Off Leash Chapter 2
Chapter Two
My next clear memory is getting blasted in the ears by the razor-sharp beeps of my alarm clock. It took me three tries to successfully smack the clock hard enough to stop its awful screeching. When I did finally hit the damn thing, the force of the slam set my entire hand tingling. It took me two additional sleep-wake-flail-smack cycles to become curious as to cause of my sudden loss of button-pressing aptitude. Normally I could hit that big bar with the accuracy of a laser-guided missile.
Cracking my eyes open illuminated the problem. On the top of the clock, where I expected to see my hand, was not a hand at all. It was something else. The bottom of my stomach fell out as I stared at the thing on my alarm clock. My thinking bits had never been fast wakers, so I squeezed my eyes shut. Only to get another bolt of unfamiliarity as something slid up underneath my eyelids and over my eyes. This sent a shiver racing down my spine, a sensation that flowed well past my hips. Flutters of panic shot through my brain and snapped my eyes open again. The world was still blurred for a split second before the membranes across my eyes retracted back from whence they came. My "hand" sprang into focus, covering the entirety of my alarm clock. Slowly I lifted it and turned the palm towards me. My heart scrabbled into my ears as my brain reluctantly put the individual components together. The brown fur, the short digits with round leathery-looking pads. The claws that just poked out of the tip of each digit. I tried to close my fist and each one slid out, hooked and wicked. This was no hand, my brain declared. This was a paw, a very large cat's paw. What was it doing on my wrist?
It turned out my wrist was covered in the same brown fur and merged into an arm that looked more like a leg before diving into the rest of me, the shoulder concealed in the same thick pelt. My thoughts thrashed in panic, undulating between incredulous and straight out denial. I went through all the standard scapegoats for an altered reality. Who slipped me LSD? Could I be dreaming? Had I gone mad?
Yet the simple act of pulling my limb back to myself stomped on those panicked thoughts with a pair of army boots. The way the muscles in the arm-leg moved against each other, the sensation of each individual hair shifting in response to the movement spidered a sense of vertigo over the limb. You know that feeling when you miss a step? That wrenching moment when you discover that reality does not match your internal predictions? Expand that single moment into a creeping awareness, and you might have an inkling of the alien sensations that were flowing into my brain at that moment.
I screamed and lashed out at my bedsheets. It only made the sensation worse. My spine moved like it had been replaced with a serpent, extending farther than it ever had before and thrashing with a life of its own. I discovered my sharp teeth by nearly piercing my tongue. Every movement of unfamiliar muscles poured pure wrongness on my brain. Everything in me told me to run away, to hide, but all I managed was clawing and kicking at the air, futilely, blindly. Screaming for help only produced a raw and ragged sound that burst through my skull. It made me try harder. Yet there is no escape from your own body. Minutes, perhaps hours later I slumped back into a tangle of shredded sheets, utterly exhausted. All I could do was feel the air sweeping over the hotness of my too-long tongue. The clock went off again. I listened to its needy beeping for a long time, head empty. I focused on those needle-like notes. If I stayed perfectly still, then I could pretend my body was still human.
The beeping stopped and sleep claimed me. I woke later in a still room. The only sound was the faint buzz of electronics. My ears panned on their own to focus on the buzz. I felt broken and uprooted, knowing that every movement would bring more horrible unfamiliarity.
Instead I focused on the familiar--the distinct feeling of a swollen bladder was about as normal as it got.
Seeing no choice in the matter, I put all my legs under myself and stood up on my mattress. It was . . . easy. The sense of unease blossomed, but instead of exploding into panic, it faded as I stood there. The weight of what had to be a very long tail lashed slowly behind me. I did not turn and look at it. Not yet. I wasn't ready for that just yet. Looking down, I studied my front paws. I had seen those already and carefully repositioned them on the edge of the bed while fighting to keep the claws from slicing open my mattress. I was struck by how large they were, far wider than my hands had been.
The hop down and short trot to the bathroom were also easy. Too smooth. If I had stumbled or felt a bit off balance I'd have been more assured. This body seemed to know how to handle itself even if I did not.
Before tackling the logistics of the porcelain throne I popped my paws up onto the bathroom counter and stole a look in the mirror. A feline face stared back at me. I had already guessed that, but it was still jarring to see a face that wasn't mine staring back at me from the mirror. It had light brown fur, except for a whitish muzzle, and blackish markings where long whiskers sprouted. The half-folded ears communicated my unhappiness at the sight well enough. At least I knew what I was. The cat with a thousand names: mountain lion, puma, and cougar, to name a few.
How? Why? The old man had called me a kitty. Had he done it? Had his injured brain somehow twisted my mind? Induced a brain clot that had driven me insane? Would someone else walk into the bathroom and see a naked man on all fours making funny faces in the mirror?
And if my senses could be trusted and the line between possible and impossible had been moved, what then? I couldn't decide which would be more of a disaster: being mad or being the serial killer of the animal kingdom.
Worse, Angelica detested cats. At least people don't call animal control when they see a dog. I hissed in frustration and recoiled instinctively at the sight of vicious fangs in my own mouth! I'd have to be very careful about smiling.
Using the toilet while mulling over how my old neighbor had turned me into a cougar with his last breath proved to be a disaster. Paw pads and smooth white plastic don't make for a very high coefficient of friction. I wound up with a sore nose, an aching shoulder, and sopping wet. The sopping wet was mostly the shower's doing. I only put one foot into the toilet, but when a very strong urge hit me to lick said foot, desperate measures were called for. I'd never been so happy that our cheap old house has L-shaped faucet handles in the shower. A round plastic crystal would have been murder on my teeth.
I was rolling around on a towel, utterly failing to dry myself in a civilized manner when a small high voice declared, "Holy Walnuts! You're huuuuuuuge!"
There was a squirrel perched on the sill of my window, his paws pressed up against the glass and his beady little eyes so wide I could see the whites. His paws quickly slapped over his mouth when he saw me looking and then he flashed the bush of his tail as he bounded away.
I was a very large cat, and now a squirrel had talked to me. My eyes shifted to the door, waiting for the men in white coats to burst through and take me away.
After they didn't show, I untangled myself from the towel and padded over to the window. My house had been remodeled so many times that the layout showed signs of schizophrenia. The window in my bathroom stood three feet wide with two sliding panes of glass side by side. Fortunately for my finer feelings, it faced a stone wall, which occluded the old man's yard next door.
Pawing the window open, I shivered as the cool outside air struck me. I didn't have to worry about being spotted from that house, did I? All my wet fur felt wrong, cold and heavy on my skin. I found myself licking my chops as my tongue itched to do more. That frightened me. A few minutes, maybe an hour before, I had been totally out of sorts. Now it took a conscious effort to stop myself from acting like a cat. Worries circulated through my mind. Would animal instincts eventually override my thoughts? How dangerous could it be to give my paw the lick that it desperately itched for?
My stomach rumbled as I stuck my head out of the window and peered towards the back of the house. No squirrels. My stomach gurgled a bit at the very thought of a squirrel. The story of my life: food first, thinking later. If the squirrel did come back, I wanted to talk to him, not eat him.
I slunk to the kitchen, trying very hard to ignore the discomfort of my damp fur. The fridge proved to be a bit of a challenge, but yielded after I placed a few claws in the seal of the door. I fished a bit of leftover steak out of the crisper drawer. It was fortunate that neither Angelica nor I am vegetarian. Hell, Angelica almost never ate anything but meat unless forced, so the fridge was well stocked in the event that a resident of the house ever became an obligate carnivore. Had I been transmuted into a rabbit or a donkey I would have been truly screwed.
Remembering, or rather not being able to recall, the last time I had mopped the kitchen floor, I hopped up on to the counter with my steak in a bag. The cold beef tasted better than I thought it would. The meat had a sweetness to it that I never noticed before. Still, as I congratulated myself on not ripping the entire fridge apart in a ravenous frenzy of feeding, I conducted a well-ordered ransacking of our nonfrozen foodstuff. Another leftover steak from a few nights ago was on the edge of edibility. The cold cuts were next: ham, baloney and a half pound of American cheese, which while tasty I would pay for later. Finally, I found a stash of fancy holiday salamis. Those greasy meats were as sweet as candy once I clawed the plastic open.
Sated and feeling more like a stuffed turkey than a feline, I curled up on my countertop and began licking my paws to get off the last remnants of that almost sugary grease.