Muzzle it!

The costume party was in 1 week and Chris needed a costume for it. Twice every year his company would host a costume party with animals as the theme. The idea was simple; you came dressed as an animal of your choice. For this particular party, Chris has decided to go as a raccoon.

He was unsure where he was going to get the costume from but was unwilling to give up. He had decided to check out a local mall as he had heard there was a store there that sold all kinds of costumes. He figured that it probably sold animal based ones.

As he walked through the mall, he noticed something strange. The mall was oddly quiet for this time of day. He had only seen maybe 3 people, even after 30 minutes of looking for the costume store. The lights in the mall seemed oddly dim. Had the mall closed and somehow he hadn’t of noticed? Was someone filming a movie? Was there some kind of emergency like a fire or gas leak? There were no signs or anything to indicate either. Determined to locate the store, he continued on his way, unaware that he was being watched.

***

Slowly, Josh followed Chris, making sure to remain unseen. Holding the small walkie-talkie, he pressed the talk button to speak into it. The little gray raccoon had little problem hiding behind bushes and under benches. Giggling, he informed the listener that ‘the human’ was almost to the store and that the plan was ready to be sent into motion. As a human he had been friends with Chris and wanted to let him know what had happened to him 2 weeks ago. He knew Chris liked raccoons and wanted to let him experience coons on an entirely new level. As he completed the message, he hugged himself, sat on a bench, and waited.

***

“Finally! There’s the store” Chris said, suddenly realizing he was talking to himself, and for the first time glad he was apparently alone so no one would have heard him. Quietly, he walked into the store. He was amazed by their selection; they seemed to have everything. Well, maybe not everything, he found no raccoon costumes, despite their being several other species costumes present.

“That’s weird, maybe they have one in the ‘back’”, he thought to himself. Walking up to the counter, he rang the bell and a middle-aged man walked up to the counter.

“Hello, welcome to Gary’s costumes, how can I help you sir?” the man said in a very formal tone.

“Hi, I’m looking for a raccoon costume for an animal based costume party, I was wonder if you had any ‘in the back’ as I couldn’t find one?” Chris asked.

“Hmm, that’s weird, I could have sworn we had one. I’ll go check the back,” the man said, in a rather confused tone.

***

John and Jennifer worked quickly on the costume. Jennifer held the muzzle while John dripped the liquid into it.

“Will he feel it?” she asked. Shaking his furry little head, John smiled.

“We didn’t, he’ll never know. From what Josh has told us, he’s going to love this. Well he might be a bit surprised at first and even a little freaked out, but he’s going to love this.” John said, smirking as he finished applying the liquid. The two of them could hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Quickly, they put the muzzle back down and ran out of the back of the store via the ventilation system, chittering happily the entire way.

***

Chris had been waiting for about 5 minutes when the man finally came back.

“Sorry to keep you waiting sir, is this what you were looking for?” he asked. Chris examined the costume, admiring how nice the fur felt.

“Don’t worry, it’s fake fur. It also comes with face paint, you put this muzzle like thing over your nose so your mouth is free for food”, the man said smiling.

“Can I try it on?” Chris asked.

“Of course, you can use the change room over there”, the man said, pointing out the room. Picking up the costume, Chris thanked the man and walked over and into the small room.

Standing in the room, he decided to try on the muzzle first. He was surprised by how well it fit. It covered his nose completly but left plenty of room open for his mouth.

“This is so neat, it even has whiskers” he said to himself. He reached down to pick up the other parts of the costume when his face suddenly felt warm and itchy. When he stood back up to put the rest of the costume on, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He noticed something rather strange, his face was covered in what seemed to be the face paint that came with the costume!

“That’s weird, I didn’t put any of the paint on. What’s going on?” he thought to himself. As he looked as his reflection in confusion, he reached up to touch the paint and gasped.

“What’s going on? This isn’t paint! This is fur!” He said to himself. Quickly, he reached up and felt the fur, which was redish brown on most of his face, black around his eyes and white arround his mouth and arround the black. As he felt the fur, he felt a strange pressure under the fake muzzle. Hastily, he took it off and set it on the floor. As he was reaching down, his mouth and nose felt very strange. It was a feeling unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was as if something were pulling on them and pushing them together at the same time. Looking back at his reflection in the mirror, he saw what was causing the feeling. His mouth and nose no longer looked human, they had pulled out into a real muzzle that was fur covered. The fur on the sides of the muzzle was white and several whiskers has grown out the side of it. The fur on the front of his muzzle (which extended up his face and between his eyes) was reddish brown. Around his mask was a line of white fur. Touching his muzzle in fascination, he was too preoccupied to notice that his neck and chest had become itchy and warm. As he felt his now small black nose, he realized that his sense of smell had improved significantly. He was easily able to smell the hotdog he had at lunch 3 hours ago. He opened his mouth to see that his teeth no longer looked human but were longer and very sharp looking. He then became aware of the itching on his chest. He could see the reddish brown fur that had since been growing on it poking out from under his shirt. Quickly, he pulled the shirt off. What he saw shocked him. His entire torso, from neck to waist had become covered in a thick pelt of reddish-brown fur, which was starting to spread down his arms and legs!

He petted the fur gently, surprised by how soft it felt. He was slightly embarrassed buy how nice it felt to be petted. His hands both started to tingle and felt incredibly warm. As the sensation subsided, the feel of the fur felt different, as did and the feel of being petted. When he held his hands up in front of his face he discovered why. His hands had become raccoon forepaws! His fingers were nimbler and the top of both paws was covered in a bristly coating of dark brown fur. His thumbs had changed shape and orientation, having re-aligned themselves to line up with the other fingers on each paw such that he no longer had a thumb, but had 5 fingers on each paw.

Staring at his paws in fascination, he became aware of a pulling sensation at the base of his spine and of a tingling sensation on his ears and at the top of his head. The pulling sensation at the back of his spine took priority as something was emerging from the base of his spine. Suddenly, he found his pants feeling very constricting. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he removed them, his underwear, shoes and socks. Turning around so that his rear end faced the mirror, he watched as a furry ringed tail grew from his spine. Nervously, he felt the tail which confirmed that it was not only real, but it was indeed his. He then noticed the changes had spread down his legs. Both of his legs had become covered in a pelt of reddish brown fur and his feet looked different somehow. Both feet were covered which a thin layer of dark brown fur, and each toe had a sharp claw at the end of it. As his tail finished it’s growth, he looked at his face in the mirror, curious as to why his ears had felt so strange. The image in the mirror was shocking to say the least, his human ears were gone replaced by a pair of furry raccoon ears. His face no longer looked like a human face, but a raccoon face.

He was about to turn around to run out of the changing room in fear, hoping to get help when the room seem to grow bigger and bigger. A quick self-examination led him to the truth. The room wasn’t getting bigger, he was shrinking and fast!

“Looks like I’m going all the way!” he said, in a rather upset voice. He continued to shrink and was nearing the size of a raccoon when his hips felt funny and very warm. He felt his center of gravity shift and was forced onto all fours. His neck’s alignment changed such that when standing on all fours, that he was looking forward, an alignment that as a human would have caused him to be looking straight up when standing up or sitting and only looking forward when laying down. He felt a tingling in his throat and on his tongue. The changes seemed to be complete and he stood on his hind legs staring at his reflection in the mirror. His human self was gone, replaced with a reddish brown raccoon.

“A very handsome raccoon” he thought to himself as he smiled.

He had been standing there simply staring at himself for what felt like an eternity (but in reality was probably no more then 2 minutes) when he heard a knock at the door of the changing room.

“Hey! Are you okay in there?” a voice said.

“oh oh” Chris thought to himself. He tried to say something, hoping to explain to the man what had happened, but only raccoon sounds were coming out of his mouth. His instincts were starting to set in and he started to feel a sense of panic.

“I have to get out of here!” he thought to himself. As he finished that thought, the man forced the door open and looked at Chris in a very confused manor.

“What the heck is going on? Shoo raccoon! Shoo!” he said, sounding rather upset. This set Chris’ run instinct into full motion and he ran out of the store as fast as his furry little legs could carry him. He was more then a little freaked out as the reality of the fact that he was now an animal was starting to hit him.

“What do I do? What do I do?” he said out loud, only half realizing he was making the sound raccoons make when their in distress. As he ran by a bench, something caught his eye, it was another raccoon. Somehow it seemed familiar. The sight of another raccoon calmed him and he slowly walked over to the animal. The other raccoon chittered gently at him. Chris was shocked; he could understand the animal!

“Chris? It’s okay, it’s me Josh!” he said.

“Josh? This is what happened to you? This is where you vanished to last week?” Chris chittered.

“Yes, I was changed by body paint that I bought to look like a raccoon. With the help of some friends I was able to change you too. I know this seems odd and scary, but trust me, you're going to love it!” Josh chittered.

“What friends?” Chris chittered.

“Us!” came a voice from behind him. Turning his furry little body around, Chris saw 2 raccoons, a male and a female looking at him, smiling.

“Hi, I’m John” the male chittered.

“And I’m Jennifer” the female warbled.

“We were changed just like you, we have a family in the woods and would love it if you would join us. Life is a lot of fun, Josh lives with us as well”, John chittered.

“I don’t know, this all seems more then a little weird. How do I know this isn’t all some weird hallucination?” Chris asked. Sensing his apprehension, Josh walked up to him

“I was a freaked out at first too, but after curling up in a big warm furry ball with the family and realizing I don’t having to worry about homework or getting a job anymore and realizing we can just exist and enjoy the simpler pleasures of life I cooled down pretty fast”, Josh chittered.

“Now that you put it that way, it does sound interesting. And I can’t exactly just return to human society like this” Chris said he looked down at his body, pawing his belly fur. Josh walked up to him and scritched him between the ears then hugged him. Enjoying the warmth of the hug and loving the feel of the scritch, Chris returned the hug. Rubbing his chin, as if in deep thought, Chris finally made his decision.

“What the heck, sounds like fun. Lead the way.” he said cheerfully.

“Cool!” Josh said as he motioned for Chris to follow them. Happily, the 4 of them happily began to make their way out of the mall and back into the forest with another happy addition to their little family.