Myanba Gorge - New South Wales, Australia

Of all the paranormal species, shifters are probably the least secretive. We know much of the mechanics of how their gift works, except for the most glaring of issues. There is often a huge difference in body mass between the shifted and non-shifted forms. Where does this extra mass go to or come from? This is unknown. Grat’s Guide to the Paranormal

The marsupial lion, known as Bobbie to her friends, and Thylacoleo carnifex to the scientific community, ran along the trail. She quickly accelerated to her top speed, bounding down the bush path with the strange gait that her species used. Sensing something ahead, she slowed to a walk, then silently slipped into the surrounding bush.

Creeping forward, she spotted what she had heard. There, some twenty metres ahead in a small clearing, was a regent bowerbird wooing a prospective mate. The distinctive black and gold feathers stood out among the grey and green of his bower, while his girlfriend blended right in. He was showing off his ‘treasures’ – a collection of twigs, rocks, some feathers, mainly black and white, plus a few prized blue ones, mainly little scraps of blue rubbish – to the brown and grey female.

Bobbie stepped back, so as not to disturb the cute couple, but accidently trod on a twig. The birds immediately took off, flying up into the canopy.

She chuffed, then continued running back towards the carpark.

---***---

A couple of kilometres away, sitting in his hunting blind, Senior Constable Joey Smythe of the Australian Federal Police, Paranormal Group, was doing a part of his job that he quite enjoyed. One of his tasks was to troll the reports that had been sifted from police files and media for ‘weird’ happenings. Where a cluster of these reports occurred, he got to do extra investigation, usually on site.

There had been a grouping of reports of ‘strange’ animals in this area, spread over the last two years, so it was time to see what was behind it. A week previously he had set up trail cams and had returned that morning to set up his blind and equipment for a few days of camping. He would return in another week to collect the trail cams, then go back to his office to spend a few hours reviewing the material, complete a report and then mark the case as closed.

His long lens was focused on a pair of regent bowerbirds. The black and gold plumage marked the male, and he was currently showing off his bower, hoping to get lucky with the plane brown and speckled grey female, who was acting disinterested nearby. They both suddenly flew away. Joey zoomed the camera out to try and spot what had spooked the birds, seeing the shape of a predator. Spotting the distinctive half stripes on the rump, he thought, “Damn, there really is a Tasmanian Wolf in the area.”

He kept the camera on it as it moved back to a nearby trail and sprinted off.

“Wait, that’s not a Tassie Wolf. The head shape is wrong.” As he watched it move down the trail, he realised that it was also too big. Way too big. He wasn’t looking at the recently extinct Thylacinus cynocephalus, the Tasmanian Wolf or Tiger, but at Thylacoleo carnifex, the long thought extinct Marsupial Lion.

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Joey glanced up to the tatters of fabric he had hanging from his blind to see which way the wind was blowing. At least he was downwind.

Glancing back into his camera’s viewfinder, he couldn’t see it anymore, but after zooming out, he re-acquired it. After a few minutes of losing and requiring the animal as it moved through the dense bushland, he realised it was moving towards one of the parking areas for the local bushwalking trails. This could get deadly, so he called his boss.

“Antonopoulos”

“Ma’am, it’s Smythe”

“Wow, it must be important if you’ve interrupted your ornithology to give me a call.”

“Ma’am, we have a situation developing. I was tracking down some reports of Tasmanian Wolves down near the South East Forest National Park, inland from Merimbula when I spotted something.”

“Don’t tell me you actually found a Thylacine?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“OK, what did you spot, then? Aliens?”

Aliens were a standard inside joke within the group.

“No, Ma’am, I think it’s a Thylacoleo, the Marsupial Lion.”

“When you say lion, how big are we talking about?”

“I’d guess at over 150 kilograms and over 1.5 metres long, including tail. Ma’am, access my evidence folder, I’m uploading the images as I’m taking them. My concern is that it’s getting close to a public car park and there seems to be more than a dozen cars there.”

“Nice bird.”

Joey thought for a minute, then realised she was seeing the first footage he’d taken.

“Yes, Ma’am, that’s a male Regent Bowerbird, you should be able to see the grey and brown female watching in the background.”

“So, where’s this predit…bugger. Joey, you’re not trying to pull one over on me?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“How big did you say?”

“One and a half metres, including tail, maybe 150 kilos.”

“What do you think? Someone from Canberra Zoo?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Probably the closest with any experience with large predators. Maybe a tracking collar? Where there is one, hopefully there are enough for a breeding program. There’s also a private zoo at Mogo, I think.”

After a moment, Joey continued, “That’s strange.”

“What’s happening?”

“It’s carefully moving among the cars in the car park. Ma’am, it’s not behaving like I understand predators should. It almost looks like it’s waiting for something or someone.”

Joey zoomed out a bit, then left the camera on automatic, taking thirty-second-long videos and uploading them. Switching to another camera, he began to scan the area. Quickly spotting some movement and zooming in, he found two Thylacines, Marsupial Wolves.

“Ma’am, this is starting to make even less sense. I have two Thylacines approaching from another direction.”

He took some images and then zoomed out again.

“What the … Ma’am, I can also see three red kangaroos, they’re not native to this area.”

More images were uploaded.

He moved his focus back to the carpark.

There was no sign of the lion, but there was now a half-dressed woman.

“Ma’am, can you check the video and see where that lion went? I seem to have lost it.”

“Smythe, I’m watching it now. OK, that’s unexpected.

“Congratulations, you have the first evidence of were creatures. I think we have a were-lion. Well, shit. That woman changed back from an actual animal.”

Over the next thirty minutes, Joey recorded two thylacine shifters, four red kangaroo shifters, an emu shifter, four other large flightless bird shifters (a mix of different thunderbirds, plus one that was probably Dromornis planei, known as the ‘demon duck of doom’) and a wedge-tailed eagle shifter. The final one to arrive was worth the wait. A diprotodon lumbered into the carpark, the giant wombat was about the size of a small Asian elephant. It, the thunderbirds and the marsupial lion, hadn’t been seen in Australian for many thousands of years. Everyone gathered around some fold-out picnic tables, a portable BBQ was fired up and they ate and drank. When another car pulled into the carpark, four people got out and joined the group, two with towels wrapped around their necks.

After about another hour, they all packed up and drove off.

Joey shut down his cameras and then realised that his supervisor was still on the phone.

“Ma’am? I’m assuming you want me back in the office now?”

“Let’s have an all-hands-on-deck at 10am tomorrow. I’m sending out a notification now. I never expected to say this, Smythe, but good job.”

Joey snorted and said “Thanks, Ma’am.”

Once everyone had left, he packed up his gear and retrieved the trail cams, then drove back to Canberra. He had a report to write.