Work Text:
A New Tailypo
On the outskirts of a town in the southeastern part of the states, was a lone ranch home. Trees were the only neighbors as there were no other houses for a couple of miles. But the person who owned it, preferred it that way.
Lori was a businesswoman. And after all the weekly hustling and constant communication, she was always relieved to have her own little getaway every day. The little one-story dwelling was spacious enough. It had electricity and plumbing and the basic quarters: a bedroom, parlor, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. Plus, the woodsy atmosphere was both refreshing and relaxing. Living amongst nature was good for the soul, Lori had always heard. And she didn't mind the occasional curious critter that would saunter by her home for a quick hello and goodbye.
Except when it came to spiders. Those scuttling poison pouches were an absolute no in Lori's household.
One foggy, Friday evening, Lori drove her car up to her narrow driveway. She had worked very late this day and could not wait to put her feet up all weekend. But as the woman pulled in closer, she stepped onto the brake. She blinked through the mist and spotted some kind of animal, pacing by her front door. But even with the auto headlights, she could barely make the dang thing out. But whatever it was, it was dark as night, had a long, dense tail, and was much bigger than the average squirrel.
And it definitely wanted to get inside...
Feeling oddly chilled, even though the weather was considerably warm, Lori slammed the bottom of her palm on the wheel, blaring her vehicle's horn which made the thing jolt and bound away. Lori stayed put momentarily, looking all around herself. With all of the haze, she didn't see where the thing went but by how fast it had moved, she surmised that it'd retreated well off into the woods.
Lori moved her car forward to park and a sonorous shrill abruptly rang out in the vaporous air. She jerked in her seat and got out. The woman did not see anything amiss until she looked down. Next to one of the back wheels was a black tail with a ruddy oozing cut at one end. The strange animal must've gotten confused by the loud horn and had hidden underneath the car.
The severed appendage was convulsing like a decapitated snake. Unblinking at the gruesome sight, Lori clamped onto her abdomen from sudden disgust and the pang of remorse. She only wanted to scare the thing off. She didn't mean to hurt it!
Lori rushed around her property, scanning for any animal that appeared to be in pain or distress. It was getting late and with no signs of anything, the woman walked back to her automobile and stared at the dark-furred, maimed, stilled tail. It was thick and elongated, and she swore the strange animal was not that overly large.
With a sullen shrug and not wanting to attract any nightly predators nor scary scavengers, Lori took out a large rag out of her car's glove compartment and began the grisly task of wrapping the tail for proper disposal.
As Lori stood up and turned off the car's engine, that hair-prickling chill remade its presence as she felt both alone and not alone, all at once.
Shivering, the woman kicked the vehicle's door shut with her shoe. And with a hitched breath, she hurried to her home, unlocked the steel door, and didn't reopen her eyelids until the entrance was closed and relocked from the inside.
After a lounging dinner and some late-night television on the couch, Lori put on her nightclothes and then settled into her cozy bed; fully contented to finally get to sleep in. But as her mind began to drift, her awareness was snapped awake from a constant, low scratching at the base of her front door.
Lori flung off the blanket and left the bedroom to peer out the parlor's locked windowpanes. The porch lantern was on. However, she still couldn't see any critters. Not even a moth trying in vain to flutter through the lantern's glass.
Reluctantly, the woman started heading for her bed. However, the scratching had resumed. And the sounds were becoming more dragging and more... persistent.
"Who's out there?!" Lori shouted, thinking it was some dang campers loitering and playing pranks. "This isn't funny! Stop it now, or I'll call the cops-!"
This was when Lori's eyes went wide with realization. She couldn't use her phone because she had left it at work and was going to retrieve it later on! She was so upset over the car incident with the strange animal that she was only remembering this again just now. Never had Lori regretted so much about not getting a landline installed in her house!
The scratching continued. Longer and louder.
I'm calling the cops right now!" lied the woman. "So, you better leave-!"
"Tailypo... Tailypo... All I want is my tailypo..."
Lori stood frozen as if her body had become a vast sheet of ice. The voice didn't sound like any teenager she'd ever encountered. It was echoic, like multiple voices that were not from any man nor woman. Much less from any human.
That odd chill recommenced from Lori's fluttering heart, down to her sock-covered curled toes.
"Tailypo... tailypo..," it repeated. "I want my tailypo..."
Lori swallowed and finally regained her voice.
"I don't have or know of any 'tailypo'! So, whoever you are, you better go-!"
Long, piercing claws emerged from beneath the door, scraping it. Again. And again. And again...
"Tailypo..! Tailypo..! I want my tailypo!"
The dark demand dripped with ire.
Confused and frightened to the core, the woman clutched one of her collector's hound plates off a wall shelf and with a yelp, threw the porcelain at the bottom of the door. After the shatter, she waited with bated breath.
The deep scratching and bizarre voice fell silent.
Too scared to sleep, Lori got the idea of driving into town. Not bothering to put on shoes, she lurched in the parlor, swiped the keys off a coffee table, and darted around the broken bits of plate and for her car. However, when she prepared to get in, the automobile interior lights had shown her that there was a problem...
One of the back wheels was gone. The rubber had been slashed down to nothing but gnawed metal. And with the sight of glinting bits of glass shards on the driver's seat, it appeared that the side window had the same fate, as well.
Swallowing, the agitated woman veered her head to and fro. For she detected a raspy rumble within the evening wind...
With a sweaty brow and swelling lungs, Lori closed the car door. She didn't want to sit in an immobile vehicle like a fish in a barrel nor run in the woods in the pitch of night where the dark thing was in its elements. And with no other options, she shut off her car and retreated into the small house to hold up until morning.
Plopping the keys to the floor, Lori slowly sat on a loveseat in the parlor. Eyes barely blinking, she kept them glued to the clawed-up front door while second thoughts of living closer to civilization bemoaned her hindsight.
Two hours went by and when the adrenaline began to ebb away, eventually, so did the tired woman's consciousness.
"Tailypo... Tailypo... give me back my tailypo..."
With a jerk, Lori fumbled from the sofa and gawked at the metallic backdoor. The lengthy, spiky talons were scarring the steel board. Again. And again. And again...
"Tailypo..! Tailypo..! Give me back my tailypo!"
As she had done before, Lori seized another collector's plate and the painted foxhound sailed across the room and hit the bottom of the door. With a raucous hiss, the thing pulled its sharp nails away. After staring at the quiet, scuffed, steel board for uncountable minutes, Lori relented to her seat.
Three hours had painfully passed on the clock and despite the sofa cushions being soft, the woman remained stiff as a plank of wood. Her mind would not rest with knowing that this... talking thing might return.
And she was right.
"You know... and I know... that you have my tailypo..."
This time, the voice sounded... scathing. The padding of clawed paws on roof tiles was resounding and analogous to a cat bantering a bird.
"Please... just, just go away!" pleaded Lori, tears stinging her bloodshot eyes. "I don't have anything that belongs to you!"
The clawing was circling, however, not just randomly. But right above Lori's tilted scalp. It circled again. And again. And again...
"You know... and I know... that you have my tailypo!"
Feeling desperate and frustrated, the fretful woman grabbed the last collector's plate, unlocked the front door, and pitched the bloodhound artwork at where she heard the angry, accusing tone.
After the smash, she ran back in and barred the abraded entrance. Lori ogled at the ceiling, waiting for any signs of whatever was terrorizing her. When the only thing that greeted her was silence, Lori exhaled sharply and went to return to the sofa.
But her feet and breath froze when she found that her seat was occupied.
The creature had somehow crept its way inside when Lori had thrown the last plate and it must have found her scent on the small furniture's fabric. It stood up on all fours as big, round, bright yellow eyes locked onto the woman's quivering form.
Never in her life, did Lori witness anything so abnormal and so nightmarish. The thing was covered in dull, matted, black fur. Wide bear-like paws with talons that looked like they could slice rocks. And a short muzzle that harbored incalculable, serrated canines and molars; right below a pair of tufted, pointy ears that were atop a broad head. Its shape was somewhat akin to a bobcat. And it was about the size of one, as well.
But this certainly was no bobcat.
"You've got my tailypo!" snarled the thing before nimbly skulking out of sight. "Give me back my tailypo!"
Its voice was laced with so much rage and was so loud, that Lori couldn't pinpoint where it was.
She heard the rustling of the bathroom's shower curtain...
A creak of a dining room chair...
Kitchen pans were being jostled...
Then, the woman caught a knee-jerking glimpse of a bumped lamp in the parlor, cutting off the room's light.
"Give me back my tailypo!"
"I-I told you..!" Lori stammered while shuffling backwards. "I, I-I don't have your tailypo!"
"Yes... you... have!" The fast, unseen creature's claws clacked on the surrounding walls. "Yes...you... HAVE!"
"I DON'T have it!" the woman yelled at a fallen picture in a narrow hallway.
Soon as she backed up into the bedroom, pointy ears manifested from under a dresser, followed by bright yellow eyes, now flickering fiery red.
"Yes... you... DO!" it decreed, slinking right in front of its gasping target. "I saw you TAKE it!"
The growling thing was now lowering itself to the bedroom's carpet with its knuckle-sized nub waggling with predatory excitement. And with instant insight, Lori blinked hard. Her dilated pupils franticly flicked to the far end of the creature's stout appendage, and it dawned on her. The stub held a large wound from an injury...
The injury from the car incident with the tail.
"YES! You're right!" Lori shouted, holding up trembling hands. "It's HERE!"
The thing halted its advancement. Its bristled haunches and posture eased down.
"Where is it?" asked the thing. The inhuman voice seemed calmer and was no longer booming. "Where is my tailypo..?"
"I'll get your tailypo! Just wait!"
The thing rested on its haunches as its head swiveled with large eyes leering at the rushing, cautious woman like an owl eyeing a rodent. She went to her kitchen freezer and pulled out a bag. And within it was the bundled-up large rag.
Quickly, she returned to the bedroom with the awaiting creature.
"Here, here!" Lori tossed the big bundle to the floor. "Here's your dang tailypo!"
In that instant, the thing lunged atop its sheathed prize, instigating Lori to rear up to her bed's baseboard. She watched in frightened captivation as the thing tore into the cold paper and frozen fabric, revealing the folded-up, extended tail. The creature craned its slanted wide head at the big being before it.
"It, it was an accident," Lori peeped as she edgily tapped her fingernails. "I'm sorry I hurt your-"
"You... saved my tailypo?" queried the thing, its eyes now back to their bright yellow shade.
The cagy woman licked her dried lips and feigned a grin.
"Yes... Yes, I did."
What she didn't tell it was this was only partially true. She'd only preserved the eerie appendage to throw it away after the weekend. But there was no way on earth that she was going to admit that to the capricious creature.
The thing stared down at its repossessed appendage. And while Lori wondered what it would do, it snatched the frosted furred tail and began to devour the detached part of itself.
Lori clung to her mouth as the thing crunched and champed away at the frozen solid meat, bones, and tendons with ease as if it had not eaten in weeks. And as it gulped down the dismembered icy chucks of marrow and stiff flesh, the sounds of the cracking of cold glass and stretching of wet rope resonated from the hungry thing... Tailbones were materializing, along with intertwining sinews and muscles from its lanky, dark backside. And drips of crimson from the forming, pulsing veins and arteries stained the carpet below the disconcerting phenomenon.
Both palms were covering Lori's open mouth as the growing appendage outstretched from the creature. And as the thing finished with its... meal, so did the regeneration of its new, fully furred, black tail. Which was now, twice the extent of its visible, bony spine.
With a peculiar, purplish tongue, the thing licked its frosty, short muzzle and refocused its attention on the woman who was wishing she hadn't backed herself into a room without anything to defend herself. But undoubtedly, kitchen utensils wouldn't be a match for the steak knife talons nor all those ice-pick fangs.
However, since the creature seemed appeased, perhaps Lori could reason with it...
"Now, that you've... got it back," she began meekly, "could you please... go?"
"Yes... I've got my tailypo... But... go..?"
The thing's eyes gleamed red.
"...Nooo..."
"N-N-N-No?" Lori stuttered. "But, but you've got your tailypo! Wh-what do you want now?!"
"I want..." The crouching creature's lanky withers were wriggling. "...to HUNT!"
With a scream that surely would have awoken the dead, Lori dropped to the floor as the thing sprang forth. Getting back on shaky feet, she went for the bedroom's exit and readied to shut its door but paused partway. Because the thing had not lunged at her, but for her mattress.
With raised eyebrows, Lori warily looked on as the thing pounced upon the bed pillow with its hefty, clawed paws, yet the fabric casing remained unscathed. And when the creature sat up, the woman squinted for better discernment.
Between its lifted, long nails was something small with twinging, reedy legs and a red hourglass mark underneath a round, dark carapace...
The thing had caught a black widow spider.
Lori stood there, agape. All her fear, all her anguish from this hellish, bizarre night was deflected by seeing that the highly venomous arachnid had been nesting in her bed.
And the dang spider was within Lori's pillow. Her pillow! Had she fallen asleep like she'd planned...
The thing flipped the dangling, half-dead black widow into its ready magenta maw and snapped its jaws. Then, it stared back at Lori like a smug feline that swallowed the canary.
"You eat... s-spiders?" the woman uttered. "Even the deadly ones?"
"Yes..," was the odd, multiple-tone reply. "Fun to hunt... Fun to catch..."
Lori slowly nodded. That must've been the reason why this creature was trying to get inside the house from the beginning. This caused a new revelation to arise in Lori's mind, and not in a good way.
Hearing distant booms, the woman tightly crossed her arms over a beating chest. The odd chill had returned. But it wasn't from the incoming storm, nor the strange animal that was serenely blinking and sitting on the bed.
"Are... are there any..." Lori cleared her throat. "...ahem... more in this house?"
The thing swerved its wide face from side to side, flaring its black nostrils. Then, its large irises flashed red from both the lightning and expectation.
"Yesss..," it hissed delightfully over the thunder. "Many... many... more..."
Anxiously, Lori veered her view to the cottony square on where she lays her head, then to the crooning creature coiling its new, extensive tail over gaunt hindquarters. Again. And again. And again...
For the past two months, folks at work were discussing how all the rain had been enticing all the eight-legged critters to invade their homes. Surprisingly, their arachnophobic co-worker didn't seem fazed by this unnerving news in the slightest. And whenever they inquired why she was not worried, she would always explain that she didn't need to bother to fret about something that'd never happen in her house.
One quite stormy evening, while Lori contently slumped in her cozy bed, she motioned a brush like she's been doing for the last eight weeks. After a few more minutes, she leaned an arm above a big bowl on the floor that had been cleared of meat and gravy, placed the brush on a nightstand, and turned off its lamp.
When the woman felt the added weight leave her lap, she slid down between the soft blanket and mattress. Lori's lips curved into a secure smile when something shifted above her head and curled along her pillow...
Something that was covered in sleek, black fur, wearing a sharp, toothy grin and an embellished, ruby, and gold collar.
And closing dimming yellow eyes, a long, thick, shiny tail that was twice the length of its fattened torso, was draped over the sleeping being's collarbone.
"Tailypo... Tailypo..," it sighed blissfully. "Now, we've got our new tailypooo..."
