindly walk into a trap. They were half expecting something to happen to them when the lights went out, so they were frozen up in a stance, ready to pounce out of the way. This killer likes theatrics after all- and the lights going out just before a kill is very cliche. It also went out in an odd manner. If the power was cut they would all go out at the same time, not in sequence from one side to the other. Nothing happened though- they still had no idea where the killer is. Sound echoes well around the court too, and they did not hear footsteps, so he is walking fairly slow. Either very confident that he has them trapped, or deliberately trying to sneak up.

Bloody shoe prints marked the pathway- he had clearly killed a lot of people already. In the film Bert watched he killed five people... there is hundreds of VHS in that stand, and none of them are repeats. Bert and Amalise walked quickly, trying to go as fast as they could without being careless in the darkness or creating too much sound to be tracked down by. They almost made it to the flight of stairs to the ground floor and both jumped so hard they almost fell over the railing! A woman slapped her hand against the window of her apartment to get their attention and then scrambled to unlock her door and dash out.

"Is he gone?!" He voice fluttered with her hammering heartbeat.

Bert shook his head. "We don't know- we lost him on the third floor, I have no idea where he is right now."

Bert took the lead, Amalise behind him and the woman behind her- an anthro mouse. The power did not seem to be off, but also was not working. The lights that are always supposed to be on around the flights of stairs are dim and flickering rapidly- so they do not illuminate anything really, but also are not completely off. The same thing happened to a vending machine as they walked past, which made Bert furrow his brow in thought. The vending machine was fine till they walked near it- then it started to flicker out. Does the killer actually know where they are right now? Bert froze and spun around as he heard Amalise scream and seen the mouse woman jam a knife in her side from behind! Bert immediately ran in fear, though glanced and seen the mouse woman distracted with Amalise and turned around, slipping into the nearest apartment. She would expect him to have run as far as possible and wouldn't bother looking in the nearest hiding place.

He bit his lip so hard he drew his own blood, curled up under the front window. "Fuck fuck FUCK. Amalise! Why did I run? Why- why...? FUCK."

What was even the point of running? The mouse is clearly a murderer too- but also a woman. Bert should have tried to overpower her- it would have been two against one... sort of, Amalise already had a knife wound at that point. Now it was definitely too late- he can hear the squelch of the knife blade plunging into his friend repeatedly and the occasional gritty, grinding sound as the knife blade scrapes against her bones. It was also pointless for him to have run. Amalise has the keys to the truck- he can't actually go anywhere without her. What is he going to do? Run ten miles on foot to the nearest gas station? The killer will just run him over in their own vehicle before he even gets out of the parking lot.

The door to the apartment he slipped into was already open a bit- he made sure not to touch the door. If he closed it or moved it in any way it would only give away his location- by leaving it open it makes it still less likely she will look here. He glanced out the open door from around the frame and seen Amalise's lifeless feet and a growing pool of blood- though in the darkness the blood looks black. The mouse woman looked around then grunt angrily when she seen no obvious signs of where Bert went. She hunched over for a moment and Bert heard the hollow, muffled sound of bones cracking and popping below her skin! Her body started to twitch and jerk in an unnatural manner. Her hair bunched up, fused together and then broke into millions of bristles- turning from actual hair into hair-like feathers! Her fingers deformed a bit to allow her miniscule claws to grow into large arched talons! Her teeth fused and started to stretch out of her mouth, forcing it open and pushing her nose up till only her nostrils remained and her mouth stretched outward into a hooked dark grey beak! Bert looked on in horror as even her clothing changed colors and shuffled around to look identical to Amalise!

She ran a talon across her own side lightly and somehow produced a wound identical to the knife wound. "Bert?" She whispered loudly, in a frightened tone. "Bert please... help. I lost her but I am hurt..." She shuffled off slowly- pretending to be badly wounded.

Oh fuck. Ooooh fuck ohfuckohfuckohfuck. That is why the lights are going apeshit. The killer isn't mortal. That is why the killer is never discovered... that is why the remains are never discovered. The jackals at the front AREN'T killers- neither was the gator! The killer is a Wendigo- a cannibal spirit... and shapeshifter. That is why all the bodies are upright and the organs are separated. He is draining the blood- he is preparing the meat to be consumed. No one ever discovers the bodies of the victims because he doesn't leave any bodies; he EATS them! He can steal the body of whoever or whatever he consumes- he licked the blood off the knife after killing Amalise, allowing him to steal her identity. Wendigo are technically a type of ghost, so he has no body of his own- and because magic and technology tend not to get along, all the lights go berserk when he uses his powers. That also means Bert has to hide from EVERYTHING that is alive and not himself. It could turn into literally anything. The most fucked up part of it all is the Wendigo is a cannibal- so it will possess the body of the last living person and use it to cannibalize all the others. So if Bert is the last to go- he will be made to eat Amalise.

Having just seen it wander off to his right, he went left to the remains of Amalise. With tears in his eyes he nearly vomited at the sight as he pat down her pockets to take the keys to her father's truck. That was the only escape route- without a vehicle there was no way to survive. Even if he ran out into the desert and rolled the dice against his odds of dying to the wasteland- the Wendigo would just shapeshift into a bird and fly out to catch him. But a vehicle is faster than any creatures it can shapeshift to, it can't outrun him in a truck. He was already right beside the stairs so he quietly slipped down the stairs, avoiding stepping in the blood that was trickling down the steps from Amalise- it would be a shame if he slipped on the steps and killed himself after all this.

A demonic voice echoed in the courtyard. "YOUUUUU!"

He only glanced back to see the fake Amalise hunch over and her arms and legs start to rapidly grow in length and progressively turn to black, gnarled skin that resembled tree bark. She stepped over the railing of the balcony and her leg became so long she simply walked down from the second floor! Rather than bolt to the parking lot and get caught in the open on the way to the truck, he dashed sideways to break line of sight. Bert tripped over chairs and shoved desks aside in the office area, then ran through several halls, not entirely sure of where he is going or even CAN go from here. He heard the wendigo slither past however- going to the parking lot assuming that would be where he ran. As it passed, he seen its head turn black and seem to melt- a gob divided and then took the shape of a second head, and then a third head. More long, bony arms emerged from its body, making its crawling better resemble a skittering bug. Its limbs were all shaped differently and had too many joints- even its fingers were long and narrow like a spider's legs. Its own body contained the parts of every body it has consumed, so it has too many organs, bones, and mass to make any biological sense. The skin on the heads were shrunken in, making the shape of the skull obvious from the surface and the eye sockets did not contain any eyes, though it was still able to see just fine. Only one of its many heads were human- most were animal. Not all heads even had necks, some attached to the collar or just the front of its malformed torso.

Bert wandered through several doors that just went to empty rooms. This area was arranged sort of like an office place, but only the first room had any furniture in it. The problem is; it also did not seem to have any other doors leading to anywhere else. The structure has been DIY for so long that it doesn't make architectural sense. There was boxes here and there but basically nothing set up. Bert had to take out and use his cellphone as a flashlight once he was deep enough into the building since refracted moonlight did not reach in and the building's electricity was on the fritz. A shiver and then a sigh of relief passed his lips as he held his phone up and seen the green marker over a door at the end of the hall- it's a fire exit, his escape route. Then the light from his phone started to flicker wildly. Bert immediately bolted as fast as he could to the door just as some of the fingers of the wendigo curled around the corner into the hall and it dragged its malformed flesh into the hall coming for him. Dozens of impossibly long, narrow arms reached down the hallway after him, without the wendigo needing to personally come in after him. He slammed the metal door on its fingers and ran into the parking lot.

Now Bert frantically dashed from vehicle to vehicle trying to find the truck, keeping his head down so he cannot be seen over the vehicles. He heard the click of claws and hooves alike and glanced under the vehicle he was beside to see the many legs of the wendigo shuffling past going the other direction. He prayed none of these vehicles had sensitive car alarms or he was a dead man. Out in the middle of nowhere... there was no noise pollution here. The sky was lit up with a billion stars and a swollen half-moon painting the parking lot pale blue, but everything in deathly silence. There are not even any crickets to chirp or leaves to rustle in the wind. The slithering and clamoring of the wendigo's body is the only sound and he could not think of anything he would want to hear less. It even rolled over a few hoods, crawling across the top of the vehicle to get a better vantage point.

Finally Bert found the truck- an old but well-kept vehicle. He unlocked it frantically and hopped into the passenger seat, shutting the door quickly so the automatic lights on the inside turned off and did not give him away. He glanced around to see if it was near but could not see it at all from the truck, so he turned the key and went to book it out of the lot. The truck sputtered and growled, then sputtered again. Really?! This old thing works fine before but it decides to have problems NOW?!

He pumped the pedal. "Com'on com'on com'on..."

His heart rate went through the roof as he kept trying to start the damn truck even as he could see the wendigo rise over the vehicles ahead of him and slither across the roof of the vehicles toward him. It was grinning, though you could not tell since its many heads lacked lips. Because it has so many different limbs that are constantly shifting, it looks more like a ball of body parts tumbling over things than a creature actually clawing forward. Bert became more and more frantic trying to get the vehicle to work! It was his only way out of this place- there is no way he would get back into the building and steal the keys to another vehicle without being caught! He was crying now in absolute terror even as he slammed his fist against the dashboard in frustration. He then seen the jumbled mess on the screen of his digital watch and all hope left his body. The truck can't work- technology fails in the presence of the wendigo. The truck works fine- it won't start because the killer is here.

Its enveloped the vehicle and it punched through the windshield and lanced him through the chest with its fingers pursed- the tips of its narrow bony digits so sharp it actually did not even hurt that much. He felt the sting as its narrow fingers reached through his ribs and tickled his heart before spreading. Its knuckle joints caught on the inside of the wound as it spread its fingers wider and wider, exposing his rib cage to the outside from the expanding hole as he screamed- though his scream was dry and pained and did not carry far even in the abysmal silence of the night.

One of its heads gained a flesh tone and the skin pulled smooth again as it stole the appearance of Amalise again. "You should have saved me, Bert. You left me to die back there, so now I cannot be here to help you now. If it is any consolation though..." Its voice became distorted and demonic again. "I am sure you will taste delicious."

It then closed its fingers again, pinching his heart and yanked back- squeezing it against the ribs before managing to yank it through the gap, still connected by arteries. For a brief moment, Bert could see his own beating heart before he died. Bert's only true consolation is in the fact he was not the last one there to be killed- the wendigo did not possess him and have him eat everyone till his stomach lining ruptured.

The police would be in an uproar trying to find all of the conventioners that went missing. Urban legends would spread far and wide. Their vehicles were all found at the condemned shopping plaza but no one would ever find them. There is no remains to be found. The next time any of them were ever seen, was as the stars of these very graphic horror movies... care to rent one?