Cat Scratch Fever
From ???@??? Tue Sep 15 06:53:46 1998
Received: from delta.integral.org (root@[209.172.186.164])
by t0.or.at (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA28916;
Tue, 15 Sep 1998 05:12:21 +0200 (CEST)
Received: from Lists.Integral.org (mailman@localhost [127.0.0.1])
by delta.integral.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA24211;
Mon, 14 Sep 1998 21:46:44 -0500
Received: from lionking.org (root@blacker-99.caltech.edu [131.215.86.99])
by delta.integral.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA24172
for ; Mon, 14 Sep 1998 21:46:04 -0500
Received: from tamarik (user-38s00p3.dialup.mindspring.com [209.192.3.35])
by lionking.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id TAA13441
for ; Mon, 14 Sep 1998 19:50:06 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980914214946.00794a80@lionking.org>
X-Sender: tamarik@lionking.org
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32)
Scott sat at his terminal, the glow from the monitor lighting up the
already dimly lit room. He chuckled quietly, the antics of his IRC friend
one again more than amusing for another night.
"Jeez, you'd think there'd be one night you could think about
something other than yiff!" Scott typed in and sent.
"Of course," was the reply, "You're just never here on those nights. :)"
Scott smiled again, but his laughter was cut short by his pet cat
jumping lithely into his lap. He gave a small "Oof!" at the surprising
weight and began to stroke the cat gently. The feline nuzzled into his
stomach and purred deeply as he typed his reply.
"Figures. bbias." He switched windows and surfed around the Net for a
while, checking in on his favorite comics and websites, all the while
softly stroking the cat in his lap. He went to scritch it behind the ears,
when suddenly she started, and dug her claws into his finger.
"Yeow!" Scott shouted, wrenching his finger from the cat's paws. The
feline leapt out of the chair and scrambled underneath a nearby recliner.
Scott tsked and looked sharply as the cat ran off. It wasn't the first time
she had done this, and every time was a surprise. It didn't bother him
either; just one of the many joys of owning a cat for a pet. Although now
might be the perfect time for a scratching post.
"Not a bad idea," Scott said as he surveyed the damage. A small
droplet of blood formed in a small cut the claw had made and pushed its way
to the surface. Scott sighed and stood up from the computer, after telling
his IRC buddy what had happened, of course, and went to wash out the wound
as a precaution. He reached the bathroom and looked at it again.
"Ah, it's not so bad," he said, and licked it clean. He checked the
cut and noticed that it would heal easily in about a day or so, but
something inside was bothering him and he couldn't quite put his finger on
it. He washed off the saliva under the tap and took a wash rag to dry it
off. As he was putting the rag away, he noticed something very, very odd
about the cut.
It was gone, and all around it what looked like very fine brown hairs
were starting to grow. Scott stared in wide-eyed wonder as the hairs
doubled in length in a matter of seconds, begging to overtake his finger.
"Holy..." Scott breathed, the fur now enveloping his finger and
spreading over his hand. He rushed back to the computer, and hastily typed
in, "You there?"
"Of course. You expect me to have a life? :)"
"My finger's growing fur!"
"Come on, Scott, I'm not in the mood for RP tonight."
"I'm not kidding!" He looked at his hand, now completely swamped in
fur. He turned it over and almost screamed as rough bulbous pads started to
blossom from his palm.
"Yeah, suuuure. And I've suddenly got a tail. :)"
The pads exploded from his hand, and almost instantly it began to
shrink. Slowly at first, but getting steadily faster, it collapsed in size
until it looked exactly like a cat's paw.
The fur grew up his arm, and Scott noticed that his other hand was
starting to change as well, growing the same brown fur that covered his
other hand.
"I'm serious! I've got a paw now!" Scott said, typing with only one
hand and having to go back to delete a numerous amount of typos.
There was a pause at the other end, and then finally, "You are
serious, aren't you?"
"YES!" Scott scrambled to type, his arm completely covered in fur, his
left hand now a real paw, and the right hand quickly becoming one.
There was a stinging pain in his spine, followed by a warm slithering
growth that collided painfully with the underwear and jeans he wore and
snaked his way down the pant leg. He stripped off the garments, taking his
shoes off as well, and saw a white and brown striped tail hanging limply
from his rear. In addition, his toes were covered in brown fur as well, and
he could feel the same pads on his hands begin to grow from his toes.
Fear-induced adrenaline coursed through his body at the sight, and his tail
stood straight up in response.
Scott went to type on the keyboard, but found that both hands had
completely changed into paws by this time. The screen was filled with
worried complaints from his friend as to why Scott was being so silent.
Scott tried to type, but kept hitting the keys two and three at a time. He
tried straining his paw-digits wider apart, and was completely horrified
when a neat set of claws unsheathed themselves and easily tapped each key
alone.
"I'm turning into a cat!" Scott managed to type with great difficulty.
His ankles began to ride up on his body, and his feet shrank to match the
size of his paws. This threw him off balance, tossing him onto the desk. He
caught himself on the keyboard, padded paws smashing into the keys and
sending random characters over to his friend's terminal.
"Scott! SCOTT! What's going on?!"
He would have responded, but the fur was covering his chest, and he
was clambering to get his shirt off to watch. The brown and white calico
pattern spread itself along his torso, and he could feel it spread along
his back as well. The eerie feeling overtook him and mixed with his fear.
Something, other than his new fur and appendages was nagging at his being,
gnawing at his memory, struggling to keep something he should know out of
his mental grasp.
Scott began to feel his bones shift painfully, his shoulder blades and
hips rearranging for a quadrapedal stance. He clambered with his clawtips
to type in another message to his friend.
"I'm changing I cant stop" He didn't bother with attempting to correct
his errors.
Almost instantly, the reply came, "Scott!" But Scott couldn't read it.
He was on the floor, the fur swarming over his face, his mouth and nose
pressing forward in a distinctively feline muzzle, his ears coming to a
point and moving to the top of his head. He watched in horror as the desk
and computer began to grow, looming way over his head, the glow of the
monitor flickering as frantic messages filled the chat window. His vision
blurred as his eyes changed, and came back sharper and clearer than ever,
although he now knew that he was color-blind.
He now only stood half the height of the office chair that stood at
his computer. He leapt into the seat and looked at the monitor. Something
he vaguely recognized as "letters" covered the screen. Scott yowled in
cat-like terror as he realized that he couldn't read.
Feline thought patterns invaded his thoughts: hunting, resting,
communing with other cats. New scents, sounds, and sights bombarded his
senses, and he felt his grip on rational thought loosening.
And just as it went, the mental blockade on whatever was irking him
throughout this change shattered, and he realized just what that "it" was.
He had done something about his pet cat scratching him after about
the fourteenth time: Scott had her declawed.
There was one last desperate howl from the feline in the chair as the
final vestiges of humanity disappeared. The cat shook his head and blinked
ignorantly at the computer screen in front of it before curling up and
taking a light snooze.