Amy inserted the quarter and heard it fall through the machine in a series of clinks. When it settled on a pile of other quarters, she tried to think of an animal. An obvious one came to mind as she thought of her recent visit to her Aunt's ranch, where she rode a horse called Misty.
"Horse." She grasped the lever and pulled it down.
With a loud noise of metal clapping on metal, Amy felt a pinch in her lower back. The sharp pain caused her to jump in the chair, but something was holding her down from behind. Some metal clamp had grabbed hold of her skin. She screamed as she tried to sit up and get away from the chair. This time, she managed to get a little further off the seat before falling back on her butt. On the third try, she got up, but it still felt like the machine was holding firm. She took a forced step forward, feeling a painful stretching behind her. She looked back and screamed once more.
A long, black, hairy rope extended from the base of her spine to a rusty clamp on the back of the chair. Amy turned her head forward once more and tried to run flat out. More stretching ensued, and she barely gained any ground. Her sneakers squeaked loudly as they slid across the polished wood floor. For all her efforts, she was only moving away from the chair mere inches at a time. All the while, the pulling in her backside worsened.
All of a sudden, the machine clicked again and the pulling stopped. Amy was thrust forward, tripping over her feet and sprawling across the floor. The pain in her back slowly subsided, and when she had regained normal breathing, she looked back at the chair. The clamp had released her from that strange rope...except the rope was now gone.
She sat up on the hard floor, rubbing the lingering twinge in her back. Her hand fell over something fuzzy. She peered over her shoulder and saw the frayed strands of the rope lying scattered on the ground behind her. What's more, it seemed to be glued to her back right above her butt. The machine had torn a hole in her pants to put it there...no, wait.
She gingerly touched the black hairs of the rope and felt her fingers touching something beneath them. It twitched in her hands. For the third time, Amy shrieked. This was no rope! The machine had actually pulled a flowing black horse's tail right out of her backside! She watched it twitch again slightly as she ran her hand down its nearly three-foot length, asking herself over and over if what she was seeing was truly real.