The Law of Tooth and Claw

Chapter 2 - The Rats

Many terrible weeks have passed since I failed to turn into a wolf and forever ostracized from normal life in the pack. The cruel-hearted wolves used me as a punching bag, or a soccer ball, or a slave to clean their pig sty-like homes. And I silently endured, all the time hiding the silver tiger necklace under my ragged shirt.

“Soon,” whispered Curiosity, “soon, they will know our secret. I feel something coming that will make them acknowledge us.”

So here I was, working my butt off in the Alphas’ house, washing the family’s clothes, picking up after the children, and getting a beating because I “magically” made a child cry or I did not dust the counters the right way. And I persevered through all this for a moldy loaf of bread, a wormy apple, and a half-finished bottle of water – my food for the day. At last, I crawled over to the Alpha female and begged her to give me the food and water I worked for. She sneered at me and threw the items to me, bruising the already terrible apple and breaking the plastic bottle. I guess I will just drink from the livestock’s water troughs on the farms in this territory.

“Clean up the mess you little scoundrel, and when you’re done, go die in a hole thief!” the Alpha female yelled at me.

Sighing, I bent down to wipe the water; when all of a sudden, I heard a lot of commotion outside. Curiosity urged me to find out what was going on. Therefore, without alerting the Alpha female, I snuck out of the house and encountered chaos. Wolves were running around wildly and screaming a blood-curling scream. Confused, I used my superior cat hearing to tune out the din and focus on the calm tones of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.

“What’s going on?” asked the Alpha.

“Silvered rats have infested the grain house. Everything about these rats is silver: silver fur, silver tail, silver teeth, silver claws, and silver eyes. We can’t touch them or we’ll get silver poisoning,” stated the Beta.

“Is there nothing we can do about it?” concern rose in the Alpha’s eyes.

“The only thing we can do is destroy all of our grain supply, even the newly planted crops, in hopes that the silvered rats move on,” quoted the Gamma, “This is how the Golden Eyes Pack solved their silvered rat problem in the History of Werewolves, and as a result, they were so weakened by famine that they were forced to join their greatest enemy, the Red Mouth Pack.”

“So this is the end of the Black Fang Pack? Either we die trying to kill the rats, die from famine, or cease to exist as the Black Fang Pack,” lamented the Alpha, “It’s been nice leading you men.”

“Save your sorrows for the speech to the pack later on,” mourned the Beta.

This shocked me and made the moldy bread I have seem like a feast. I knew I had to do something, even though this pack has treated me terribly, because this land is the only place I know as home. The outside world is no place for a little girl who could only shift into a silver tabby cat… Am I immune to silver? I wear a silver necklace and feel nothing in terms of pain. An idea formed in my head.

“Curiosity, you up to shift and kill these rats?” I inquired excitedly.

“Certainly, let’s save our home from utter destruction. Maybe we’ll get the respect we need to thrive here.”

So off we went to the grain house, faster than the panicked wolves running away from it. No wolf gave us a second look, perhaps because we were running too fast for them to comprehend in their crazed state. Once we reached the grain house, everything was quite except for the scratching and gnawing and clatter of teeth and claws.

“Here goes nothing,” I whispered to Curiosity and I, hoping to increase the courage inside me as I tiptoed into the door that was ajar.

What I found as I entered the grain house reminded me of a scary movie’s haunted house: a flickering florescent bulb attempted to illuminate the musty barn, and small beady silver eyes covered the ground and the walls and even looked down from the ceiling. It was the calm before the storm as I scanned the shadowy sea of rats. Suddenly, a sharp chatter was heard and the writhing mass of rats charged. I shifted into my silver cat and jumped into battle, claws digging into their soft underbellies and teeth snapping onto their supple necks. However, no matter how many filthy rats I killed, more seemed to pour into battle. About to be overwhelmed, I spotted the largest rat I’ve ever seen. He was the same size as my cat form and was more thoroughly covered in silver. This made him seem as if he had silver armor on. He was the leader of this colony of silvered rats. I jumped towards the giant rat with my amazing cat legs and attempted to bite his neck. However, he turned around quicker than any rat I’ve seen and bit my hind leg. I scratched at his slick back desperately to get him to stop biting my leg and barely nicked him because of his silver-covered fur. With the other rats closing in, I thought that this would be the end as I could not kill their leader. Scratching at the leader’s eyes, I finally escaped his razor sharp incisors. I climbed up the side of the barn using the barrels of stored grain and saw an interesting object. It was a mechanical reaper of sorts. Quickly, an idea formed in my head; I jumped onto the mechanical reaper while shifting back to my human form. Luckily, the keys to the machine sat on top of the dashboard. I turned the reaper on and, without any former knowledge on how to operate the machine, lurched forward with a monstrous growl and shredded the rats in front of me. I burst through the storage barn’s door and into the cleansing rain, washing off all traces of silver from the machine. Looking back, I saw the many mangled bodies of rats but not the body of the leader. My cat reflexes pulled me to the ground while shifting back into a cat. The giant rat chattered angrily at me, its tail severed by the reaper but otherwise unharmed. The rain invigorated me as I lunged into battle: cat against rat. I scratched out his eyes, making him screech out in pain and toss his head back. I took this moment of vulnerability and sank my teeth into the rat’s throat, severing his windpipe and blood vessels. Within seconds, his struggles grew jerky and slowed until they ceased altogether – the giant rat was dead and the silvered rats were no more.

I shifted back to human form as I needed to return the rumbling mechanical reaper back to its den. However, something thunderous caught my attention.

“WHAT IN THE ANCIENT WOLF IS THAT!!??”

I turned to see the Alpha and Beta, the latter of who was gaping at me in shock.

“It seems like our little thief is of the worst type, the cat,” sneered the Alpha.

The Alpha then pointed his mouth to the sky and howled long, the signal to start a hunt. Wolves started shifting everywhere to answer the call to hunt, and those too young to shift grabbed stone and sticks to help out. Everyone was rushing at me, and then I realized – I am the hunted. So I did what comes naturally to prey: I ran. And I ran like the driving rain, pushing myself to go faster than I ever thought possible. Eventually I came across a hungry and blood-crazed wolf and I shifted into Curiosity. My tiny cat size was no match for the horse-sized wolf, as I simply dodged the huge paws and gaping mouth, weaving and zigzagging through. I ran all the way to the deep forest, across the Black Fang Pack’s border, and into an abandoned rabbit hole.

I turned to Curiosity, “Well, there goes our chances of thriving in the pack. We should never have saved them from famine and destruction. Of course, they would only want to kill the cat.”

“At least we’re safe. We can hunt for food, water and shelter. I’ll tell you how,” comforted Curiosity.

If i learned anything from this, is that I really, really hate wolves. Cats are so much better because they are smart, persistent, and above all, immune silver. Take that you weak Black Fang Pack.

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A picture of the giant rat leader on the side.