FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Why we let it live

By Strega

"What I don't understand," Randall said, "Is why you don't kill it. It's right there!"

Harris, the older guard, shrugged. Like his new friend he wore a metal cap, a byrnie of chain-maille and thick leather bracers with iron reinforcing strips. An oval shield hung on his back and he leaned on a spear a foot taller than he was. Each of them carried a short, heavy club as a last resort.

Randall was pointing at the run-down cemetery a hundred yards away. The two of them were on a little knoll with a good view of the cracked, disintegrating crypts and moss growing across centuries-old headstones.

They also had an excellent view of the ancient oak that spread its leaves over the cemetery Randall was pointing at a fork some twenty feet off the ground and a mossy boll jutting from the tree's hoary bulk. It seemed to any examination to be a natural part of the tree but Harris had stood on this knoll a thousand times and knew perfectly well that it wasn't.

"Look, son," he said kindly. "We leave it be for a reason. Of course we know it's there." It was his turn to point, this time at dark spots in the grass beneath the tree. "Droppings. It is fat and lazy and hasn't strayed from that oak in years. We let it alone because it's useful."

The sun was nearly gone behind the hills and as always happened at this time of the evening a chill mist began to rise in the hollow that held the cemetery Randall shifted nervously as a raven called out from somewhere in the mist, then jumped at a scrape of stone on stone and a moan from somewhere in the mist.

"Hold on son," Harris said and he put out his hand to keep Randall from lifting his crossbow. "Just watch for a minute."

A long groan and a further scrape of stone came from the mist followed by dragging footsteps. From the thickening fog a shambling figure appeared. At first just a darker shape in the mist, it soon resolved into a corpse moving under its own power. Tattered burial garb hung from it in strips and white, sightless eyes fastened on them from a half-rotten face.

Somehow it sensed them and lurched forward, arms extended and one foot dragging. It was slow enough they could simply have backed up, or speared it while doing the same when it got close enough, but Harris knew it wouldn't be necessary.

Randall gasped as the mossy bump on the oak twitched. Nearsighted eyes in the 'moss' blinked owlishly down at the zombie but the ears that pricked up at the moan were keen. As the undead shambled beneath the creature a furry, fleshy snout dipped from the branch and there was a flash of long, pink tongue.

The zombie let out a confused groan as the sticky tongue wrapped around its neck and dragged it upward. Still fixated on the two men atop the nearby hill, it only belatedly reached up for the noose of flesh dragging it upward. Even its hands stuck to the tongue but it might have struggled free with time.

Time was one thing it did not have. Randall watched wide-eyed as the tongue pulled it up to that rubbery snout and with a long slurp the zombie was reduced to a wriggling bulge in the creature's tube-like mouth.

Decaying feet kicked from the rubbery maw until it lifted its head. The bulge under the mossy fur shifted as swallowing muscles gripped and pulled and with a wet gulp the feet were gone. Randall's mouth dropped open to mimic his eyes as the bulge of zombie shrank down to nothing. In a moment the anteater-thing's snout was its usual size once more and the only sign there had ever been a zombie was a swelling in the beast's fat, well-furred middle.

"That is why we let it live," Harris told his junior. "A few years back zombies started coming out of there. Some brave men went in and a couple didn't make it back but the ones that did said there was no one source. About once a day, usually at sundown, one of the undead claws its way out of a grave. We stopped burying people there at once, naturally - the zombies always come out of the crypts around sunset at at first there were a couple of dozen wandering around."

The shaggy beast clinging to the oak belched contentedly, its clawed paws shifting and a furry prehensile tail repositioning itself. With that it settled down, its fur gradually changing color until it perfectly matched the bark and moss of its new resting spot. Harris watched with idle interest and Randall with horror as its fat midsection twitched, but the beast did not seem to care that the zombie was still struggling. Having seen it happen dozens of times Harris knew why. The undead was tougher than a man but without any way to cut its way out it would only exit the beast after the eater's digestive system was done with it.

"We set guards at first," Harris said, "And we were getting the militia together to clear out the pack of dead. Then one day that thing moved in," he gestured at the mossy bump on the oak, "Got in there somehow without the zombies noticing, and started eating them. They aren't smart enough to figure out what's going on or climb trees and one by one, sometimes two or three a night it sucked them in and swallowed them. The grass under that tree is fertilized with what used to be undead."

There was another burp from the mossy bump on the oak and Harris got out his pipe. "It seems perfectly happy to stay in the tree, but we still keep an eye on it and make sure no one wanders in there. You're new, I've been taking my turn on guard here for years. If the zombies ever stop showing up and it gets hungry, well, then we'll do something about it."

There was a shout of greeting from behind them and they turned to watch the little group of townsfolk, including the head of the militia, make their way up the well-trodden trail. In their midst was a stumbling, bandaged man with his hands bound behind him. They recognized the bandit the patrol had captured yesterday.

"All right then," said the militia-captain, and grabbed the bandit by the shoulder. He held tight as he sawed through the bindings on the man's wrists. "I don't want to see you again."

The man took a hesitant step toward the cemetery "Why do I have to go through there?"

"Because any other direction has roads," the captain said reasonably. "And the patrols have instructions to kill you on sight."

With a shake of his head the bandit made his way toward the cemetery Randall and the others, who knew what to look for, saw the subtle shift of an ear as the concealed beast sensed another meal coming within reach. Very slowly it turned its head, and there was the sudden flick of a sticky tongue.

"And of course there's that use for it too," Harris mused, but Randall just watched with new horror as the bandit was hauled up toward the rubbery snout.