The Park Ranger

Gunther’s helicopter flew silently over the forest. It was equipped with all the latest in silent running and stealth technology. It was late at night. The mission had been a complete success so far, the package had been picked up and loaded without incident, and he was on his way back to base. In the back of the helicopter, in a container, was a large vial with a biohazard symbol on it.

The helicopter ran into a problem. Suddenly, out of nowhere the helicopter shook violently. Alarms roared it began to lose altitude. Gunther tried to regain control, but without knowing what was causing the problem, it was extremely difficult to try to correct it. He could see that he was quickly losing altitude, and was headed directly towards the forest. Suddenly a huge breech opened up in the back of the helicopter and his cargo fell put, falling towards the forest below.

“No! Dammit!” he said. Picking up his radio, he made an urgent call to his base.

At the base, they crew listened to the last transmission from the Captain.

“Sherman to base! I have a problem! Mayday! Mayday! Failure… (static)…. Losing alitit (static)….. my god…… cargo……. (continuos static).” The commander took the cigarette out of his mouth, dropping it and stamping it out, looked towards his men.

“What was his last know location?”, he asked

“His last known co-ordinates were 154 by 257” was the response. Grimily, he lit up another cigarette and said

“Right in the middle of Obsidian national park”. Looking towards the Agent that was standing behind him, he said

“assemble a team, have them meet me at the launch pad in 10 minutes”.

Black smoke billowed from the engines of the helicopter. In the cockpit, Gunther fought for control. His radio was out, and his engines were on fire. He thought of jumping out and parachuting to safety, but he knew that he had to try to land safely, to salvage his cargo, assuming any was left to be salvaged. The helicopter began to break up, and started shaking violently, power started to fail to such an extent that even the alarms no longer functioned. Having little choice, Gunther grabbed the parachute and abandoned the helicopter. As he parachuted down, he watched as his helicopter streak across the sky, and exploded in mid air. Grabbing his emergency radio transmitter, he attempted to contact the base, but it was to no avail, all he could hear was static.

Riley was a ranger at obsidian nation park. It was late and he was patrolling that night, doing his normal nightly runs. He always checked to see if there were any hikers still in the park, and to make sure everything was okay. As he was about to head back to base to punch out and go home, he saw heard something strange in the sky. Looking up and east he saw an explosion.

“What in the name of?” he said. Suddenly seeing something falling from the sky close to him, he heard a thud as it hit the ground.

“Oh my god!” he said, thinking it was the pilot. Getting back into his car, he drove towards where he had heard the thud. It took him about 10 minutes to find it, but as he neared the location, he was trembling at the thought of what we was going to find. Stopping the car, he franticly got out and ran towards what looked like debris. Getting there, he could tell right away that it was not a person, but an odd looking container. Something had spilled out from it. As he walked towards it, wondering what it was, he saw that he wasn’t the only curious one. A pair of racoons climbed down from a tree and walked towards it, walking right into the odd looking and oddly glowing material that leaked from the container. Worried for their safety, he told them to shoo, but they didn’t listen. Walking to it, he shined his flashlight at it.

“What the hell is it?” he said. Suddenly alerted by the sounds a helicopter accompanied by search light, the racoons fled. Thinking it would be wise if he did the same thing, Riley turned to run, the helicopter started to create a lot of wind, which caused several drops of the glowing substance to hit his legs, which were exposed as he was wearing shorts. Not realising he had been hit, Riley ran towards his car and got in, and as fast as he could, drove away from the scene.

Landing, the Agents radioed base that they had found the cargo the helicopter was carrying.

“And Sir, we have a problem, we saw someone examining it, he looks like he drove off, should we pursue?”. In his helicopter the commander answered

“negative, I will take care of it”. Motioning the pilot to follow Riley’s car, he turned on a search light, and focused it on the car.

“If he’s seen the cargo then he’s knows.” He said, delaying for several seconds before saying

“Lock missiles and fire”.

Seeing the spotlight on his car, Riley knew that he was in trouble. No matter how fast he drove, he couldn’t outrun it. Slowing down, Riley prepared to jump out of the car. Looking at the helicopter he saw a flash of light come from the side, his only reaction were the words

“Holy shit!”.

The missile flew from the helicopter at an incredible speed, impacting with the car, causing it to erupt in a fireball and cartwheel across the road into a tree where it continued to burn. Folding his arms, the commander lit up a cigarette and said

“So much for that. Examine the wreckage to make sure he didn’t survive, if he did, then….”. The look on the commanders face spoke volumes. Landing the helicopter, 4 Agents jumped out of the helicopter and ran towards the burning car and started to put the fire out.

Laying in the bush, Riley stayed as quiet and motionless as he could, he watch several Agents run by him towards the wreckage of his car. If he hadn’t of jumped out at that exact second, he never would have made it. As he watched them dose his car with their fire extinguisher’s, as quiet as he could, he ran into the bush, where he would make his way back to the station to get help.

Looking around to see where he had landed, Gunther removed his parachute. Again trying the radio, he heard a commotion, and thought he could hear helicopters.

“I still don’t understand what happened”, he said to himself. Suddenly seeing an odd figure standing in the distance behind something that was glowing, he reached for his sidearm .

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Sherman.”

“Who are you? How do you know my name? Did you shoot me down?”.

“I’m afraid so. You were up to no good and had to be stopped, and you still need to be stopped.” The figure began to walk towards Gunther, who pulled out his rifle and began firing at it, it had no effect..

Hearing the sound of the gun fire, the commander got on the radio.

“What the hell is going on? Who’s firing?”.

“We don’t know sir, we heard it as well”. To make matters worse, the four Agent ran up to him sounding urgent they spoke.

“Sir we have a problem, there was no body in the wreckage, when he slowed down he must have bailed”.

“Then find him! Use the infrared sensors if you have to. If he gets away, I’m not the one who’s going to have to explain the breech!”. Understanding what he meant, they got their assault rifles and infrared sensors from the helicopter and ran into the bush to search for Riley.

Now running through the bush as fast as he could, Riley was almost in a panic. He had hoped that in the dark he could get away, but he knew they’d find a way around that. Hearing a helicopter flying near him, Riley thought he was finished, until he saw a small cave.

“It’s my only chance” he said, as he ran into it. It was dark inside and damp, but he seemed to be safe, for now anyway. He had been in this cave before and knew of 3 other exists from it, if he could use the third one, which was not well known, he might be able to get away. His leg suddenly feeling itchy, he thought he was brushed up against a patch of poison ivy. Looking at it, he saw odd looking brown spots where the subsistence had hit him. He had remembered feeling something, but had been in too much of a panic to register it. Realizing what had happened, he said

“as if I’m not in enough trouble as it is!”. Hearing someone entering the cave, he hid behind a wall. This wasn’t the time to panic, he had to remember his training. Getting a quick look at who was there, he saw that it was one of the Agents. He knew these caves, so he had the advantage. Staying super quiet, he watched and waited. As the Agent walked by him, he silently walked up behind him, and struck him, knocking him unconscious. Taking the mans radio and rifle, he ran deeper into the cave, first making sure to hide his body.

Gunther’s gun was out of ammo, and despite hitting the figure 12 times he hadn’t even have slowed it down.

“No this is impossible!” he said as the figure walked towards him. Lifting its arm up, it struck Gunther with the back of its hand, knocking him unconscious.

Waking up, Gunther opened his eyes. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he seemed to be in a room. It was very dimly lit. The same figure that knocked him out was standing in front of him.

“Welcome back”, it said.

“Who are you? How could you take that many bullets? What do you want with me?” Gunther asked.

“Don’t worry my friend, your questions will be answered soon. But first there is something I want to know”.

“And what’s that?” , Gunther responded. Walking closer so Gunther could see his him better, the figure removed the massive mask that it had on that covered its face.

“Agent Hathaway?” Gunther said, astonished at seeing the woman, he continued;

“So that’s how you knew my name! But I thought you were” cutting Gunther of, Hathaway spoke

“Dead? Not exactly. And no thanks to you! I know what you were carrying, that is why I shot you down”.

“You’re insane! If a human came into contact with it, the results..” Gunther stopped.

“Yes?”, Hathaway.

“I’m afraid that’s classified. You of all people should know that, Agent.” Gunther said.

“Please, call me Maggie, you always did before”, Maggie said.

“You see, I may have survived that explosion, but to say I am alive would not be completely accurate.” Pressing a button, all of the lights in the room activated. Removing the rest of the custom Maggie allowed Gunther to see what she meant. She had scars over much of her body, and metal plating on her entire chest.

“So that is how the bullets did not affect you!”.

“I need this to survive, that material you were carrying could have cured me, now your going to help me to find it. It could be used to help countless others with disfigurements like my own”.

“We need it to make sure it even works! Then maybe we can help you.” Gunther said. Walking towards him, Maggie said

“Perhaps there are other ways I can convince you, I am still a woman afterall”.

Riley had managed to get deep into the cave. He knew that he was nearing an exit to it, but had to be very careful. He had no way of knowing if the people after him knew of the exit he knew of. For the past 15 minutes he had been feeling strange, and itchy.

“It must be that damn stuff that hit me” he said. Looking at his leg that had been hit by it, he saw something rather strange. A patch of what looked like brown fur covered the area where the ‘goo’ had hit him. Reaching down, he touched it. It felt soft and thick, almost like fur.

“What the hell?”, he said. As he looked at it closely, he could see that it was spreading. Continuing to walk though the cave, he tried to ignore what was going on, hoping that he could get help for whatever was wrong. Turning a corner, he thought that he heard someone. Staying very quiet, peaking around the corner, with the rifle he took from the agent he knocked out ready, he looked. He was lucky, there was no one there. Breathing a sigh of relief he continued down the cave, towards the exit. As he walked, his leg continued to feel strange, he tried to shake it off so he could concentrate on escaping, but it was just too annoying to ignore. Looking down he saw that the fur growth had spread. Instead of simply being a small patch, it now covered twice as much as his leg as before. Seeing this only increased his desire to escape, so he started to run. The cave floor was uneasy and it was difficult to avoid tripping, but he knew that he had no choice. Finally, he reached the exit of the cave. Coming to a stop, he slowly looked out the entrance, he didn’t see anyone, but it was dark so it was difficult to tell if anyone was there. Getting on all fours, he slowly started to crawl through the bush. It may have been dark, but he did know the way to the base. He knew that one way or another he had to get there and call for help, or at least find a place to hide there until the Agents left. As he crawled through the bush he could feel his leg itching more, whatever was going on, was spreading.

The commander, who was now back in his helicopter, used his helicopter’s infrared scanners to try to find Riley. He was getting very upset about how they could not find him. To make matters worse, two of his men were missing, Gunther and the Agent. Contacting his men that were closest to the missing man’s last known location, he told them to begin a search. Since his last known location was closest to the cave, they found its entrance in only a few minutes. They Walked in and found their man, he was still unconscious.

“Sir we found him, he’s alive but he’s unconscious.” One of the men said.

“Then it looks like our friends taken refuge in the cave”. Concentrate your search in there, the commander ordered.

Gunther, started at Maggie in disbelief.

“I told you I was still a woman”.

“I… I’m sorry for abandoning you like that all those years ago, I thought you had been killed, I should have checked. I so sorry you ended up like this” Gunther said.

“There is on way you can make it up to me, all I need is a few milliliters of that material, and I can completely heal myself.” Extending out her hand she continued.

“What do you say? I’m sure you can convince your new friends to spare some”. Hearing a beeping sound, she walked over to a console display, it showed a map of the cave system, and where the Agents were searching for Riley. Listening to the conversations she looked back at Gunther.

“It seems that an innocent park ranger discovered some the material at the crash site, and their trying to kill him for fear he will expose it’s existence” typing in several buttons sequences, she was able to see where Riley was.

“My god. It appears he’s been exposed to it. We have to find him and help him.” .

“I would have expected them to detain him, but never to go as far as to kill him. It would seem my new employers are not the people I thought they were”, Gunther responded. On the display was an infrared representation of Riley, who biosigns were flashing red on both of his legs and feet.

Although Riley had been able to get a considerable distance from the cave, he could still hear the occasional helicopter. He could feel that everything below his waist was itchy and had been affected by whatever was happening to him. He still seemed to be able to walk at least. He could finally see what he was looking for, the light of the base in the distance. His feet were starting to feel very uncomfortable, so he stopped for a minute to take off his shoes to see what was going on. It was still dark, so he had to use his flashlight to see them. When he saw them, he nearly dropped the light. His feet looked nothing like human feet, the top of them was furry, and he only had 4 toes on each! Each toe had a small claw at the end. Suddenly remembering back to seeing the 2 raccoons standing in the ‘goo’ he realized his feet looked just like theirs. Shining the light on his legs, he realized that the fur on them looked like raccoon fur. Standing back up, his feet felt strange against the ground, but at least they felt comfortable. Continuing to walk towards the base, he left his shoes. His groin started to feel warm.

“It’s spreading”, he said to himself. Pulling his shirt up, he saw the fur growth spreading. Feeling a pushing sensation at the base of his spine, he felt his pants being pushed.

“Not a tail!” he said, rather annoyed. The pushing continued and he watched as a small tail started to push itself out. Loosening his pants to allow it to grow in, he realized his situation was getting urgent and started to run towards the base.

Maggie directed Gunther towards the surface, holding a display of where Riley was.

“We’ll have to take my helicopter, we can use it to interfere with their scanners and we can use it to locate the substance” she said. Her helicopter was parked just outside the entrance to area they were in. Quickly getting in it, they were airborne. Gunther listened to the radio transmissions, he was able to discern that they were holding the substance close to where the commander was.

“Our first priority should be to rescue the ranger, if he can determine how the substance is reacting in him, we may not need to steal any”, Maggie said as she directed the helicopter towards where riley was heading.

“They have searched the entire cave he was in, they know he isn’t there anymore, and it looks like a helicopter is heading towards his location”, Gunther said.

“Then we must stop them!” Maggie said.

The commander helicopter had located Riley, it was moving to intercept him.

“This time he wont get away. This time we are going to capture him and I will deal with him personally!”, he said.

“Sir! Something’s wrong with our instruments!” the pilot said as he watched his readouts start to go haywire, the helicopter rotors started to make odd sounds.

“Were going to have to land!” he said. Gunther and Maggie’s helicopter was 50 meters above them, it was emitting a jamming signal, trying to force them to land.

“It’s working! Their having to land!” Gunther said.

“We must hurry, our friend appears to be running out of time!” Maggie said, as he looked at her viewscreen, showing Riley. The red flashing had now extended all the way up his torso and was spreading down his arms.

Riley itched his chest. He could feel from the warmth that the fur growth caused and it had spread all the way up his chest and back. It was now moving down his arms. It felt so warm that he had to remove his shirt just to cool down. He was getting closer to the base now, it’s lights clearly visible along with the structure. Looking back, Riley could see that his tail was now fully grown. It was long and furry. It had 6 rings on it. The night air felt strange on the fur on his chest, yet felt strangely comfortable. His arms started to itch wildly, and he had to stop to scratch. Using his flash light he could see that the fur growth was now almost down to his hands.

“It’s speeding up”, he said. As it spread to his hands, he dropped his flashlight. His hands quivered as they started to change. Kneeling down he was able to cast some light on them. He watched his thumb change shape as it appeared to line up with the rest of his fingers, the tops of both hands became furrier, and his fingers lengthened, with small claws growing on their tips. His hands stabilized a bit, so he picked the flashlight up again and started running towards the base, getting there getting increasingly urgent with every passing minute.

The commander, along with several of his agents ran towards the base.

“That is where he is headed!” he said. He didn’t know why his helicopter had stopped working, but either way it wasn’t going to stop him.

Maggie and Gunther speed along the sky, hoping to catch up with riley. They were gaining on him when they ran into a problem.

“Maggie, one of their other helicopters has locked onto us”.

“Arm the anti missile system” ,

“it’s too late, they’ve fired!”

“Taking evasive action!”. But it wasn’t enough, the missile hit the end of the helicopter and it started to spin out of control. Alarms started to blare all over the place. Grabbing parachutes, Gunther and Maggie jumped out, the helicopter fell out of control, falling below their position, when it was about 100m below them, another missile struck it, then another, causing it explode into a ball of fire. As they slowly descended, Maggie yelled

“Dammit! And we were so close!” Pulling out a smaller device from her coat, she pressed a few buttons and it lit up with a display showing where Riley now was.

“He’s almost to the base. If were fast then maybe we can catch up with him before they do”. The display showing his vitals was now flashing red on his entire body.

Riley approached the base. The changes had since spread to his head and face. He had felt his ears move to the top of his head, and he could feel his face lengthening into a muzzle. He could hear a helicopter approaching in the distance and had heard the explosion. Getting up to the entrance, he opened the door and went in. The first thing he did was to look in a mirror. His face was fully covered in fur, black around the eyes, brown elsewhere. His muzzle had finished growing. As he was about to pick up a phone to call for help, he suddenly felt another wave of change, he realized he was starting to shrink!

“Looks like I’m going all the way!” he said. Suddenly seeing a bright light in the windows, he realized that he was in serious trouble. He was able to discern that he was the only one there, he was normally the last one to leave so this wasn’t unusual. He knew he had to act quickly, as in a matter or minutes they were either going to start to sent Agents in to find him or worse.

Gunther and Maggie ran as fast as they could, they could see the helicopter hovering close to the base. As they approached it, several agents caught up with them.

“That’s far enough Gunther!” the commander said.

“He’s just an innocent! You have no right to harm him!” Maggie said.

“I have every right” The commander said.

“He doesn’t even know what the substance is! All we have to do is tell him to keep what happened a secret and he will!” Gunther said.

“I don’t think so” the commander said. Reaching for his radio, he said one simply word into it;

“Fire”. The helicopter fired several missiles towards the building. Less then a second after impact, the entire building exploded, debris flying everywhere, and everyone being knocked back by the shockwave.

“NO! Murderers!” Maggie yelled.

“As far as anyone is concerned nothing that happened here tonight ever took place! As far as anyone is concerned, the building was destroyed by a gas leak” The commander said, as he walked towards the helicopter that had now landed.

“Coming Gunther?” the commander asked.

“Go to hell” Gunther said.

“I’ll take that as a no”. Gunther half expected both himself and Maggie to be shot on the spot, but the commander and all of the agents boarded the helicopter, and it took off and disappeared into the sky. All Gunther and Maggie could do was to stare at the smoldering ruins of the base.

Daybreak came. Gunther and Maggie examined the remains of the building hoping somehow Riley could be found alive. As they were about to give up, they noticed movement near the middle of the ruins. Running towards it, they heard something pawing at a door towards a basement, a door that was closed. Opening it, they saw a raccoon standing at the top of several flights of stairs.

“It’s him! He survived!” Maggie said as she picked up the raccoon, who while covered in dust was not hurt.

“The material, the bio signs, this was what is did to him?”. The raccoon tried to speak but only made animal like noises, but it responded when they mentioned of him.

“It’s holding something!” Maggie said. The raccoon handed her a name tag that said

“Riley”.

“It really is you?” she said. The raccoon nodded its head. Petting its head, she continued to speak.

“This is going to take some explaining, don’t worry your family will know the truth about what’s happened to you.”.

Maggie and Gunther were able to locate Rileys family, and Riley, although not able to talk, was able to use a computer to explain that the raccoon standing before them really was indeed him. Maggie was able to (with Rileys permission) to get a sample of his blood and was able to use it to reverse engineer the substance and completely heal herself with it. Fearing for not only their own safety but for Rileys, they decided not to expose what happened that night. The official explanation was that Riley had left just before the explosion and had resigned after it. Gunther and Maggie eventually moved to an undisclosed location where they could live out their lives together. As for Riley? While getting used to being an animal took some time, he eventually grew to enjoy it, with the help of a few belly rubs that is.