Shaykitteh's World of Books

Feeding

By Elizabeth VanZwoll

My people aren’t from this far north, but we’ve had to adapt and change over time. Once, we took the shapes of animals and hunted our prey. As cities grew and crowded out the forests, our choices became more and more limited. We discovered that we could change into anything that once had living matter in it. A coat made of cotton fibers, a bear-skin rug. Cardboard or newspaper, even, if the need became urgent enough.

In the plains and forests where my people were born and lived, children were warned to ignore an animal that acted strangely, or an object that moved against the wind. Showing your notice could bring the wrath of the shifter, for we were few but famished. Always hungry.

And when we were hungry, nothing could stop us.

These were just fairy tales now… Traditions followed only by the elderly and ignored by the electronic generation. And so I waited. And they found me, never remembering until the end.

During one lean year, I transformed myself into a form I had never been in before and found myself stuck. Too hungry, I suppose, to fully control my powers. A man picked me up and threw me in the back of a truck before I could catch his hands to feed. I sat in that truck as the miles passed, and found myself in this frozen north.

And so I lay, slowly forgetting myself, losing who I am and what I was. Until one day when I was straightened out and I tasted the salt of his sweaty flesh on my skin. I slowly reached my fibers out and caught his hand… and remembered.

That day, no one was near. I was lucky. The dwelling had 8 doors… 8 possibilities. None of the doors opened to the scream as I savored the man who had brought me to this place. I slowly pulled in his flesh, and then his bones. His blood was sweet and had aged well. When I was done, only keys in the lock showed that he had ever been here.

I could leave now. Take another shape… perhaps a cat, since it seems that the people of this generation are enamored with them. But I prefer to savor my treats and an animal might be noticed. And so, when someone goes missing and rent goes unpaid, I stay. No one notices an inanimate object, after all. I move from doorway to doorway, waiting for my next feast.

I sit in front of one door now, waiting. The woman inside seems to have sensed something, though she won’t say what. She steps over me when walking in, not even allowing contact between her shoe and my skin. I heard her question her husband.

“Do you know where that came from?” He had also noticed me, but suspected trickery on the part of the neighbors. “Someone keeps shifting it from door to door. I’m sure it will be elsewhere soon. Or you could move it somewhere else.” The woman shivered and said that she didn’t want to touch me… She would wait.

So now it might be time to move, perhaps to another building. People disappear and new neighbors move in. With only two doorways that haven’t succumbed to me yet, another building may be better… With such a large complex, I will feed well for years. I will wait until the cover of darkness and hide in the shadows, oozing through the cracks below the exterior doors and letting myself in. And when the dawn breaks and a new doorway opens, I may be noticed. Or, as usual, the resident will assume that I’ve been misplaced. After a few days, when suspicious are forgotten, I will feed.

No one suspects a doormat.