Title: The Unusual Story of Mr. A. Anglewright
Part: 1 of 1
Keywords: furry, nosex, cubs, violence
Universe: unsorted
Author: just_lurking
Summary: A story about demons who walk the earth, kidnapping boring accountants and their equally average families.  Written for Halloween 2008.

Hello dear reader.

It’s your semi-omniscient author again.

I was floating though the multiverse, looking for a story as always,
when I came upon a world I’d never visited before.  I drifted down
towards it, and manifested myself.

I found myself inside a busy, city police station, which I though would
an ideal place to hunt for stories.  Fortunately no one noticed me
as I materialised.  I took a seat near the front desk, where I could,
without being too conspicuous, observe the inhabitants of this world as
they went about their business.

I didn’t have to wait long before a rather excited looking red fox ran
into the station, and up to the front desk.  He had a rather interesting
story to tell, which I will relate to you exactly as I heard it.

Unfortunately, the officers at the desk were behind a sheet of bullet
proof glass, and spoke through speakers.  I was too far away to hear
clearly what the officer said, so I am unable to report on his speech,
but I think the story is interesting enough even without it.

~~ The unusual story of Mr A. Anglewright ~~

Good evening officer.  I would like to report a crime.

[…]

Well I’m not exactly sure which crime, it’s a bit of an unusual story.
You see my fam…

[…]

It’s Anglewright Mr Andrew Anglewright.  I’m an accountant with
first national.

Look, about this crime.  My family and I were heading back home to
Azureville after visiting some friends of ours who live here in Cobalt
City.  You know Azureville?  It’s about twenty miles north west of here.

Anyway the most direct route out of the city is the N857.  So we got on
at junction twelve.

You can see where I’m going with this, right?  We were only passing
through the junction twelve neighbourhood.  We would have been onto the
motorway in less than a minute, if our car hadn’t decided to pick that
moment to break down in.

I don’t mind telling you that I was worried.  I mean a spotless, red,
five-door people-carrier in the middle of a bad neighbourhood stands
out like a sore thumb.  I was worried for my wife and my boys.

It was odd though.  The car didn’t show any indication that it was about
to break down.  It’s less than a year old and it just sailed through its
MOT last month.  It didn’t even cough or splutter before it broke down.

One moment we were doing thirty.  The next it’s like the engine was
just wasn’t there any more, because we’re coasting.

I got the car more or less over to the side and park it.  I should have
put on the hazards, but I was worried that would bring the locals down
on us.

So we’re in the car, and well…tensions are running a little bit high.
Me and Sandy (that’s my wife) know the situation we’re in.  I’ve
called the mechanic on my mobile, and he’s on the way.  So there’s
nothing to do except lock the doors and sit tight.

Of course, Dave and Matt don’t like that one bit.  You know how kids
can be.  They’re tired, and bored, and they’re picking up on our fear.
So things are pretty tense.

It’s about that time that a freak fox in a stained vest and gang colours
jumps on the hood of our car, leering at us through the windscreen,
and he brought his friends.  They came from nowhere—about a dozen of
them—all species, all male and all dangerous looking.

We huddled in the car.  Thinking it would give us some safety, but they
opened the doors like they weren’t locked—by the handles I mean.
They just opened the doors calmly, like any civilised furson would,
totally ignoring the door locks.

They dragged us out of the car and into a derelict house just a few feet
from us, on the side we had parked.  That’s how they crept up on us.
We’d rolled to a stop right outside their headquarters.

They manhandle us inside—jeering at us.  They were none too gentle,
either.

We tried to resist, of course, but not too much—they all had sabres
strapped on their belts.  I remember thinking that it was an odd choice
of weapon for gangsters—I mean, surely guns would be a better choice.
Hell, I don’t think I’ve even seen a sabre outside of a museum before,
but a weapon is a weapon, and I didn’t want them using it on my family.

So they take us inside, kicking and screaming, and they dump us in
this room.  It’s a big, windowless, oblong room.  There’s only one
way in and out, and our kidnappers are between us and it.  They seem to
have decorated the room.  Dirty red rags—I think they were bed sheets
before they were ripped up—hang on the walls, and there’s a sort of
altar or shrine at the back of the room.  It was covered in a mess of evil
looking things: garlands of withered flowers, flickering wax candles,
little dishes with offerings of rancid meat in them, occult statuettes.
It looked (and smelt) disgusting.

We just sort of scooted back until we were in the rear, right corner of
the room.  The boys at the back, my wife in front of them, and me in front
of her.  The shrine was to our left, and our captors where in front of us.

They just sort of stood there staring at us, expectantly, hungrily.
I was just about to step forward and ask them what they thought they
were doing with us, when they parted and their leader came into the room.

He was a equine, seven foot tall, with black bat wings!

[…]

I’m not making this up!

At first I thought he had grey fur, but as he approached I saw that
he was actually furless, and it was his skin that was grey.  His flesh
was like putty.  It was rubbery looking, and it just sort of hung off
his bones.  It was really strange, he looked really sick and really
strong at the same time.  He had really deep set eyes with the heaviest
bags under them I’ve ever seen, but he also had rippling muscles and
there was a sense of confidence and power in the way he walked.

Anyway, he’s there and he’s sizing us up—like we’re livestock
or something—and I figure, “what the heck.” So I step forward and
demand that he let us go.  Well, he just looks at me as if I asked him
for directions to the moon, then he bursts out laughing, and all his
men laugh along with him.

He says we’re not leaving this room alive, and that “the meat should
know it’s place and be silent.”

Well, I’m feeling really worried now.  Not only has my family been
kidnapped, but apparently we’ve been kidnapped by a bunch of psychotic,
cannibalistic cultists lead by a freak of nature.

I do the only thing I can think of in this situation, I try and make the
ultimate sacrifice for my family.  I beg them to do what they like with
me, but to let my family go.  I mean, really break down and plead with
them to let them go—tears and everything—but it falls on deaf ears.
Hell, I think they actually found it amusing, watching a grown man beg
on his knees.

Well the horse picks me up with one chubby hand, and looks me straight
in the eye.  He explained that his masters fed off of souls filled
with grief, remorse, fear and despair, and that he and his ‘boys’
were granted a measure of immortality in exchange for each tribute of
corrupted souls they ‘harvested’—so, no, he wouldn’t be letting
any of us go.

Then he throws me back into our corner.  I collide with my wife, and,
while I’m stunned, the equine grabs little Mattie and says he’s first.

My boy…he’s only eleven… Sorry… It’s hard to even contemplate.

I make a lunge for Matt, and try to scratch up the beast’s arm with
my claws, but he just laughs at me and swats me away.

He says terrible things about how our children are still so innocent,
and that he’s going to rip that innocence from them, and that he’s
going to let us watch, and then, when he’s done with my children and my
wife, he’s going to kill them one at a time in front of me, and then,
and only then, will he kill me.

It’s more than a man can stand, more than anyone could stand.  And while
he’s talking he’s forced my son down on his hands and knees, in
front of the altar, and pulled down his pants.

There are tears in my boy’s eyes, and I don’t want to look, but at
the same time I can’t look away because the eye contact is the only
thing I can give my son at this point.  Behind me my wife is holding
Davie tightly, as she rocks back and forwards whispering “No, no,
no…” over and over.  I feel like an utter failure as a parent.

The monster reaches for the fly of his trousers, and I feel like I’m
about to be sick, but then we hear this ‘ah-hem’ from across the room.

Well, all heads in the room whip round towards the door, and standing
there is this raccoon in a trench coat.  He’s twenty-something looking,
medium-tall, got all the classic ’coon features: mask, tail rings,
spindly fingers, lithe frame.  There something about his face—maybe
the way it creases—which suggests he doesn’t laugh a lot.  Not that
he seems cruel—just the opposite, he seems to give off this aura of
fairness—but it’s a cold expression—like he’s got the weight of
the world on his shoulders, and he can’t afford to laugh.

He walks into the room, and the ruffians part for him—like they’re
afraid to touch him or something.

Everybody seems to have forgotten about little Mattie.  I grab him
and pull up his pants, pressing him into my wife’s arms.  The horse
doesn’t react, he isn’t paying any attention to us any more, the
raccoon has his full attention.

The horse stands up and speaks to the ’coon.  “Well, well. Fancy
that. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He says. There’s contempt
in his voice.

“The feeling’s mutual. I thought you were dead, why aren’t you?”
The ’coon says.  He’s got a really educated voice.

Anyway, the horse brushes off the question with a non-answer, and the
’coon rushes him.  A moment later there is a gash across the horse’s
torso, and blood and gut leaking from the wound.  The raccoon has a sword
held high, as if he’s just swung it, and I realise that’s because
he has.  He obviously had that sword on underneath his coat all the time.

I don’t know what it is with these people and their antiquated weapons,
but if he offs our captor then I’m not complaining.

There’s a moment of stillness, then the horse laughs again.  I thought
he really must have been stark raving to laugh at that cut, but then I
see why he’s laughing.

The horse’s torso is stitching itself back together.  It’s pulling
the guts back in and fusing the wound closed.  There was an oily black
smoke drifting from his injury as it healed.

[…]

I’m deadly serious.

And another thing; his blood—when the ’coon cut him open—it wasn’t
like yours or mine.  It was thick gooey stuff, and there wasn’t much
of it—like he didn’t have much in him in the first place.

I tell you this horse was a demon or something.

Anyway, he heals himself up, and there isn’t so much as a scratch left
when he’s done, and then he snaps his fingers and his gang attack the
’coon en mass.

Well, the ’coon has better luck with them than he did with the horse.
He disarms the front row almost instantly.  The sabres go flying towards
the horse, who dodges them easily.

They land blade-up in the wooden floor.  Thunk, thunk, thunk, like.

One swipe of the sword and five ruffians go down.  The second wave had
time to circle round though, and they’ve got the ’coon in the middle
of them.  They close the circle and attack him again.

Well, the ’coon doesn’t even bat an eyelid—he looks cool and
collected.  He blocks all their attacks, even the ones from behind
him—like he knows in advance when they’re about to swing at him—then
he takes out the three directly in front of him, and steps forward out
of the circle.

There’s only four ruffians left now, and none of them wants to attack
the ’coon any more.

The raccoon steps over the dead bodies and delivers his ultimatum:
“Surrender or die.” He says.

Well the horse just laughs again. “You can’t kill me. I am
immortal!” He replies.

The ’coon just shakes his head sadly and says “Perhaps not, but look
around you.” He gestures to the floor as he speaks.

The horse stops laughing and looks at the ground.  It’s about then
that I realise that the swords embedded in the floor are making a ring
about the horse.  Five of them—a pentagon.

The horse seemed to realise at about the same time as I did, but it
obviously meant more to him than it did to me because, for the first time,
there was fear on his face—real, mortal fear.

He looked up, just in time to see the ’coon rushing him again.
The ’coon planted one hand on the horse’s shoulder, and did a flip
over him.  Half way over the beast he lashed out with his sword, and
sliced the equine’s ear.

The ear fell to the ground with a wet plop, and the ’coon landed just
outside the circle of swords.

This is where things got really surreal.

The ear sat there for a moment, then it caught fire, just like that.
The fire didn’t spread, like it should have on wood.  Instead it sort
of balled up on itself, and came to life.  Really, I swear, it was a
tiny living flame.

It scampered, like a mouse.  I don’t know how, because it didn’t
have feet, but it did, and it scampered straight for the nearest edge of
the pentagon.  The horse was also running for the edge, but the ear/flame
thing made it first.

When it hit the edge the whole pentagon caught alight.  Then the floor
inside the pentagon vanished, and a pit of flames, and screaming, and
wailing opened up in its place.  It was like a blast furnace.  Soot and
ash billowed from the hole.

The horse was still trying to escape the pentagram.  He was using his
wings now.  I didn’t think the were big enough to keep him afloat,
but apparently they did, or perhaps the heat was helping him to stay in
the air.  Either way he was reaching desperately for the edge.

It was a wasted effort though.  A clawed hand, with five fingers each
the size of a furson, reached out of the hole and grasped him—pulling
him down into the pit.  The horse screamed a terrible, unearthly scream
as he was pulled down, then he was gone.

I looked up at our saviour—the ’coon who could apparently open portals
to hell.  It was difficult, the hot ash glowed so brightly it hurt my
eyes, but I squinted at him as best I could through the roaring heat.

He was standing on the edge, peering down into the depths of the pit.
The flames and smoke which billowed around him didn’t seem to bother
him at all, but it was the smoke which allowed me to see it.

[…]

The space behind his shoulders!  The smoke was billowing around his body,
but it was also billowing about something that wasn’t there behind him!
There were a pair of wing-shaped spaces—bird wings, not bat—behind
this guy, which the smoke couldn’t enter.

[…]

Well I only had a moment to see it because the hole closed up a second
later.  The space inside the pentagon was burnt, but otherwise normal,
wood again.

The ’coon strode across it brandishing his sword, and the four remaining
gang members just turned tail and ran.

Then he asked me if I was okay and if I could get my family home.  Well,
I was so struck dumb by what had happened that I would have nodded if
he’d asked me if I wanted to know what meat hot dogs are really made of.

So he went off, and then it was just me and my family alone in this big
room with seven dead furs at our feet.  Well, we were all in shock for
just a moment, but then I came to and half dragged my wife and kids back
out to the car.

We sat in there—huddled in the back seats, with the kids safely
between us—until the mechanic arrived.  Would you believe he thought
I was overreacting when I said I didn’t want to get out of the car in
this neighbourhood.

Well, the mechanic fixed the car, and we paid him, and then I drove the
car here, and that’s the story.

What do you think?

[…]

Yes, I know its an offence to waste police time.  I’m serious.
I’m not mad or making this up!  For gods sakes!  It really happened!
I can prove…

[…]

No, I can’t say that I want that.

[…]

Ah, well, I’ll be on my way then, shall I?  Uh, have a good evening
officer.


