Love, War, Fox Ghosts 'N' Stuff
After the transformation of Alex's shrewish wife into a solid gold statue, he grew ever closer to the strange, otherworldly house guest that was the spirit of a dead fox, so much so in fact that he grew to question his own sanity. Following the acquisition of enormous wealth, Alex and the fox spirit had taken sanctuary in a remote farmhouse to be distant from the questions and prying eyes of the mundane world.
"Chill!," advised the fox spirit, perceiving Alex's concern. "It is what it is...live in the present moment!," he counseled as he slurped down Chinese take-out.
"So what exactly is it like, being dead?," asked Alex.
"I feel alone, feel at home, feel like nothing is true," replied the fox, adding to Alex's confusion. "After all, you're dead for a heck of a lot longer than you're alive, and being dead in some ways is better. I don't get tired or sick, and don't even have to poop, for example!"
"Well, that's a comfort, I suppose," admitted Alex. "But don't you miss sex?," he inquired, growing a bit horny since his wife had become a large quantity of precious metal.
"We've got something even better than that on the other side," offered the fox. "Allow me to demonstrate," he continued, assuming an almost meditative posture. With that, glowing tentacles of sparkling, tranlucent ectoplasm extruded from the fox's body, extending to caress and then merge with Alex's physical body. Initially alarmed, Alex's expression soon turned to one of bliss, and he was lifted physically several feet off of the couch while swirling colored sparks pulsated over every centimeter of the man's body. Alex's breathing quickened and deepened as he swiftly built to what he would later describe as a whole body orgasm. Gasping and shuddering, his physical form slowly descended back onto the couch where Alex reposed, utterly spent.
The fox spirit grinned at Alex mischievously. "Was it good for you?," he inquired.
"Damn, Dude, what did you just do to me?!," Alex demanded to know. "It feels like you just took the top of my head off! You made me cream my jeans, too!," he added.
"Ejaculation is a manifestation of being in the flesh," explained the spirit. "I just gave you a touch of, shall we say, spiritual communion?"
"A touch?," remarked Alex, incredulous. "What would a full experience have felt like?," he demanded to know.
"You would not have survived it," cautioned the fox spirit. "Trust me on that!" Slowly the expression on the fox's face changed, however, from one of joyful revelation to one approaching alarm, his silvery-white pools of eyes swirling in the dark triangular face.
"What is it?," asked Alex, noticing the change. "You know something...what's happening?!"
The fox spirit spoke to Alex, but looked through him. "Still the fiends pursue me!," he said quietly. "Their agents, their cat's paw, approach us as we speak!," declared the fox, rising from the couch. "You'd better clean up, my friend," advised the fox. "I'm going to war!"
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As Alex frantically cleaned off and put on other clothing, the spirit of the dead fox went to hover by a front window to await a small army which approached from two miles away. Without seeing them, the fox knew that marching at him were hundreds of men, together with five trucks, four small command cars, and two tanks. A cold rain had begun outside as night approached. Cold and wet, the army continued to advance on the fox's position. To a man they were fearful in spite of their collective might, for they knew that they went to fight with the otherworldly.
"We've got to run!," said Alex in a panic.
The fox spirit shook his head in the negative. "Take my hand and let it come, let it come," he said quietly.
The fox spirit closed his silvery liquid eyes, sighed, and began to picture, to visualize. He opened his eyes then, and visions began to fill his otherworldly sockets of curling smoke and flaming men. As the attack came over the rise of a hill where the farmhouse was located, the dead fox began to transport unimaginable horrors from the realm humans know only as hell.
The leading men of the assault had no time to scream as they burst into flame. Their eyes lost in fire, they stumbled a few steps and fell hissing and charred into the soft mud around the farmhouse. Men yelled, their ranks broken. They began to throw up their weapons and fire at the night, searching for an enemy. They fired blindly into the woods and fields, shooting one another. More troops sprouted flames, flared up, and were dead. The dead fox continued to visualize things, unimaginable things, terrible things...
The driver of a military truck looked towards the heavens, but no salvation issued from there. His eyes insane with horror, the driver saw a gigantic boulder rushing at him from out of the black sky. Upon impact, the truck was driven partially into the earth. Impossibly the boulder lifted from the ground and smashed down again like some kind of demonic trip hammer, flattening the truck and its driver. Again the boulder flew into the darkened sky as if weightless.
A tank was enveloped in fire, its crew jumping out like two-legged torches. The flying boulder smashed into the burning hulk, which exploded and was eaten up in blazing light. Another truck covered in flames wove crazily over the field, mowing over men before crashing into a tree.
The fox continued to imagine, and transpose his dark visions into reality. "Fight for me, my warriors!," he said evenly as swirling mists began to take substance in the blackness.
Impossibly, a running soldier collided with a lion. Unable to see in the darkness, his hands struck wildly at the shaggy mane. He clubbed at the muscular body with his rifle butt. There was a scream as the soldier's face was torn off with one swipe of thick claws. A triumphant jungle roar reverberated in the night. Elsewhere, a red-eyed elephant trampled wildly through the mud, picking up men in his thick trunk, hurling them through the air, and mashing them under the driving columns of his legs.
The wolves semed to be everywhere, bounding from the darkness. They sprang, tearing at throats. The leathery skin of a rhinoceros glowed in the light of living torches, crashed into a burning tank, wheeled about, thundered into the blackness, and was gone. The air was filled with the sound of fangs, claws, ripping teeth, shrieks, and roars.
Then there was silence as gray morning mist rolled over the burned, the crushed, the torn, and the sprawling dead. Wisps of oily smoke rose from the shattered hulks of motionless trucks and silent tanks.
"You took me to a place where my senses gave way," marveled Alex, overwhelmed at the dance of death he had just seen orchestrated.
The fox spirit knew that it was just another battle in an on-going war that he would periodically have to fight. Above all, he had to defend the human called Alex who was under his protection. The unlikely duo had other destinations to reach and other duties to perform in order to realize their destiny. "I just wanna play it right," explained the fox, "and we, we're gonna get there some night!," he promised.
...and something in the small dead fox made the human believe him...