Nicole sat straight up in bed. She hadn't heard what she'd thought she'd heard, had she? She sat very still and listened. Nothing. She must have been dreaming, she decided, and laid down.
No sooner had she laid down when she heard it again. Unmistakable this time. A chill ran down her spine, and she shivered, though not from cold. She heard the noise again, and despite her better judgment, opened her mouth and screamed.
Mike had been half awake when he heard the scream of a mountain lion. At first it had startled him, but he calmed down after a moment. Then he relaxed. He was nearly asleep when he heard the second one, and began to get annoyed. 'Davy, can't you keep it down?' he thought to himself. As if for an answer, the noise screamed once more in his ears. And then he heard another scream. Not of a mountain lion this time, but of a human being. He sat up in bed.
"Nicole," he said aloud. He was aware that he was not the only one saying it. He looked across the room. Peter had awoken and sat up at the same time he did.
Before either of them had a chance to move, she screamed again. Then, they both got up at the same time and ran down the stairs and into the spare room.
Mike sat down on the edge of the bed and she immediately flung herself into his arms.
"M-mike?" she asked, still shaking. "Th-that was a b-big c-cat."
Mike looked at Peter over her shoulder with questioning eyes. Should they tell her the truth or not? "Yep," he said, calmly. "A mountain lion, to be exact."
She pulled away and looked into his eyes. "You're takin' this awful calm," she said. "Is this a regular occurrence?"
"Well, yeah, it happens kinda frequently," he confessed.
She blinked. "Frequently. So frequent that you barely even notice it?" she asked, skeptically. "I demand an explanation, Mike. "
Mike looked at Peter. Then he looked back at Nicole. He sighed. "I suppose we oughta tell her about him, Pete," he said with resignation. "Go get Davy."
Peter's big eyes opened wide and he blinked at Mike. "G-get Davy?" he asked. "Are you sure you want to do this?" For an answer, Mike just glared at Peter. Peter nodded and rushed out of the room.
"Mike, what's goin' on here?" she asked. "What's Davy got to do with all this?"
"Davy's got everythin' to do with this," Mike said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
A few moments later, as Mike had requested, Peter re-entered the room. He stood in the doorway.
"I've got him. Are you sure about this?" he asked.
"I'm sure," Mike said. "Just bring him in." Peter nodded. Mike turned to Nicole. "Close your eyes," he said. She looked at him for a second, confused, but complied.
She sat still, eyes closed. She felt the bed move and the springs creak as Mike got up. She kept her eyes close as she heard Peter ask Mike for the hundredth time if he was sure this was a good idea. And then almost laughed as she heard Mike say to Peter that if he didn't think it was a good idea he wouldn't be doing it.
Then, she felt something else on the bed. It wasn't Mike, and it wasn't Peter. It didn't seem to even be human. She kept her eyes closed as whatever it was jumped up on the bed. She heard the springs squeak. Then, she felt something soft and furry on her arm. Something soothing went through her brain. Normally, she would have screamed, opened her eyes and ran out of there as fast as humanly possible, but for some reason, whatever was next to her had a soothing presence. But nothing could have prepared her for what came next.
She felt something warm and fuzzy on her arm again, and then near her face. And then she felt something on her face. Something wet. She opened her eyes and saw a rather large tawny colored cat on her bed. Though she'd never seen one before, she knew that this was the mountain lion she'd heard earlier. She glanced at Mike with a panicked look, but he just smiled calmly. "Don't worry, he won't hurt ya," he said. She wondered how he could be so sure, but at the same time, she understood. She was somewhat assured that it wouldn't hurt her, and the panic she felt was not fear but rather merely surprise.
Peter and Mike exchanged a look of surprise as Nicole reached out her arms and wrapped them around the big cat. She buried her face in its fur, feeling it on her. Then, she looked up at Mike.
"But, I thought..I mean, you said, that you were getting Davy," she said.
Mike nodded. "I did," Peter said quietly.
Nicole's eyes grew wide as saucers. She looked at Peter, then at Mike, and then at the giant cat sitting on her bed. She sat there, mouth agape.
"Y-you d-did?" she managed to get out. Peter and Mike both nodded. "B-but how?" Peter looked at the ground.
"It's a long story," Mike said. She looked back at the cat.
"Do you mean to tell me that..." she paused, hardly able to even think the words. "That's Davy?" she asked.
Peter nodded. 'Imagine when she finds out about the rest of us," he thought to himself with a hint of amusement.
"You're jokin'."
"Not at all. He's in there," Mike said.
"Does he, will he change back?" she asked.
"Yeah. He'll be back to normal in the morning," he assured her.
"Will he remember this?" she asked.
"Mmm-hmm. He's fully aware of what he's doin' right now. And he'll remember it all in the mornin'. It'll seem like a dream, but he'll remember it," he explained. She nodded. "Meanwhile, I'm gonna go back to bed. You can stay up 'till mornin' and watch him change back if you want, but I'm goin' back to sleep. Comin' Pete?"
Peter nodded. "Don't worry," he said to Nicole. You'll be fine." She nodded. Then Peter and Mike both left, closing the door behind her and leaving her in the room with the large cat on her bed.
"Mike, how are you going to explain all this to her?" Peter asked. "Are you going to tell her about the rest of us, too?"
"I don't know what I'm gonna do right now, Pete," Mike said, yawning. "All I wanna do is go back to sleep. We'll figure out somethin' later." Peter nodded and followed Mike back up the steps.
(Dawn)
Nicole was sitting on her bed, awaiting morning. It wasn't as hard to stay awake as she'd thought it would be. Though Mike and Peter had told her not to be afraid of the large feline, she couldn't resist. After all, it was a large, carnivorous animal capable of killing her in an instant and eating her for breakfast. The large cat had been lounging near her bed the entire night. It was almost comical, she thought, to have such a large animal near her bed, lying there obediently as though it were a house cat or a puppy dog. She would have thought it funnier except that a house cat or a dog wasn't liable to kill her. Sometime later, she spotted a few slits of light start to come through the windows, and the room began to get increasingly brighter. The mountain lion got up and headed over to the other side of the room, grabbing a blanket in its teeth as it went. She wasn't about to argue with it, though she wondered why it took it.
She watched as the giant cat dragged the blanket over to the other side of the room. It placed the blanket on the floor and then slowly shoved its nose under the edge. It then buried its head under as well, and continued until its entire body was underneath the blanket, with only the head and tail poking out. It would have looked silly if she wasn't so afraid.
Then, something happened that she'd never seen before. The cat ducked its head and slowly began to change back to human. While not as incredible as changing into the animal, the change back was also spectacular.
First the tawny fur changed to dark brown. It was an almost instantaneous change. Then, the fur began to recede everywhere except on the head, where it grew longer. The paws slowly changed shape until they were hands and feet again. And the tail disappeared under the blanket. The face lost its feline characteristics and became more human. The mouth opened to reveal the teeth slowly getting smaller so that they were no longer sharp fangs, but now regular, human teeth. And then the mouth released sound. Not a mountain lion's scream, but a human's. And then that human collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily.
I looked around the room, vaguely aware of where I was and what had occurred during the night. I laid still for a few minutes, just catching my breath. I was aware of another presence in the room.
"D-Davy?" Her voice was shaky, and I couldn't blame her. She was afraid to move, still on the bed, holding the sheets around her protectively.
I became aware of the blanket over me, and was glad of it. I vaguely remembered getting it, and was glad I had. I sat up, slowly, wrapping the huge quilt around me. I waited for my voice to return.
"A-are you okay?" Nicole asked, reminding me that she was there. I nodded, weakly, still not sure if my voice would work. I decided to experiment. I thought, 'I'll be okay,' and attempted to send it to her. The emotion I received back was pure shock. Quickly, I regained my voice.
"I'm okay," I said. She didn't look convinced. "I'm sorry for scaring you so much," I added.
She got up and came over to me. "Davy, I have so many questions. How did you get this way? Does it hurt? What does it feel like?" She sat down on the floor next to me.
I smiled, somewhat amused. "Yeah, it 'urts. It 'urts a lot," I said. "While changing it 'urts. I feel like my skin is being ripped off of my body, and I get a 'orrible 'eadache, and a stomachache like nothing I could 'ave felt from indigestion."
"What does it feel like?" she asked. "Mike said that you remember everything afterwards and you're fully aware of what you're doing."
"That's right," I said. 'Mike would know,' I thought to myself. "I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm not always fully in control of that, though," I added, remembering what I'd done to Micky. "That's the animal's instinctive side. Sometimes it takes over. I can't always control it. But I'm getting better, and so far no one's been killed. And 'opefully never." I didn't know what I would do if I accidentally let those instincts take over and someone was killed.
"How did you get this way?" she asked. It was the question I'd been dreading. I knew how I'd gotten this way, but I couldn't very well explain that to her without letting on about the rest of the guys. And I knew that Mike and Peter didn't want that to happen.
"I'll tell you later," I said. "After breakfast. I'm starving." She seemed to accept this, and nodded. I got up and went out, heading up stairs to take a shower and put on some clothes.
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On! To! Part! Forty! Three!(um, calm down, it's only a story...)
