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"What do you know?" Neil asked. "Who are you?"

"I am... no one anymore. Just an old coyote, among his own, here in the desert. I had a name, but I have given it up--for it no longer suits me. You may call me 'Old Man', if you please, for I am still that... though more dog than man, at this point." he cackled, then hacked a bit, swallowing, with his thick, black lips.

"Back there, you saved us." Neil realized. "Why are you helping us?" he asked, palming the water in his mismatched hands, looking at his reflection. He had grown thick black whiskers, just on either side of his nose. They were already standing attentively, at least an inch long and dripping moisture.

The creature layed back in the hot water, sighing, displaying its sharp teeth and long, broad tongue, and raising its pawed toes. It eased into the mucky creek bank, slime coating the fur on its back. All around them, the water glowed with motes of gold fluid, that stood in contrast, almost like oil against the muddy, moonlit flow.

"There is more going on here than you yet know. That the one you sought was taken is no accident, I assure you. They planned to kill you, then, when we met. Then, they'd have excused her death, as your fault."

"Who? Who wants to kill us? Who is trying to kill us... and why?"

"The one who calls herself "Murphy". I think you may have met. You see, I was spying on you when the girl dragged you away--wondering if you'd live... wondering... what you would choose to become."

Murphy? Leticia. The doctor, he realized.

"Why does the doctor want me dead? She seemed fascinated in me."

"Only a pretense, boy. She's created more of.... you... 'us', eventually... than I can care to count."

"How?" he asked. "What's that got to do with..."

"Add it up."

The whole situation made sense, in a way. If the doctor wasn't here to fix the problem, then it only made sense that it was because she knew why the problem existed.

"So she sent us out here... what, to waste our time?"

"To put you in position for a hit. She was disposing of you both, before you got suspicious about what was going on here."

"And you don't want that to happen."

"Because I HATE her," He growled. "She will endanger anyone to meet her own, hidden agenda. She made me this way, because I knew it. To silence me."

"Apparently not too well." Neil asserted.

"An early mistake on her part. She had assumed her work incomplete--that I would degenerate, go mad like the victims of our town, from exposure to the contaminant. How wrong she was... I feel more clarity in my mind now, than I had ever, as a human. She thought to make me less... and has done so much to make me... mmmore..."

A faint whimper drew Neil's attention to the riverbank behind his mysterious associate. The head of a coyote parted the grass, and it drew the rest of its sinuous body with it, plodding along down the hill, and splashing into the water.

"My mate... apologies. She is curious about you."

"Is she..." Neil trailed off.

"Not of our kind--a purebreed coyote. Well, perhaps a bit of wolf in her." he joked. "Please do not misunderstand. I have weighed what I have gained, against what I have lost, and I welcome her company as my lover. They are not as different as you think, from what we are now.... perhaps less so thanks to our... strange nature."

"You have sex with her, though."

The beast-man turned his yellow eyes back to Neil. "I do. I have chosen this path without regret. My hope is that she will be able to bear my seed, though this is still uncertain."

The silence was awkward. What he proposed wasn't exactly bestiality at this point, but it was beyond uncomfortable. Would this be his fate too, if he did not find a cure? To become an eccentric, lonesome creature, mating with the wildlife?

Neil watched the two; she turning, rolling against him, head pressed upside-down against his chest. She raised her paws, and he stroked her stomach with his sharp black nails, long since gone the way of an animal, grown long and thick from his padded digits. Her tongue shot up, to lick his chin in submissive affection.

"I have passed many months, regressing to the state you see me in now, and soon it will be time to surrender my humanity, and join with the others that woman has victimized. In that time, I have often debated the merit of reversing this strange process, and realized that it is no longer in my interest. I have seen what that side has to offer, and I am ready to die a coyote, not a man. That you have followed, suggests you are uncertain, of where your future lies. Now that you have come, I will not only warn you of that woman's intentions--I will see if you have the resolve to stop her. But I must also understand your heart on this matter."

He cupped his palms in the water, and drew forth a handful of glowing muck.

"Drink."

Neil raised an eyebrow, as if this was some kind of joke.

"Drink it!" the creature snarled, fangs bared. "It will sate your craving."

Disgusted, he bent his head down, as if accepting a christening, and lapped up some of the filthy water, swallowing reluctantly.

Almost immediately, he tensed, eyes dilating.

"What you have drank is a catalyst. An alien mutagen. Something not of this world, as you've of course concluded--but which stimulates the genetic activity of life here on Earth. For most things, it is poisonous. For us, it is sustenance."

He felt a spark of warmth run down his left hand, and raised it out of the water, watching as his nails popped off one by one under the strain of growing new claws. One of them, the one on his ring finger, grew in a startling white in contrast to the other four.

"We crave this substance, but it also destroys us, slowly, if taken too much, or too frequently. We were part of that bitch's experiment, to develop a resistance. You see, the mutagen does emit a form of radiation... nothing lethal in and of itself--but it is the chemical nature of the substance that baffles us. It is not something that occurs in nature."

He cringed, watching his hand swell, thicken, and grow thick black hair that netted together into a pad. Soon his fingers began to web, and his thumb to drift, as his other had done.

"It's not... stopping..." he groaned, watching his little thumb transform into a dewclaw. He barely retained any kind of fine dexterity in either hand, now, just slightly being able to make fists.

"Given a matter of hours, your body would metabolize this substance, with the alterations we have given you... the changes that Doctor Murphy... and myself first engineered, using gene sequences from the native coyote, and our own blood."

Fur began to visibly grow, like stop-motion photography, up his wrist, over his fingers, across his arm--filling with muscle. Soon his chest flared, growing, filling in.

"Make it stop... please... I don't... I don't want to... change." he protested.

The female coyote swam interested, to his side, to observe the process that was taking place.

"It would protect you from the immediate, devastating effects of the mutagen, that you have seen to this point in other humans--those we call 'Revenants', because of how stripped they appear of health and sanity. However, that is only a temporary protection. You will, as I have--continue to crave the Contaminant, feasting upon it in its rawest state available. It congeals in the bodies of the fallen, both revenants and infected like you and I. And without curbing your cravings, it will destroy you. You will become yet another walking corpse."

"I just, I just want it to go back to the way it was..." he complained. "I'm not, not like you--I don't WANT to be a coyote!" he cried out, feeling his toes swell and shift, claws popping from each digit... and soon settling into paws.

"I don't know that." the creature said.

"Yes you do, I just told you!" Neil shouted.

"I don't know that given time, you might not adjust, as I have. I too resisted the transformation, feared losing myself, my identity. But it has changed me. Become part of who I am, and not subtracted from me. I wanted to give you that chance--to experience the pleasure and fulfillment of an animal life, as I have."

Neil's head spun. He had hit an emotional high. Yes, there was fear, shock at his body straining not to become what it was becoming. But there was also pleasure--a second sense of self trying to assert itself, to intertwine with who he was already. A wilder, more animal Neil, that looked forward to the changes that were coming.

* * *

"Ease your mind." the old man's voice called. "I did not invite you here to take something from you, but to 'give' you something. Close your eyes, and imagine it with me for a moment. Forget your body--" he added.

The old man steadied him with rough paws, and eased in behind him, his wet fur and firm stomach warm against Neil's back.

"Feel your paws, running the plains."

He sighed, tried to steady his exhalations, to forget where he was. He tried to replace the squishing of his toes in the mud, with the pounding of dry dirt beneath them. He was chasing--chasing something. Not running, not fleeing, but pursuing his goal.

"Smell what it is you want--it cannot elude you."

His nose picked up an indistinct odor. Not a good smell, not a bad smell--just a smell. A familiar one. He knew its direction--was tied into it almost physically.

"Chase your real desire."

His body filled with lust. He could feel it pounding, hammering to bring him to his target. A driving, hot sensation as the sun beat down on his back--but enlivening, not exhausting. Something he had to have.

"See yourself as we see you."

He saw a coyote--himself--not a beast, not a monster--but just... 'him'. Panting, racing and bounding on all fours, head bobbing up and down, closer and closer to his goal.

"There is no fear, there is only purpose."

The coyote grew closer, as if drawing toward a camera--toward his own mind's eye. Its intents were hungry, lustful, playful. He felt himself sweat with anticipation, knowing what would happen as it came closer... closer... closer to him. And when it touched--

* * *

"No!" he gasped, eyes snapping open, breaking free of the man's grip in sudden shock.

"You are afraid still. It is alright." the creature whispered.

"No... I just don't... want..."

He looked down at his throbbing, canine penis. It was dripping yellow juices, free of its sheathe--a sparkling, red, nozzle-tipped member, kissing the wet air. The she-coyote pressed her muzzle to his groin, sniffing, and licked the tip of his mutated equipment clean, then turned, satisfied, and rejoined her mate.

"Think about it for awhile. Who knows. You may find your forte--your strength. You may even start a pack of your own. Perhaps with your friend."

He wouldn't betray Kinsey to this plague, though, however aroused he was or wasn't, with the prospect of regression. She didn't deserve to be double-crossed--no--molested, like that.

"Maybe." he said darkly. "Is that all you have to say?"

"No, young one." the old man replied. "I wanted to tell you, there 'is' a way out of your predicament, should you decide you wish to remain human."

That caught his attention. "What? What is it?"

"The one called Murphy--she keeps it in a refrigeration unit, beneath the veterinary hospital. That is where we hid our lab. We would abduct stragglers, late at night, and bind them there. I am not proud to say, it was originally my idea, that she co-opted."

"A curious way to make a reformation, I'd say." Neil remarked. "Turning into one of the monsters you helped create."

"Indeed... but listen. It is the pinnacle of her work thus far. She will guard it dearly--an 'Inhibitor' to the mutagen, which she synthesized using our blood. I have seen her write about it in her correspondences, and I know it exists. You must obtain it. Use it, if that is what you desire."

"I'll give it my all." Neil said.

"And destroy her work. Kill her, or make it so that no one tries to repeat what she has done here!"

"Burn it to the ground if I have to." Neil whispered, wading from the pool, wagging his new, fully-grown and furred tail, and shaking free the water.

"And young one... we will not speak again." the old man finished.

He turned, to see the beast palming the glowing goop in pawlike hands.

"No!" Neil shouted, suddenly, turning, trying to run back to stop the old man.

"This is my penance. Farewell, Neil." the mysterious old man whispered, downing the entirety of the goop. "I will pray for you to make the decision with your heart. Ahh---ahrrrroooo!"

He watched in dumbfounded awe, as the old man's face stretched, shoulders popping, hair thickening. Soon his nose had doubled, tripled in length, bone and muscle straining uncontrollably, as his once human head flattened, changed, grew, and grew, lips thickening, teeth sharpening, breaking gum in row after row, reaching an almost phallic fruition, losing all semblance of a human shape, as the transformation was... at last...

...Complete.

A coyote and his mate waded from the warm waters. They shook off in turn, and the male squatted, relieving himself little by little in clumps, tail raised. The two circled, and the female sniffed his coiled spoor, before waggling her head, and darting off energetically. Her companion gave one last look at Neil, then darted through the brush.