Navajo Shape Shifter
I realized I left some plot holes in my last edition of this post. this is my first story I ever wrote and I would absolutely accept feedback.
Prologue
It's never the ones you hate, or a horrible person that deserves to meet their maker. It's always the ones you love. I was only 12 when my mom died. She was always the nicest, she always helped those in need and never disrespected anyone, unless they were disrespectful, then she'd chew them out.
For days I wanted to stay in bed and starve to death, but my dad always got me up and we went out and got ice cream or something of that sort. My dad was a little overweight and he always wore shorts and a T-shirt. It was only 3 years after my mom died when he passed. I was devastated. I was homeless for a while until a cop picked me up and took me to the "Mary Donnell Orphanage".
I had this bully in the orphanage named Jack who always made fun of my cleft lip he'd always call me clefty or something like meshmouth. It was dumb and it didn't really make sense, but as a teenager, it hurt a lot.
He always wore a tank top and a letterman jacket for the highschool all of the teenagers at the orphanage went to. I was adopted by an older couple probably in their 50s who were looking for younger more capable hands to tend to their farm. There names were Janet and Rodney. Janet always wore some kind of blouse with a deep, purple sweater, and Rodney always wore a black T-shirt and denim jacket filled with metal band patches and Harley Davidson patches. In my sophomore year I met this girl named Jelly. Jelly had beautiful blonde hair and always wore a mini skirt with a denim sweater that used to be her dad's until he died in a car accident. We went on the same bus together. we talked for a while until one day she never showed up to school again. I didn't know what had happened to her and I don't know if I ever will. After I graduated highschool I joined the army with a couple of my buddies. I was deployed in Iraq. One day we were out on patrol when I walked by a pile of trash and heard whining from the pile. I cleared some of the trash and found a dirty 3 week old puppy. I picked it up and it went crazy trying to lick my face but then it peed on me. I wasn't super mad because I knew it was a puppy and it didn't really have control over it's bladder, but it was still annoying. I took him back home with me and named it Shaggy. Shaggy was a German shepherd, he had brown and black fur and a very distinctive white spot on his right eye that kind of looked like a tribal hand painting. A few months after I returned home from deployment with newly found Shaggy, I moved to a secluded cabin in the mountains and started a new life.
Chapter 1.
I woke up in my living room on the hard wood floor, face first. I had a splitting headache. My dog Shaggy was licking the back of my neck. I pushed him off and got up to brush myself off. I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I had a black eye and a busted lip. I looked at my stubbled chin and long hair in the mirror. Trying to remember where I had been last night. more, what had happened. Things slowly came back to me. I half remembered talking to this girl. She looked to be a camper who stopped into town to get supplies. I was asking about getting her number but when she was about say "No," her presumably boyfriend had grabbed my shoulder and said "Hey!" When I turned around he hit me square in the mouth, knocking me off my stool. Of course I got up and defended myself I hit him back but he turned around and hit me in the chin knocking me to the ground, and proceeded to wail on me. The bartender and a few of my friends that were there got the guy off me and threw him out telling him to never come back. The girl got up and followed him out. After that I got up and we laughed it off after think I drunk my buddy Jaxon under the table. Then things got blurry after that.
After showering and cleaning up my stubble. I took some 3rd company pain killers for my head ache. They work some how. I made myself breakfast. Eggs and Canadian bacon it was a "Midwest special" I always called it. Not really knowing if that was true or not. I only vaguely remember hearing people say it was. Specifically my dad when I was younger. My... dad. I started to tear up a little. but before I'd snapped out of it, Shaggy ate my breakfast. "Damnit Shaggy!" I yelled at him "Can't you see I'm havin a moment here?" He gave me a look that I couldn't stay mad at. "Agh. Come here you asshole." He came up onto the couch and curled up next to me and put his head on my lap. I pet him a few times before checking the time. I was late for work.
I quickly shot up and dragged Shaggy with me into my truck. I fumbled for my keys and started the truck. I was a sheriff, or the sheriff of the town. We only had seven officers on the force for the entire town. 8 if you include Mandy our front office lady. I drove through town. The first thing you see when you enter town is the bar and a rusty frame of a car next to the sign saying"Welcome to Nox Ville". Next to the bar is the department store and little further down on the left side is the super market and some housings and neighborhoods. On the right side is where all the stores and stuff are, plus the elementary school and the high school. It always felt like this town was stuck in the 80's. I think that's what sirened me into staying and starting a new life here. Of course among other things like being able to walk about 30 minutes and start hiking up a mountain but a smaller population and being able to know half the town was a bigger reason. Especially knowing most people cause I was always scared that I wouldn't be able to know a lot of the people where I lived when I was younger.
I got into the office and Mandy gave a look of worry "are you alright? Do I need to call the doctor for you?" I responded "No. I'm alright I just, over stepped some boundaries at the bar and received what I deserved." she smirked "What? an ass kicking?" I paused then chuckled. "Yeah a little bit. I'll be in my office, waiting for the next call." I walked through the floor to my office. Stopped had a little joe with Jamie and Mark, the two other morning crew. I got to my office and opened my door. I told Shaggy to lay on his bed. a few minutes after I sat down Mandy calls me and tells me that there was an animal attack up in the nearby camp gr. She'd told me that Mark already left for the scene but I felt obligated to go help.
Chapter 2.
I grabbed Shaggy and I drove up to the campground and when I got to the site I almost puked up my insides, it looked like someone exploded, there were guts and blood everywhere even a few fingers, and the smell was terrible, the bodies were completely unrecognizable. I walked up to Mark and he was clearly displeased having to investigate this scene. He was pretty squeamish. He filled me in on how it was reported. "A woman was hiking past this site when suddenly she had heard screaming and shouting she had looked over and saw two campers a man and a woman fighting off a big furry creature that stood on two legs." I paused for a second "it could have just been a bear." I said. Mark replied "Yeah. but here's the catch. Apparently it had antlers like a deer." "Antlers? Is she sure it wasn't just branches obscuring her view?" Mark replies, "I don't know. maybe but who knows after all we are in the middle of the Appalachians." I gave him a look that clearly stated. "You're crazy". I asked him. "You don't seriously believe that shit do you?" He gave me a forced smile and said "No." kinda sheepishly. I rolled my eyes and I asked him where the woman was. He told me she was in the car. I went to question her.
I opened the car door and saw Jelly. I stared at her slack jawed. She jumped when I opened the door and she asked,"Can I help you?" In a quiet and startled tone. I shook my head and said "Yeah, uh, I just have some questions." She looked at me like she'd been trying to figure something out, but she snapped out of it and said "yeah. Ok." "What did you see last night?" She'd told me what Mark had said, then she started mumbling and crying. I calmed her down and asked her what she had mumbled and she looked at me with the a look of terror and said. "It looked me in the eyes. Once it was done tearing those poor people apart I was a few meters off but it looked in my direction and I could swear it was staring directly at me." Then she told something that my partner apparently left out. "I don't know how long it'd been staring at me for. It felt like forever. When suddenly i-it t-t-transformed into a wolf I think I didn't spend enough time to watch I ran to my campsite. As soon as I stepped into it. The thing stopped at the edge of my campsite and circled it and walked away." I tried thinking of stories I'd heard from campers coming through town. "I could only assume the thing came back as human and it looked almost 1 to 1 with a friend that I had back in highschool. Which you almost look like him just an older version." I started to remember a similar report from a couple weeks ago. "It'd asked me if it could enter my campsite in a calming and almost seductive tone. I told it no and its facial expression changed from calming to anger and walked off." Then it fully made me remember that case. 3 weeks ago we had a call come in about an animal attack with a hunter who had called about his buddy being attacked and killed along with his own and his buddy's hunting dog. But he gave a similar description of the creature
I told the woman I'd be right back, and walked towards to Mark "You failed to tell me that she was attacked by the thing?" Mark looked at me weird "what? No. she started freaking out after I asked what happened after the attack. I tried calming her down but she just shoved me off." I shook my head. "Alright let's get a clean up crew out here and I'm gonna see if we can can get an evac of the campgrounds in this area. Cause we can't have another one of these attacks. We're going to have to find this recently moved in 'Bear' and try to move it somewhere else. I'll call in animal control to help out." Mark looks at me worried. "Are we even sure this is a bear?" I looked at him being unsure myself. "Let's just hope it is a bear alright."
Chapter 3.
We let the woman, or "Jelly", get her stuff together. after we drove her to a motel. I gave her some money for a room and my office phone's number and drove back to the station. I wrote an email to send to the nearby camp grounds to evacuate everyone going camping. It wouldn't be a lot of people needing to evacuate since it's the end of the 2001 camping season, but I'd assume it's good business for all the nearby motels and diners. I was finishing up my email when suddenly shaggy perks up. I look in the direction where he is looking. it took me a second until I saw something or someone tapping on the window across the hall. I couldn't see their face fully because the blinds were almost down. Shaggy and I jumped when my phone suddenly rang. I quickly looked back up at the window and the figure was gone. when I picked it up there was a woman's voice on the other end crying and sobbing saying saying "Please don't hurt me. Just go away." and then there was a scream paired with a terrible screach. It was the woman from earlier. Jelly. I shouted into the phone "Hello? is anyone there? Jelly?". there was someone breathing into the phone, then it hung up. I sat there and gazed into nothing.
chapter 4
I snapped out of my trance and quickly got in my car to drive up to the motel I had Jelly stay at. once I got up to the motel I ran up to the office and asked if a woman by Jelly's description had been in and, thankfully, they told me what room she was in. I got to the room and frantically knocked at the door. I was surprised when Jelly opened the door. Though something was wrong her eyes were green instead of blue. I knew colored contacts existed but why would she need them in the middle of summer when it's nowhere near Halloween. "what's the matter with your eyes?" "what?" "your eyes changed from blue to green." "oh." she turned her head and looked back. her eyes were blue now. I felt my stomach drop. I've heard of shape shifters in the Appalachians. they're on old Native American folk tale By the name of Yee Naaldlooshii or in more modern terms Skin walkers. but I've never believed in them. I stepped back quickly and said nothing just checking on you. she creepily smiled at me and asked if I'd like to come in for coffee. I responded with "no. my shift is almost over and I have to be back at the station before hand." she gave an angry look and slammed the door on me. I shivered and left back to the station.
chapter 5
when I got home I researched more on the "skin walker". I realized there was alot of similarities between the reactions of the thing from Jelly's story and "Jelly's" reactions to when she and I said no. it was moody, like a teenager. I hadn't paid attention to the time. it was 7 in the evening. I didn't realize I was doing research for 7 hours. I quickly made dinner and let shaggy out into the yard. as I was putting dinner on my plate. I heard barking from Shaggy like does to chase off whatever was in our yard at the time, but it stopped suddenly. mid bark. I looked outside and called for Shaggy to come eat. He came running in and started to eat. I tried to pet him like I usually do but he growled at me. my mind started to race but I calmed down and thought it as nothing.
After Dinner I got ready for bed and started brushing my teeth. I looked out towards my living room and saw Shaggy but he was standing on two legs like a human staring out the window. my stomach dropped. I slowly crept out of my bathroom into my bedroom, thankfully next to my bathroom, and grabbed my shotgun and carefully loaded it. I pointed my gun at "Shaggy". I called out to him just to be sure I don't out right shoot my dog and his head turned like an owl. his eyes rolled back and he screeched at me then started convulsing turning into what Jelly described the monster as then ran at me. I screamed "die mother fucker".
Epilogue "earlier today the police were called to investigate the murder scene at the house of Nox Ville's Sheriff Mc. Dunna. autopsy reports say Sheriff Mc. Dunna's death was most likely due to an attack from a mountain lion that had entered his home as he had left is screen door open. reports also say Mc. Dunna's dog was no where to be found in the nearby area.