Seven-Tails, Chapter 2
#2 of Seven-Tails Series
Fifteen dollars plus some tax. That was for the damage, and to pay for the woman's mice as well, for her kid's stupid snake.
But they tasted good. So we had some more. No. Did I think that? It was true. He had not told me, nor ordered, nor said it--I felt the hunger myself, and the satisfaction of the meal.
It was embarrassing, but I spent the extra to get another box. For myself. I lied and said it was for a pet boa--I doubt anyone believed me after what some had seen, and what others--by the extension of rising conversation--had heard. I ducked the condescending glares as I was shooed from the store. Ashamed of what I'd done, but incredibly hungry, still.
When the electric, sliding doors had shut behind me, and I'd escaped the glares of people who were even now gossiping, calling me insane--I walked out in the slush of mid-December snow, amidst the salt on the pavement.
"What the hell was that?!" I rambled to myself horrified, barely keeping my voice below a shout. "What did you just make me DO?"
"We were hungry. We ate. We are STILL hungry. We should eat more, until we are both full."
"No! Humans... humans don't eat miiiiiiice..."
I had to catch myself reaching in to try and catch one of the things by the tail. I blanked out for a second, then quickly withdrew my hand to dodge the sharp little teeth of the awful things.
"You didn't tell me you were going to make me want to eat weird things!"
"I simply said you might like some of the things that I LIKE. I never said what you had to eat, just that I wanted to eat. We should STILL eat. So if you don't like what you HAVE to eat, you should find OTHER things to eat."
"Do you ALWAYS want to eat? Or will this wear off once you get used to it again?"
"As a fox, eating is my passion. Perhaps we should find some poultry next. You raise chickens in this country, do you not? I am certain I have heard from other humans here that America is quite fond of the birds. They are your national symbol, are they not? Birds?"
"That's the Bald Eagle, not Chickens, stupid!" I resisted the overwhelming urge to drool. Was my tongue longer all of a sudden? I couldn't be sure.
"Chickens, chickens, delicious birds. What do you eat them with, soy sauce? Do you bake them? Do you eat them raw? I've seen a movie where one human drank the eggs from a glass..."
"God, stop talking about food!"
I walked to the bike rack and unlocked my bicycle, wrapping the chain tight around the underside of the seat and relocking it. I kicked up the kickstand and made off through the slush, minding the traffic, and battling hunger with my mind. The mice rumbled and clamored about inside of the box, which hung inside a plastic bag I'd tied around the handlebars.
He was there with me. Clinging to me. Legs curled about my shoulders and waist, overlapping with my body. Could I feel it? Not physically--but there was a warmth, a presence there. I could feel the wind stir around his swaying tails as they fanned out behind me. He was weightless, but there, nonetheless.
I drove on through the light snow that was falling. Toledo isn't a pretty city, although there are nice things about it. They're way outweighed by the ugly things, now that I think about it--but the snow is a nice thing. It makes getting home just feel more exciting. I guess I'm weird like that. A kid who likes biking in the snow. But then, my family was weird too--sending me on an errand like this, for myself.
"So how did you get here? Where are you from again, and what the hell were you doing in a pet store?" I asked.
"Plane, Japan, and waiting. In that order. You know I'm not a stupid animal, right? I would not stay in a country where the people have a constant phobia of my kind of... activity."
"Isn't that a little roundabout? You came all the way here by plane, just to sit in a store and look for a gullible kid to haunt?"
"Roundabout, perhaps. Rewarding, certainly. There are not many humans who are keen to the nature of fox possession, in this country. At least, none from this day and age. It makes the odds that my stay with you will be cut short very, very low."
I dodged the traffic, cutting across an empty street, through a Midas parking lot.
"And that's good for you? Do you WANT to stay... with me?"
"Indubitably, and indefinitely. You are young and naive. And entertaining. And you will make a superb body when you grow older."
"Grow older? I thought you were making me immortal!" I said, slamming my breaks and practically flipping over the handlebars as the bike skidded to an abrupt halt.
"Well, that's figuratively speaking. That is... when you reach your terminal age, you will no longer be...human, so to speak."
"You son of a bitch! You DID cheat me! What's going to happen? Am I going to grow hair and howl at the moon?"
"That, would be werewolves. I. Am. A. Fox."
"No shit! So am I going to what? Transform into a fox?"
"That... is not... err... far from what will start to happen. Soon."
"SOON?! You @%#!ing bastard, How SOON is SOON?!"
I could hear an almost palpable sigh, and relative silence for an uncomfortable period of time, in which I was absolutely livid.
"Your anger may be hastening... the change. I can feel our connection tighten. It's going to be difficult for me to maintain a form outside your body, if you keep this up."
"Meaning?!" I asked, gripping my handlebars so I could feel the rubber grooves dig into my palms.
"The closer I am bound to you by your primative emotions, the more your body will adapt to my presence. In laymans terms, your anger feeds into what will result in physical transformation. Into me. Into us. And by the time you have reached /that/ age... "we" will no longer exist at all. We will have conjoined, into one personality, and one perfect body. And not a human body, either."
"Tell me how to stop it."
"I will not."
"Tell me how to stop it!" I shouted angrily.
Silence. He was shutting me out. Worse yet, I could feel his anger, too. We were sharing the same emotions, via my body.
Funny to think that emotions have such a tight connection to your body. You think of it as an extension of your soul--things like love, hate, rage... can they all really be summed up as just chemicals, stimulating neural impulses, and bodily reaction?
People would righteously say no, and try to defend individuality--to defend the right to exist, as more than an amalgam of quantifiable factors. Of smaller, less important things, instead of some great spiritual mystery. But this was no such thing.
I don't remember when it started happening... but I grew claws. I was angry, and I wanted a way to express my anger. So my fingers shifted like putty, and before I knew it, my fingernails had split open like the eggshells of baby birds--and there they were bulging out like the beaks of newborn chicks, black and hard, and long. Round, curved, fox claws.
I cried. It was genuinely, horrifyingly painful. There was no voice anymore, just emotions and pain, and bleeding in the snow, on the asphault.
And a little bit of the human in me died, right then and there.