A Hundred Whispers Make a Howl

Chapter 3

    Wailing meows greet my ears as I turn my key in the lock. The moment I open the door to my modest apartment the twins assault me, rubbing themselves against my calves and tripping me up as I attempt to make it inside. I stumble in past the threshold, flipping on the lights as I grin fondly at the cats that weave themselves between my legs.

    "Hey boys, miss me much?" The cats purr in response as I bend down to scratch them beneath their chins. Skeeter and Mickey are my babies, and I tend to coddle them. They had been gifts for my 18th birthday four years ago, and had been my furry companions ever since.

    As brothers, they both share the same tuxedo coloration and affectionate personalities. But that's where the similarities ended. Mickey has more white on his face than Skeeter, and is twice his size. The honest to God truth is that the cat is a fat lard. He's lazy as they come, and his happy place is anywhere soft and warm. Mickey is exceedingly sweet however, and a grade A lap-cat . Skeeter on the other hand is lean and agile with a longer, glossier coat. He's more talkative and inquisitive than his brother, and is generally the trouble maker of the pair.

    The cats content themselves in being petted for a moment longer, then start meowing again. Rolling my eyes, I toss my school bag onto the loveseat in the living room, and walk to the pantry in the kitchen. Skeeter and Mickey follow, continuing to complain.

    "Alright alright, I know already! You're hungry, and I'm sorry." Part of me really does feel guilty: I've been busy with work, school, and the whole lycanthropy thing. My cats are used to being spoiled, and since the move I just haven't had the time to live up to their expectations.

    Yowling turns back into purring once I deposit food into their bowls. Once satisfied, the cats dial up the volume. It doesn't take much to please them. Just an ample amount of love and kibble.

     The only trouble I ever had with them was when I first turned.

    Animals had been a major source of concern immediately after my change. They were more perceptive of the subtle differences in me than any humans. For the first two weeks my family's dogs had hailed me as the second coming. As soon as I walked into a room all of them would go still and submissive. They had seemed astonished, and a little bit scared. My mother had been dumbfounded, but I was crushed.    

    The dogs had been the fastest to reaccept me however. Other animals proved far more timid. The horses were all but terrified for months, and even my own cats refused to come near me.

    They would stare at me from a tree limb, or at a distance with wide, cautious eyes. No matter how hard I tried to coax them closer neither would budge. I had been foreign to them. Dangerous. My heart had broken initially, thinking that this curse would steal something like the love of my pets from me. Pathetic perhaps, but growing up, animals had been a core part of my family. Man's best friend, right?

    Slowly Skeeter and Mickey had started coming around. Incredibly wary at first, they had dared to venture closer and sniff at my extended hands after 3 months of desperate pleading in my most sickening baby voices. I had been relieved beyond words when my cats no longer seemed to think of me as a monster. It had given me hope at the time that maybe being turned into a werewolf wasn't going to completely ruin my life.

    Presently, I love on my cats for a second longer to show my appreciation for their loyalty, then drift back into the living room. My apartment is, at least in my opinion, a quaint little studio sporting a single bedroom, a bathroom, and a minuscule kitchen connected with a cozy living-space. It isn't much, but the price was reasonable and the location was convenient in terms of my daily commute.

    I flop onto the aging leather sofa, and collect my laptop from the coffee table. Flipping open the lid, I check the battery life then click the Chrome icon on the desktop. The page loads and restores my former session, allowing me to quickly select the map pages I had found earlier. I look over the streets, committing their names to memory.