Sleepwalker (Shift Happens)

Cold. The monochromatic ceiling of the sky slides perceptibly, leaking, as roofs are wont to do. Cloud-thoughts made manifest throw themselves to earth, plunging headlong against dirt and stone, leaf and bark, running off the guard hairs which protect the beast's pelt from getting soaked.1

Mist wreathes the trunks of trees all around. Golden and feral, the newborn thing's eyes flick left, right, his black nose twitching. What's left of its old self's clothing clings to it, tattered shreds of an abandoned cocoon. A whine escapes his throat, needful and strange, and he bolts ahead on all fours into the foliage. He is burning, panting, stumbling through the undergrowth, fur catching with tiny spark-pains on twigs and thorns. His breath explodes from his lungs, tasting stale and empty. Empty, so empty...2

He is freezing, oh God, it's so cold, how can he be moving? He should be dead, must be dead, but he isn't, is he dreaming? This must be a dream... so cold! His limbs are carved of ice, his fur dripping wet in the rain despite a canopy too thick to see the sky through. Cold like ice, scalding him with its chillness. So cold.3

The cry bursts from him unwitting, unbidden, echoing, reverberating in his own ears. He claws at his head, falling to the ground, rolling. 4

Empty, hot, empty, cold, empty, empty, empty...5

He needs. He has to. He can't, won't -- but he has to and oh god, so cold, so hot, so empty!6

His breath jerks into panicky panting, coming faster, faster, uncontrolled. A thin, agonized whine twists into a squealing, bestial sob; an eerily human sound wrung from an animal throat.7

Yet just as panic begins to curdle into full-blown hysteria, like a lover's hand the touch settles onto his fevered mind. It's like a leash snapping around his neck, like a drug kicking in. He slumps, relaxed, all frenzy gone out of him. Tears soaking into fur. He doesn't understand. He doesn't remember. He doesn't know...8

Her voice like sweet smoke in his lungs, in his blood, in his heart. That song, familiar -- but he knows he's never heard it before, has never had any experience before like this. Ethereal, emotional, neuro-chemical, no real music at all... yet it's in his ears, in his head, and he rolls into his feet. He is a little wobbly when he stands, but that's okay, he knows it is, because he feels her now, and She loves him. She will always love him. She needs only this smallest favor... and besides, it's what he needs too.9

A rapturous smile breaks across his elongated face, like the sun penetrating a storm front. A madman's grin on a beast's visage.10

He understands now. She has been so good to him, to help him understand, to help him Become. He must repay Her goodness. He loves her. 11

This time, when the beast arises, it moves with the slight unsteadiness but growing confidence of a newborn horse, and though he isn't used to four legs, his gait is even and controlled now. 12

He doesn't feel the hot-cold-empty now. He knows it still is, that his flesh is still suffering, but he is not there anymore. He hears only her song, her voice, her illustrious amazing impossible-but-real Self. Dizzy with gratitude, he moves away from the clearing in which he had awoken, away from the great old live oak in its center. 13

She has no eyes, but he knows that she watches as he leaves Her presence. She has no ears, but he knows that She hears his cry, confident and hungry. She has no mouth, no stomach, but he knows he must feed Her...14

---15

Brad sighed. He felt an irrational urge to punch the unresponsive instrument panel, but stifled it as unproductive. He had known the alternator was acting up, but he had still chosen to drive the car, so he supposed he had no one to blame but himself. Still, having the stupid thing go out in the most remote section of Highway 9 was obnoxious. And to add insult to injury, it was raining pretty hard out there, and the front driver-side window was stuck down.16

Why don't power windows come with a manual handle for situations like this? Brad wondered irritably. He hoped the AAA tow truck would show up soon. It was cold out here. He didn't even want to think about how wet the inside would probably get while being towed. Maybe the driver will have a tarp...17

Brad frowned. His train of thought had been interrupted, but he couldn't place what had done it at first. Then it happened again, and he realized it was a sound, a low, breathy rustle, as of wind through the trees. There was no wind.18

Another sound. This time, its nature was unmistakable -- the snap of a stepped-on twig. It came from the forest on the other side of the car, beyond the closed passenger-side window.19

Abruptly, Brad remembered reading a story in the paper the other day. People were disappearing, it seemed, on this stretch of road. Police suspected a new serial killer, targeting hitchhikers and stranded motorists, was operating in that area.20

Brad snorted to himself as another twig cracked loudly in that direction. Whatever -- or whoever -- was making the noise was getting closer. Make my day, buddy, the gun enthusiast thought. He sternly controlled his expression, suppressing a smirk. Brad made a point of staring irritably at the instrument panel, as if preoccupied by his malfunctioning vehicle. It wouldn't do to inform Buddy, if the approaching animal was one of the human kind, that he's been spotted. Meanwhile, his hand slid subtly toward the glove box between the two front seats, seeking the pistol he kept there. 21

Another loud rustling of foliage, close enough this time for Brad to see leaves moving in the wall of green nearby from the corner of his eye. 22

The gun felt good in his hand. Powerful. It had been a long time since he had shot someone. Years. He wondered if shooting a man felt the same as shooting a woman. He knew shooting an animal wasn't the same at all, already. He hoped it wasn't just a deer or something stupid like that.23

The brush rustled again. Brad glanced at the movement involuntarily. Any moment now...24

Maybe it'll be a wolf or a bear and I can get the pelt.25

Erotic caress of steel on skin...26

Brad tensed, preparing.27

Without warning, something dark and vaguely arm-shaped shot through the open window. Hot pain exploded in his chest. A hand, grabbing him, through the open window.28

Brad twisted, panicked. He fired randomly, undirected, hitting nothing but his own long-suffering car. As if the struggling gunman weighed nothing, the arm yanked, dragging him mercilessly backward out the open window. Nevermind that Brad really didn't fit through the window, especially not while struggling.29

The arm's owner simply forced him through, breaking the door, and Brad, in the process.30

---31

He stares down at his catch. He is breathing hard and fast again, but there is no fear now. Now his new teeth gleam with reddened saliva as his new tongue laps blood from his hand-like forepaws. It's the most realistic dream he has ever had and he will be sorry when it's over. 32

He is trying to figure out how to extricate the fleshy morsel from the metal thing in which it has become entangled.33

The broken thing on the wet asphalt groans, its shattered limbs twitching as if trying to move. The gun lies abandoned, ignored, inside the vehicle. It is caught halfway through what he dreamily recognizes as an open car window. The door has been torn completely off the car (which stands to one side sternly admonishing the two: The door is ajar! The door is ajar!)34

Ignoring the useless, whining metal thing, the hunter whuffs thoughtfully. Then he leans forward, taking the edge of the window in his jaws, stepping forward next to stand on the lower part of the door. The short, muscular neck twists, flexes, jerking the heavy-jawed head back and forth, back and forth. Long, tufted ears laid back against his head, he does his damndest to tear the doorframe apart. Steel screams anguished protest. The beast stops.35

With a soft grunt, he spits out a broken side tooth. Her song, whispering through his neural circuits, pushes buttons, pulls levers, and he feels nothing, feels the old tooth pop out as a new one, whole and perfect, regenerates to replace it. No pain, no dentist -- what is a dentist, his new self wonders? Strange, the two-thought, double-me, will have to resolve that when I wake up -- when I wake up, will he go away? 36

Beast and man regard each other internally, temporarily de-synchronized. Another groan from the entrapped man breaks the reverie shortly.37

The man thinks, far away and cold, Oh, this is easy, silly dog.38

At the same time, the beast realizes, right here and burning, that the fleshy body of its prey will break much more easily than the steel door.39

Accordingly, he drops the metal, ignoring the prey's strangled squeal as the heavy door falls on his battered torso. Probably broke a rib, the man thinks, wondering at himself. This is a very strange dream. 40

Big paws shift, placing the beast's full weight on the prey's legs. Deaf to agonized whimpering, the great jaws open, lower, and close, almost lovingly, around the dying human's head, enclosing it entirely. Its teeth close against his shoulders and upper chest, leaning forward a bit to be sure of a firm grip.41

Then, it bites down and begins to pull. The slick slide of its sharp teeth through the thin layer of flesh, the candy-like crunching crush of bone and sweet thinking-organ squishing out, and at the same time the stretching cracking protest of spine and sinew and muscle and cartilage, blood-scent punching his nostrils, blood mixing with the rain, and oh god, he needed this.42

All too soon, the spinal column gives way, the muscle collapses with a wet fabric tearing sound, and the two parts separate with a sudden jerk. 43

Hot-cold-empty it all freezes suddenly, no-motion freeze-frame stillness, just long enough to feel-sense-notice that this is it, it's here, it's here right now...44

It wasn't really the violence he needed, or the hot meat seasoned in arrogance and terror with sanguinary sauce beginning to fill his belly. It was the energy, the power. As he ate, he could feel his prey regarding him, sliding into him, aware despite being dead. His atoms are deconstructing, his molecules digesting, him is becoming me --45

Noon at midnight. Lightning from the road. A shocked human voice crying, "What in Sam Hill -- !?"46

He turns, lunges, enjoying the sensual warmth of blood soaking into his fur on his throat and chest. Now there is another /him/ becoming /me/ ...47

---48

The song. He can make out lyrics now, though he doesn't know the language, still he understands. How could he not? She is addressing him.49

He kneels, then bows low. One skull, then the next, nestled between Her roots, against the base of Her trunk. He feels Her approval, her love, her gratitude; he feels her draw some energy from him; he feels her replace what she took with rapture.50

The beast emits a rumbling whine of ecstacy. He circles himself three times, curling into a tight ball at Her foot.51

---52

Jasper blinked. Dawn poked inquisitive fingers into his sleepy eyes, reaching through fissures in the fracturing gray ceiling of rain clouds. He sat up, stretching, yawning. 53

He had expected to feel stiff and sore, but his body felt as fit and rested as if he'd slept in one of the best hotels.54

Oh, well. Time to get moving, anyway. He was hoping to make it to Paradise City by tomorrow.55

A troubled frown crossed the hitchhiker's face as he walked away from the clearing in which he'd chosen to spend the night. He didn't remember taking off his clothes before going to sleep, and he couldn't find them anywhere today. He'd had to change into the spare set he carried in his backpack.56

Thinking about it, he supposed he must have been sleepwalking or something. It would make sense, considering. 57

Jasper shook his head, confused by smoky, foggy recollections. What a strange dream.