Before they were even halfway to the hideout, Chris left John by the side of the forest path.
"Put that loot in the ditch for now and stand guard. I'm gonna go down the hill and take a piss."
John heard Chris stomping off into the trees, and then the sound faded away to almost nothing. He looked back and forth, ready to hide or alert Chris at a moments notice. All at once, though, a headache and a wave of dizziness washed over him. He wobbled around a bit before he managed to steady himself and the feeling mostly went away. He noticed something felt unusual in his ears, like they were warmer or almost swollen or something. Oddly, his hearing was suddenly much better. He could actually hear John's trickle of urine deep in the woods, and he even noticed the sound got crisper as new muscles moved on the sides of his head. Realizing he didn't really care to listen to that, he went back to focusing his listening attentions further down the path.
Curious as to what was going on in his hears to cause all of these strange sensations, he reached up and felt around his ears and froze. He could feel his ears now, and they were practically as big as his hands! And they were really hairy, too, he couldn't even touch the bare skin of his earlobes! And sure enough, he could move them in order to listen more carefully in one direction or another. Remembering that one of the things they'd stolen from the witch was a mirror, John dug through one of the sacks and got it out. He gasped when he saw his ears. They were huge, oval-shaped, and fully enveloped in jet black fur!
Suddenly John's ears swiveled over toward the sound of Chris's cursing under his breath and shuffling around in circles back in the woods. John quickly called out to him from the trail.
"Hey Chris, is everything okay back there?"
"Oh, John, you heard that? I, I, I'll be up there in a minute, I just...."
Chris's voice seemed to trail off uneasily, and John decided he'd better leave Chris alone if he was having, well, toiletry troubles if you know what I mean. Besides, John was too focused in the strangeness of his own ears to take his eyes off the mirror. After several more moments of nervous pacing, John heard Chris starting to walk back toward his position.
About ten minutes after Chris first announced his little bathroom break, he reappeared from the bushes with one arm held behind his back. He looked jittery, but strangely he looked partially when he saw John looking in a mirror and stroking his ears.
"Um, John? Is there something you need to tell me?"
"I ... I wish I knew, Chris. It happened after you left. I just suddenly felt weird for some reason and then... my ears, they..."
"Well, that explains the super hearing I guess."
"Oh, man, you can see them too, I knew it! I look like a freak, don't I?"
"Well, they do look ... out of place on you, that's for sure."
John glared at Chris. "Dude, you're not helping," he said, broad ears aimed straight at him.
Chris shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, man, except... you're not the only one. Look what I have." Chris pulled his arm around from behind him, revealing his hidden hand which was grasping something thick, brown, fuzzy and rope-like with a bushy tan tassel at the end.
"What is that? You find something back in the woods?" asked John, coming over with his ears perked up in interest. Chris blushed. John picked up and held the thing Chris seemed to be giving him, but it seemed to be attached to something further back around Chris's side. Surprisingly it felt... warm and hairy, somewhat like John's changed ears. The really long hairs were all at the end like the frayed end of a rope. Chris seemed visibly uneasy at John examining whatever-it-was so up close and personal. When John tried to pull more of it around where he could see it--and maybe figure out where the other end was--Chris shouted and shoved John away in a hurry.
"Ow! Fuck! John, what're ya tryin' to do, rip the damn thing off me? You want me to rip off those fuckin' amplifier dishes of yours?"
John stumbled back. "Dude, it's not my fault you tied some old rope around yourself for who knows what reason? What do you want from me bro?"
"You ever seen a rope do THIS, John?" Chris spread his legs, held out his arms, and stood perfectly still except for the long brown appendage which thrashed in different directions, slapping up against his and his back. John was getting really freaked out now that he was starting to realize what Chris was actually trying to show him. "Whoa, Chris, how are you ... making it do that?"
"I dunno, I just am. The damn thing reads my mind or something. I can feel when it's touching something, too. Honestly, it's hard to keep it still for too long unless I'm really trying. And it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch when you pull on it!"
"It almost looks like a--" John's voice trailed off suddenly. He wanted to say it looked like a cow's tail or a bull's tail or something, but he decided this wasn't a good time. "My ears are kinda like that too," he commented instead. "What do you think we should do about all this?"