The heatwave had finally abated and I had focused my energy on getting ready for winter the day I met this most unpleasant client. Fall is always busy, with harvesting, freezing, and canning to do, of course. Winterizing the chicken coop and goat barn as well. So much to do, but I love all of it. Fall and winter on the mountain are my favorite. The colors, the cool air, the slow death of it all. It’s beautiful.
I had gone out to the garden to pick tomatoes and had come across a strange visitor. Some kind of caterpillar, but not like any I’ve seen before. Well not exactly. In form it was basically like an inchworm, with legs at both ends, but none in the middle. And it held on to a tomato stem with its hind legs, holding its body out like a twig, just like an inchworm does, although, its camouflage was lacking as the bug was sort of midnight blue.
Generally, I feed pests to the chickens, but here is where things went… awry. When I went to grab the thing, it bit me. Inchworms don’t bite. The bite was bad, too. Took a chunk out of my finger. I went inside and drank a Cure All just in case. Never can be too sure and this potion covers the basics, plus some outlier poisons and toxins I’ve come across more frequently than I’d like. I headed back outside better prepared, with gloves, a bug net, and a collection jar. Once the little monster was secure, I took it inside for closer inspection.
It was very angry.
It was hanging onto the twig I’d put in the jar and waving its body wildly at me. I needed a magnifying glass to get a good look at its mouth, it frothed pink as it worked its jaws, drooling blood. Very unpleasant little thing with very big teeth. I plopped a bit of raw chicken into its new home, it instantly forgot its fury and lunged at the meat, devouring it quickly. I gave the dogs a look as the now bloated thing seemed to curl up on the bottom of the jar for a nap. Leaving the jar, I’d just gone to my little library to look for a book on insect monsters when the dogs started barking and scratching at the door to get out.
I looked out the window, a very nondescript, middle aged fellow was making his way up the steps. A little pudgy, a lot of hair sort of sticking straight up off his head. Something was definitely not right about him. The caterpillar would have to wait. I settled the dogs down, they didn’t need to chase him off, just escort him and be on guard, and opened the door.
When he reached the door, I was waiting. He stood in the doorway and fidgeted with his hands. Standing upright looked unnatural on him, he kind of lumbered. Like an animal that can stand upright, but isn’t really meant to, a bear or chimp or something. He looked over at the fridge, then back at me.
“Hello,” I said, “What should I call you?”
“Bob. That’s the name she gave me.” His voice was high pitched, but a little raspy. He looked over at the fridge again.
“Are you hungry, Bob?”
“I’m starving.” He didn’t look it, but I went to fridge, pulled out some leftover sweet potatoes and put them on the table. He sat and ate them cold, with his hands.
“Who gave you the name Bob?”
“A witch, like you. She cursed me to be like this.”
“Like what? Hungry?”
“No, human. I’m not human,” he practically growled the last word.
“I suspected. What are you then?”
“A raccoon.”
I looked at him. “A witch, cursed you, a raccoon, to be a human?” Yep, it sounded even stupider out loud. “Why?”
“I kept getting in her trash, so she made me a human and gave me a job at the car dealership where she works. I wash cars.”
I looked at the dogs. They were not buying it either. This was no human, for sure, but a raccoon? A witch with a day job? Absurd.
“Tell me about your life as a raccoon, why do you miss it? It can’t have been that great.”
“I miss romping in the forest with my buddies. I miss when we’d gang up and take down a deer.”
“Raccoons do not do that.”
“We did.”
“No.”
“Well we dreamed about it.” He shifted in his seat, picking at a stray bit of sweet potato on the plate. I needed a little help. I stood and picked up my obsidian ball, looking inside I saw the true nature of Bob. I looked up sharply and signaled the dogs with a hand gesture.
“Why are you asking me to turn you into a raccoon?”
He glanced up at me and smiled so sweetly I thought I’d puke. “I just thought being a racc-“
“You thought I’d be stupid enough to just give you transformation magic without parameters.”
His smile melted into a scowl, a bit of his true features shining through, “It’s worked before.”
“It won’t work here.” I put the obsidian back in its cradle and went to my cabinet. Behind my back I heard the dogs growl. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you. They love fresh meat,” I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to. I grabbed the bottle of dried Asparagus densiflorus I was looking for and mixed a teaspoon in lemonade, stirring thoroughly before I turned back around.
“What is that?”
“Transformation.”
“Into what?”
“What ever I will.”
Bob stood quickly, so did the dogs, blocking the door with hackles raised and their nice big fangs showing. He sat back down. The dogs didn’t.
“I want the truth, Bob, or I will drag it from you, and that will not be comfortable.”
He looked back down at the plate. I could see the sequence of events as they played out in his mind. Smash the plate, cut the dogs, slash my throat, make a run for it. But then he twitched a little and frowned. “What’s the matter, Bob? You look perplexed.”
“I can’t close my fingers. I feel numb.”
“Laced sweet potatoes. I always keep a little something in my fridge for special visitors. You just never know what’s going to drop by up here.”
He snorted, mostly paralyzed. “I ate her cat,” he mumbled. Hissing issued from various corners of the cabin. “Oh, shut up,” Bob mumbled. The cats emerged from their various hiding places and hopped up onto the table, they sat together, staring at Bob. He sighed, it was probably the most he could do. “I also ate a few of her rabbits and might have slaughtered her prized ducks. I didn’t even eat them, just didn’t like ‘em. I guess it was a bit of a rampage. It was later, when I got hungry again decided I should have grabbed those duck carcasses and went back for them that she caught me. Baited me, fucking witches, always one step ahead. Should have known better. Had the carcasses all piled up next to a pyre like she was gonna burn them. Got caught in a net.” He scoffed. “Net had some kind of magic in it. By morning I was… this disgusting thing. She came waddling out, just like one of those damn ducks, grinning at me. Cut me loose, gave me clothes and told me to fuck off. Do you know how hard it is being human? I don’t have a social security number. I don’t exist. I had to work these things called ‘odd jobs’ for food. I was used to sleeping outside, that was no big deal, but I’m so hungry. Human food, Twinkies, chips. All rubbish. I tried killing others out on the street like me, but it didn’t work and I only ended up in a cage for awhile.” He moaned, “I can’t live like this. I need to kill.”
“And kill you shall, don’t worry.” I put a straw in the lemonade glass and set it on the table in front of me.
“As if I could trust you.”
“Then stay as you are. I really don’t give a shit about you or what your life is like. I’ll have the dogs drag you out and roll you down the hill. When the paralytic wears off, you can freely stumble through my woods in the dark until something eats you.”
“Fucking witches.”
He put his mouth to the straw, glaring at me the whole time he sucked down the drink, with incredible speed, I should add. I’d heard of creatures like him before, never met one in person. I didn’t really know what to call his kind, somewhat bear-like, but with roughly human intellect. A little sleeker than a bear, just as strong, but much, much more dangerous. As he said himself, he killed for the pleasure.
The drink worked quickly and he began to spasm. As soon as he fell off the bench the dogs dragged him out onto the porch and down the stairs. He probably would have protested that but his human flesh was splitting open at the time, just busting open like a grilled hotdog. The dogs could barely contain their excitement, licking at the blood and gobbling up globs of fat. It was a little stomach turning, but they work hard, they deserved this moment of indulgence. Soon Bob’s body had all split and fallen away, a pile of human parts lay at the foot of my stairs. The cats had wandered over to join the dogs in the feast and I let the goats out, too. There were a lot of Bob bits to go around.
Bob, or whatever he was actually called, sat in the middle of it. His fur matted up with blood. He looked up at me through his new raccoon mask. I could feel the hatred in the stare.
“I just gave you what you asked for, you have only yourself to blame for this whole mess.”
He started ambling toward me, a chorus of dog and cat growls met him. One of the goats lobbed a hoof in his direction. He looked over his shoulder and down the hill, then turned and ran off towards the woods. Another monster to keep an eye on. I looked down at my brood making quick work of Bob’s human flesh and bone.
“Nobody comes back inside until they are clean,” I said as I turned from the mess, half wishing I could see the look on Bob’s raccoon face when he makes his first big insect kill.
"There were a lot of Bob bits to go around." Also known as Bobbage
Ha! Good one!