Item #: SCP-2547

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Due to the nature of SCP-2547, effective containment is not possible at this time. Towns determined to be susceptible to SCP-2547 manifestation events are to be monitored via remote surveillance and evacuation of the population is to be attempted if deemed possible. Towns undergoing an event are to be dosed aerially with Class A amnestics at the end of the manifestation event.

Description: SCP-2547 is a pack of approximately 4000 different members of the family Canidae.1 Members of SCP-2547 do not need food or water. Any attempts to harm, kill or tranquilize a member of SCP-2547 will result in the rest of the group becoming hostile and aggressive. Members of SCP-2547 can be separated from the group and detained, but will disappear the instant they are no longer directly being observed and rejoin SCP-2547. DNA testing has revealed that members of SCP-2547 are genetically identical to human beings.

SCP-2547 only manifests in rural American towns. Affected states include Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. The town must have a population of less than 3,000, as well as a reservoir and a church. Manifestations will occur only between June 1 and August 31. For the duration of the event, the local temperature will remain above 32 degrees Celsius, and all local precipitation will cease.

The following is a timeline of SCP-2547 manifestation events.

SCP-2547 EVENT SCRIPT

SCP-2547 EVENT SCRIPT

Immediately Upon Arrival: The town suffers a power outage between midnight and 4 AM. SCP-2547 members form a border around the most densely populated portion of the town and block all attempts at escape. Attempts to enter a vehicle will provoke an attack by SCP-2547.

Three Days After Arrival: Three days after SCP-2547's arrival, all the water in the reservoir will disappear. A male coyote wearing a leather coat altered to accommodate its skeletal structure and a worn wooden crucifix will appear. This entity has been designated SCP-2547-1, though it refers to itself as the Reverend. SCP-2547-1 is capable of both bipedal locomotion and speech.

Time Between SCP-2547-1 Appearance and Departure: SCP-2547-1 will take up residence in the local church and hold regular sermons four times a day. The sermons usually consist of a diatribe on how modern society has forgotten SCP-2547-1 and its siblings, and how they have lost the ability to dream as they once did. SCP-2547-1 ends its sermons by asking if any member of the congregation would like to trade for some water, but does not specify what goods it will take in exchange.

SCP-2547-1 will accept the following as payment: any kind of meat, pepper, flint arrowheads, knives, whips, leather, burlap, belts, the thorns of a saguaro cactus, broken glass, lost teeth, ties, carved sculptures, the corpses of domestic cats, amber, canvas shoes, peyote, chewing tobacco, sexual favors, sulfur, men's button-up shirts, animal skulls, and stories with SCP-2547-1 as the protagonist.2 SCP-2547-1 will store its payments in the church and assign members of SCP-2547 to guard the pile from theft.

If the payment given is deemed acceptable, SCP-2547-1 will regurgitate 60 to 120 liters of water. If the payment does not fall into any of the above categories, SCP-2547-1 will transform the offender into a member of the Canidae family, who will then join SCP-2547. These altered individuals do not appear to retain memories or intelligence from before their transformation.

Departure: SCP-2547 and -1 will remain until the next full moon after the initial SCP-2547-1 manifestation date, upon which SCP-2547-1 will lead SCP-2547 away from town, using SCP-2547 to transport the goods it obtained.

An excerpt from one of SCP-2547-1's speeches has been provided for reference:

You ask me, who am I. I ask you, where am I? In the beginning there was the word and the word was not a word at all, but a howl. Where am I, in the meat brain, encased in bone, dripping with brine, sizzling with sparks? Where am I in your chemical soup? Am I sacred? Have I been on the cross? Once I was woven into you, all your kind, deep in the pit of yourself from which you pull your wildest tales and strangest desires? I gave you the gift that saved you. I would have been your Eden, I would have tended you as a shepherd his sheep. I taught you all how to lie. And you, though the only way you gibbering sheep of apes survived is through deceit, you have forgotten me!? You have replaced me with a serpent who crawls on the ground!? [SCP-2547 stops, and begins to sob.] I gave you stories. You worshipped me, once. And now you are disgusted. Heretic, you say. No. I am a martyr, like your beloved carpenter. You dare not look upon me, for fear of burning in brimstone. So be it, then. Let me be something that you should truly be repulsed by. You brought this on yourselves. You looked back as Sodom burned.

Interviewer: Agent Miller

Interviewee: SCP-2547-1

Opening Statement: Agent Miller had been stationed in the town of ██████████, Utah, which had been deemed at risk for an SCP-2547-manifestation event. The manifestation event occurred on 6/12/15. Agent Miller had been given 4.5 g of amber and enough water to last him for 3 months. He presented the gift to SCP-2547-1, but requested information in lieu of water.

<Begin Log>

SCP-2547-1: Oh, how beautiful. And look! Look there. A fly, caught in the midst.

Agent Miller: How fitting, given our situation.

SCP-2547-1: Hah! A sense of humor! Oh, I like you. [SCP-2547-1 takes Agent Miller's face in its paws and kisses him. Agent Miller does not respond.] Hm? No? Very well, then. Now, your water.

Agent Miller: I happen to be well stocked with water for now, as it happens.

SCP-2547-1: Cunning you. Perhaps it was good I didn't have you after all - you might have a little too much of me in you for me to be properly in you, it seems. - pardon my pun, of course. It would have been highly embarrassing. But. What boon do you seek of me?

Agent Miller: I'd like to know more about you. What you want. Why you do this. Who you are.

SCP-2547-1: Three questions! Oh, you do know your myths! How delicious. What do I want? Has anyone ever dreamed of you, my beautiful man? I'll bet they have. If so, you'd never want it to stop. Now, why do I do this? To put it in your terms, I'm upping my publicity, of course. The myth field has been taken over by hacks and milquetoasts. I'd like my old hunting grounds to myself. But you can't spread legends the way you used to, not anymore. So my approach has had to be…unorthodox. As to who I am, your kind knows me, all right. You know who I am. Not in the bits of you that do all your numbers and lines, but the parts of you that paint and sing and fuck and leap. I am yours, as you are mine. You know who I am, gorgeous man. All you have to do is look. It's right in front of you, I promise.

<End Log> SCP-2547-1 refused to respond to any further questioning, and left 18 days later. Agent Miller tried to gain more information, but SCP-2547 refused to engage in conversation on any subject except propositioning Agent Miller.

Following Agent Miller's return, Protocol DESERT GRASSROOTS was enacted, which consists of a many-faceted multimedia campaign to produce narratives that involve the SCP-2547-1 entity in some way. Projects created by DESERT GRASSROOTS include:

A series of children's books centered around modern retelling of Southwestern Native American myths and legends.

A common street art design depicting a coyote wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, using a crucifix as a pipe.

An internet meme template character in the "advice animal" format called Kinky Coyote.

A television show called Angels of Dust, featuring an antagonistic cult with hedonistic beliefs, led by a man calling himself Latrans.

An interactive fiction game focusing around a pilot, call sign "Coyote One", stranded on an unfamiliar planet after his ship crashed in a desert.

A modern surrealist art exhibit at the Boston Isabella Gardner museum, which conveys a canid-man hybrid's conversion to an odd religion. The pieces are done entirely in wire sculptures and taxidermy.

A collaboration album between alternative music artist ██████ ██████ (frontman of alternative-folk band ███ ████) and rap artist █████ ████. The album makes repeated references to an entity called Canis, who represents their primal desires and fears which they must constantly push down and ignore in order to be civilized humans.

Following implementation of Protocol DESERT GRASSROOTS, SCP-2547 manifestation events have decreased in frequency by 30%, but SCP-2547-1 no longer appears to accept stories as payment during events, resulting in a 15% increase in the average number of additions to SCP-2547 per manifestation.

Footnotes

1. Including dogs, foxes, wolves, coyotes, jackals, and dingoes

2. The latter appears to be a favorite of SCP-2547-1, and the highest recorded amounts of water were produced in exchange for such narratives, followed by the volumes produced in exchange for sexual favors.