FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

2.

It was the same mundane job that he had done for several years. He was anxiously counting down the mere minutes that would take for him to be free to seek rest from the nerve racking job. It wasn't so bad but it was a desk job, sitting at a computer putting in numbers that would be sent to billing so someone somewhere would make some type of money that he was sure was not him in the slightest. Such was the life of Michael Baker, mundane proofer reader. That's pretty much what he did. Tickets and invoices would come in from the various departments of Syntak, a company who purpose was to make animal medical supplies and diagnostics, he was one of three to four people who would go over invoices make sure they were correct and pass them along to accounting. Invariably to be called back and questioned on their accuracy. If anything Michael understood with clarity the full length and width of human stupidity.

It wasn't that the people he worked with were stupid but the blatantly obvious seemed to elude a lot of them, something that constantly drove Michael up a wall was the whole repetitive nature of the work. The same questions were always asked from the same people day after day after day. It honestly seemed like they weren't learning or refused to learn from the mistakes. It was a game of cat and mouse and it felt so hopeless to fight against it. The only plus side was that he was making good money at it and his supervisor and boss were pleased with the work and attention to detail that he had done in the last few months. The rest of the staff seemed more concerned with what was going on with their weekend plans than actual work.

Still it was over for another day. He clicked off the light to his cubical, powered down the computer, and made sure he had everything. Security badge, water bottle, lunch bag, brief case, and hat yep he had everything. He kept forgetting the hat for some odd reason only remembering it when he was well on his way out and relishing the idea of turning around and going back into the office to retrieve it. Rare that anyone stole anything like someone's hat. Most people were interested in the sweets left in the break room refrigerator or the odd office supplies. In fact the last major theft he had heard about was someone in research and development had taken some highly advanced vaccine home. What he heard from the office chatter was that he had tried to test it on the family dog to save it from a new form of kennel cough or something like that. He was pretty sure the girls in the office were just making it up or stretching the facts beyond any form of believability. How exactly personal from accounting in a whole other building knew what was going on in the very secure R&D separate building of the company amazed Michael.

He punched out at the digital card reader with a swipe of his gray employee identification card. He had two forms of company I.D. One was the punch in card and the other was a photo card both hanging from a lanyard that hung around his neck. The photo was helplessly out of date and only got him access to the H.R. Building and not the research labs. He really didn't want to go into the research labs anyway, far too many chemicals and sensitive things that needed some sort of constant monitoring. He was quite content just doing the numbers. Besides he didn't have a security guard that needed to check him out as he left the building either. Just a slide of his card and he was out of the brick building. The office building was actually an older building than the labs, bought form a home owner that had lived there. For some reason the company kept with the rustic tone and continued with the brick and ivy motif when they expanded the office about four years ago. He remembered the madness and technical nightmare that move caused. He basically sat for two days while the IT guys worked their magic and accounting and billing pretty much stopped. It was an interesting several days once everything did get back to so called normality.

Michael hated walking to his parking lot. It was away from almost everything and poorly lit in the fall evenings. Winter would be even worse when the snow came and make the walk not only scary as far as not being able to see but slippery and hazardous. It wasn't really scary or it shouldn't be not with security not more than well within shouting distance if something did happen but it was playing on a childhood fear. When he was little Michael had what would be deemed a ridiculous reoccurring nightmare. It started out alright with a quite night at him with his mother and father. Then he'd wander down the hall way enshrouded in darkness. He would open his all too familiar light blue room complete with the creepy soulless marching soldiers from a nightmarish version of a Nutcracker. They never freaked him out as a child what did was the darkness. Not the shadows in the room illuminated by the neighbor's porch light or the outlines of various toys. No it was the darkness outside the window. The nightmare made sure that the darkness was unnatural that it was a predator seeking him out. It wasn't like most windows where you'd look out into the night and see outlines of things that were there in the day, no this was a total darkness, and the kind you only saw in NASA pictures of the void between stars where there was nothing. Nothing was what the window contained. What made it worse was as the dream would go on, that darkness would take away his mother, father, sister, brother, until he was the only one left, usually terrified in his bedroom. It would then come for him by trying to suck him out the window. It was as if invisible hands were grabbing him and trying to take him into the void. He'd try to scream for help form someone anyone, even the family dog, but his voice would always be the first to go. He'd remember waking up and remembering that ability being robbed as he tried to grab for anything in vain to stop him from being taken.

He remembered nights he was terrified to go to bed as a child. The fear was made slightly worse when he was introduced to horror films, the first being Salem's Lot, the scene where the vampire child scratched the glass always unnerved him. The fact that there could be things out in that void ready to turn him into some sort of monster or worse just kill him added to that primeval fear. As he grew older he grew out of it and even welcomed the darkness as one of his requirements to get a good night sleep. The childhood fear still raised its head though when he'd go home and the window blinds would show an eerily reminder of that black void. It wasn't the darkness that scared him now, it was the fact someone could be out there looking in, spying on him. It was odd how the comfort as something as simple as a set of curtains or blinds could bring some sort of security and warmth from the things out in the night but they worked. Of course his current fear was that they'd be some sort of animal a rapid raccoon that would bite him and force him to go through the pain of the treatment. So far the only menace he had ever come across was the odd late night employee coming across his path unexpectedly and making him jump.

The chilled wind of early October brushed against his pale skin and caused his slightly shaggy brown hair to flutter around annoyingly in his face as he walked through the dimmed orange lights of the dated parking lot. Before Syntak the place had been a computer mother board manufacturer until a larger competitor bought them and moved the operation overseas in time. Syntak wasn't going that route, too many tax incentives and moving overseas would make shipping the test results and other work they did in house far too expensive. Primarily they did a lot of clinical work for vets and some CDC work. When the swine flu hit it was Syntak that was one of a few companies that produced a workable vaccine. The old parking lot was still there from the old office days, of the previous place and hadn't been updated like the rest so the lighting was at least twenty years old. Even with all the money they were bringing in there were some aesthetically things that upper management still hadn't gotten around to fixing. Michael always tried to park under one of the lights so he didn't have to fumble for his keys too much.

The car would take a few minutes to warm up, any day now they would be getting the first frost followed by probably the odd snow storm soon. There was that dry nip in the air that always signaled the end to autumn and the beginning to winter. As he waited for the car to warm up, he fiddled with the radio. Normally he'd have it on an alternative rock station but there was the annoying Emergency Broadcast warning which always turned him off. He finally settled on an NPR station with its odd collection of independent music and old new age music. The drive home was mercifully only a few minutes at best back home. He knew the side roads and used them often to avoid the more trafficked roads. The radio news came on.

"Tonight we bring you news of multiple murders in the town of..."

He flicked off the radio not wanting to hear the depressing news of the day. It was always the same if it wasn't politics sending the world into madness it was another killer on the loose with a gun or something similarly awful. It just appeared to be getting worse and worse as the news cycles continued the twenty four seven coverage, trying to find anything and everything that would get people to pay attention to them. Sadly it had the opposite effect on him. His rational was life was too short to be worried about things that you couldn't control or bother with. It all kind of went back to that childhood fear that was eventually over come in some ways. After all he did eventually learn that seldom was there anything in the night that wasn't there in the day. It was simply the lack of sun light that made it all the difference. Hell he'd probably not have the neurotic fears of what was out in the dark if he could see it as clearly as he did in the daylight. He wondered how often people startled themselves by looking up and seeing a shadow or object that by day was normal and sane but by night and with aid form the human imagination became some sort of avatar of Hell itself.

The most dangerous thing he encountered that night was almost tripping up the en darkened stairs. He'd often do this forget to turn on the porch light only to regret it later in the evening. Out of habit he turned on the kitchen and living lights and turned on the TV. The news was on and he didn't even register it as he went into the bathroom to take a shower. "The news out of Portland is that this is not a random event, locations as far north as Auburn to as far south as the ...." The blast of warm water to his face quickly erased whatever panic was going on in the world today. It was probably some new outbreak of the flu or some other needlessly panicking story that the media had deemed good enough to report on. The warm water helped relax his muscles, splashing his toned swimmer's build. His shaggy brown hair hung down in ribbons as he just stood under the shower head taking in the relaxing feel of the warm water. There was nothing more comfortable in the world than a nice hot shower.

Living alone held certain advantages as he dried off, for one you didn't need to get fancy dressing up to go to bed and who really cared if you ran around your own home in nothing but underwear and a tank top. Of course old Mrs. Rickett out back might be trying to peer in to get the latest gossip around the block. Every neighborhood had one thought Michael as he finished up cleaning himself off and picking out the nightly wardrobe. She meant well but as with a lot of retirees who had too much time on their hands she often found rather interesting ways to amuse herself though her flower garden and landscaping abilities were without question. Her social peeping in was something that didn't cause too many problems but would occasionally lead to a bit of scolding by local law enforcement from her reporting things that weren't exactly true. Though there was that one time when she thought the Greys were having a sex party in their back yard when in fact it was their daughter's sweet sixteen birthday and they had hired a male stripper as gag gift.

The phone rang interrupting his train of thought. Who the heck would be calling him at this hour? Before he could scramble to get some clothes on the answering machine had picked up and whoever had called hung up instantly. It was times like these that he wished he had call forwarding. Probably was his dad to talk about whatever was going on in the news and make a bunch of rather dirty old man jokes. Michael hoped when he did get old that he didn't turn into his father, a man too obsessed with sex as his age or Mrs. Rickett. Either option was not appealing. Of course one thing was looking a little more certain and that was living the bachelor life a little while longer. Michael sat down on the couch and started flipping through the channels, unaware of what fate had in store for him.

A clicking sound kept irritating the noise coming from the screen. At first he thought it was just a branch from a tree that the wind was blowing against the window, but there was a pattern to it, a steady rhythm that nature could not reproduce. He turned around looking through the cracks in the blinds to see the outline of what could only be described as a shadowed hand tapping the glass. Images from Salem's Lot danced instantly in his head as he violently leapt out of the comfort of the couch. The blackened hand disappeared into the darkness and Michael thought he saw a pair of eyes gleam form the light in the living room. His heart was racing in his chest, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He stood there hoping to see whatever it was that had tapped at the window. Maybe it was someone lost or a drunk, he did have a few run in's where drunken neighbors would knock on his door at night but that had been months ago and usually on the weekends, it was a Wednesday so the likelihood of that was pretty slim. All he saw in the night beyond the window was the dim light of the porch light and the occasional leaf blowing along the ground. A shadow appeared in the stream of light coming from the side of the house.

Swiftly Michael ran to the side of the house through the kitchen just in time to see a vague shadowy form leave the pouch as he came around the corner. Cautiously he made his way to the door and made sure it was locked and secure. He twisted the brass knob which wouldn't move indicating it was in fact locked. He peered out the multiple paned windows and saw nothing on the porch either. There came the tapping again definitely something deliberately tapping the glass. He moved to the living room carefully. Looking around the corner into the wide opening to the room he saw the door in the back. There was the hand again fingers curled slightly as the tips screeched across the glass. The high pitch noise causing him to wince as he realized that the fingers ended in black claws that he could now see in the light of the room. The figure behind the hand was still wrapped in the shadows of the night but the top of the window was being fogged up as if something was breathing heavily against the window.

"Whoever the hell you are knock it off! I will call the police!" he shouted trying to be as threatening as possible.

The figure simply kept on scratching at the window as if to taunt him. Michael realized he probably wasn't that intimidating to anyone who might be high or something. Why the claws though? Maybe someone was doing an early Halloween prank. It was probably one of the neighborhoods kids that had a bone to pick with him because of his lifestyle. He never advertised his sexuality but he wasn't in the closet either, he just wanted to live his life and right now he was darting back and forth between the phone and a baseball bat. Both would take several steps to get to and he didn't know which would be the best cause with whoever this person was. If the kid was high then there was no telling what would happen. Wasn't too long ago that a guy ate someone's face because he was high, what if this person had similar ideas.

In a mad dash he ran for the baseball bat as he did so he heard the crash of glass and splintering of wood. As his hands grasped the handle of the bat, he felt the cold night air licking at his skin causing goose bumps to rise. The cold was the last thing he was concerning himself with as he turned around and raised the bat over his head. As he turned though he came face to face with what exactly had been stalking him that night, he faced a mass of reddish brown fur that seemed to take up most of the living room. He kept the grip on the bat even as he looked over what had invaded his home.

Brilliant yellow orbs outlined in red and surrounded in total darkness stared back at him. The midnight color pupils seemed to fixate him in place as the beast slowly rose from four limbs to just two. It's slightly pointed ears rubbed up against the ceiling, the top of the head just shy of it as the creature hunched over slightly. In the light of the room the fur that covered the creature from head to toe was mostly a dark brown with the tips being a reddish hue in color. It had a wolf's head with white fangs hanging over its black lips a slightly frothy clear drool dripping from them onto the floor. The neck of the creature was covered in thicker fur as was the lower part of the muzzle. A thicker patch of fur also came out from between the two mountainous pecs. It was then Michael realized the monster before him had an upper body that was very human like. Even under the fur he could see the muscles working and twitching. The creature before him was big not only in its six foot plus height but also in mass; it seemed to fill the room. The hands ended in those black claws that had tormented him earlier and the legs seemed normal except the lower half bend back like a dogs. The beast stood on paws very similar to a canine's that also ended in large claws, the paws looked slightly small to support the creature but the held their ground. There was only one word to describe what was standing before Michael.

"Werewolf..."

"Eh, you are a smart one Mikey," the creature spoke in a guttural voice, deep and animalistic but clearly audible. It's speech sending bits of clear drool flying. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a fighter either but look at you, standing there. Bet you're going to shit yourself though."

Michael didn't care that this thing knew who he was or that it could talk though that did startle him. Most werewolf films that he had seen had never mentioned the ability for the werewolves to speak. Most seemed to just howl and snarl their way through fake scenery tearing at whatever victims that they came across. Was that going to be his fate? Not if he could help it. He might be just a desk paper pusher but he wasn't going to let this thing take him without a fight. Screaming he charged at the beast with bat raised and took as big as swing as he could muster towards the thing's head. The forward momentum of the bat suddenly stopped causing him to halt his advance. The werewolf held the top of the bat in its massive hand. He tried to budge the would be weapon but to no avail. He kept trying anyway. The werewolf simply widen it's evil looking smile as it squeezed the bat. He heard wood start to crack and soon the bat had been broken leaving only the stump of a handle that he held.

Wasting no time, realizing that he was now defenseless, Michael raised his free hand to hit the monster repeatedly. He felt the hardness of its shoulder, the illusion of its mass was broken this was a solid being and not some imagined creature. It was real. The creature grabbed his free hand after his rapid pummeling which did nothing. The werewolf lifted him up by his arm. He felt his muscles getting pulled as the beast tossed him to the couch. His head hit the window. He heard the glass crack and the world went fuzzy as he collapsed rolling off the couch and onto the floor. His vision filled with the two massive paws of the werewolf two heavy steps caused the floor to creak under its weight and brought it closer to him. He blinked as his vision blurred. He saw the creature's muzzle in front of his face. Those hypnotic amber eyes glaring down at him etched into his mind as his mind swirled.

"To think I was almost tempted to kill you outright but I think you're going to make one hell of an addition, Michael Baker," the creature spoke right before he blacked out.