Cower

by Bob Stein

Sam stretched and groaned softly as he felt the kinks from last night's adventure working out. What a wild Halloween. Who woulda thought the little kid who used to cower in the closet, hiding from the 'monsters' would grow up and terrorize whole neighborhoods. He hoped that nobody could identify any of the gang. Then he dismissed the worry. He was a minor for two more weeks, and nobody would send a kid to jail for a few broken windows and some dead pets.

Still, that one old lady had really screamed her head off when she saw them kill her cat. Figures, the stupid animal would have to run home. They'd chased it for blocks, managing to find it despite its color. That was one black cat that had some bad luck itself. One thing for sure - cats made really bad soccer balls. Two kicks, and they just flopped around. He chuckled to himself. Mark had managed to score a goal on the old lady's porch just as she opened the front door. Must have heard that final screech.

He rolled up out of the bed with a sudden movement and padded towards the bathroom. Nobody else was up yet. Figured. Scratching absently, he flicked on the bathroom light and took a whiz. The sun was just starting to come up, spreading a reddish glow across the sky. There's be a lot of people discovering custom paint jobs on houses and cars this morning. Man, they must have used up a case of spray paint. He saw the edge of the sun peek over the horizon.

And suddenly he wasn't looking out of the bathroom window anymore. Startled, he yelped as he discovered he was pissing against somebody's china cabinet. Stepping back, he tripped and fell backwards over a body. "Yaaaa!" thud

Unhurt, he saw that the human speed bump was Wally, one of the gang from last night. Wally must have been sleeping on the floor, but he was wide awake now. So was Andy, also apparently waking over by an ancient-looking couch. Rick, Mark, and Carl were sitting up from other spots throughout the large, antique- filled room. He was rather startled to realize they were all naked. As was he.

"Good morning, boys." A harsh voice snapped their attention to where a familiar looking old woman stood. She was stroking a large black cat.

"Oh, shit." Mark summed up the gang's feelings. They clustered together, grabbing pillows and shams to try covering themselves.

"Marjorie here tells me you had some fun with her last night." She grinned at them, but the expression carried no humor. "She wants to return the favor."

"Look, you old bitch." Carl bristled. "I don't know what..." He choked suddenly, and fell to the hands and knees. And then he bristled again. This time with rapidly spreading fur. Sam would have screamed, except that he and the others were also brought to the floor by mind-numbing pain.

The room expanded around them suddenly, but the agony wracking Sam's body made it hard to pay attention to anything else. The old woman smiled down at them, now a mountain of wrinkled flesh and baggy black dress.

"The sun must be almost up. You'll find that you can't leave the house. Plenty of holes to hide in, but not much food." The huge black cat squirmed in her arms, and she cooed to it. "Not yet, Marjorie. Give them a chance. Besides, if you ate one now, it would taste too much like boy."

Taste like...? The pain was lessening now, and Sam stood unsteadily and wipes his face with his paws. He looked down at himself. Dark brown fur, long tail. The legs looked funny, but even as he watched, they shifted into a more normal-looking shape. Normal for a mouse.

"I'll count to ten, boys. Then I let Marjorie go. All you have to do is live inside the house until sunrise, next Halloween. Anyone who survives gets to be human again." She smirked. "No one ever seems to take me up on that, though." The cat squirmed again. "Oh, you are such an impatient beast. Very well. ONE..."

Sam felt a surge of raw terror, and bolted for the nearest wall. He bounced painfully off the baseboard, fear bolstered by the heavy thud of something landing on the floor.

"Marjorie! Bad kitty!" There was a high-pitched squeal which ended abruptly. "I promised them I'd count to ten."

Sam ran for a dark opening in a corner. It was tiny, almost too small, but he pushed through with a frantic scrambling of his paws. Heart pounding, he shivered as he heard the crunch of tiny bones. One of his friends was dead. Would he be next? The mouse cowered inside the wall, hiding from the monster.

end

Cower copyright 1999 by Bob Stein.