Blades of grass under my pawpads, which I was sure I didn’t have before. Tree branches scraping through my fur. The painful burning of overexertion in my chest.

“It’s just a dream.”

The bitter cold night air. The heavy panting of the beast behind me, a brief glimpse over my shoulder revealing little more than it was much bigger than me and probably much stronger. All of my instincts screaming at me to run for my life.

“It’s just a–”

The creature’s very real jaws snapping at my heels, causing very real scrapes. A fresh burst of adrenaline coursed through me, and I was able to surge forward again, just out of reach of the thing.

“…A very realistic dream.”

I squinted into the distance. There was something weird with my eyesight, all I could see was black and white. It did have its advantages– I was able to see in contrasts well. No wonder I could see in the dark this well. The disadvantage was I could very clearly see I was about to run off a cliff.

“Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgod…”

It extended as far as I could see. Looking back, I was probably on a mesa or something, but my geographical location was the least of my concerns then.

“It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.”

My own thoughts set a cadence for my run. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore how incredibly vivid everything was, and hoped it would all be over soon. And finally my paws hit thin air.

I didn’t fall. I was soaring above the ground, clumsily flapping the wings I didn’t know I had before. I laughed in spite of myself, a strangely human sound given I didn’t feel human at all. Despite the muscle strain and stress, I was half-crazed with relief and beyond feeling pain.

Or at least I was until I heard the beating of wings not my own. I didn’t even have time to look behind me before a great, clawed, heavy something slamming into me, sending me spiraling to the ground as its jaws bit into my neck, making it impossible to breathe. With oxygen deprivation creeping in and strangling rational thought, I had about enough time to note that the ground was rushing up much too fast for asphyxiation to be a concern.

I was wrong. Just when I was inches from the ground, I flinched. And when I opened my eyes again, I was on the kitchen floor, tangled in my bedsheets, and not breathing.

I’d almost drowned once– hit my head on the edge of a pool when I was diving in. That was almost peaceful, because I didn’t even realize I was dying until they dragged me out of the water, with everyone but me screaming and panicking. I was numb and far away and (in retrospect) way too comfortable with it all.

And this was nothing like that. It felt like there was something crushing my chest, even though there was nothing there, my muscles ached like I’d ran for miles, something was grabbing my throat, and my lungs were burning in agony.

Somewhere inbetween me frantically thrashing around, a tiny bit of air forced its way through my windpipe, and the pain subsided just a bit. Then a little more, and a little more, and finally I was breathing normally again.

Even after all that, I still couldn’t move. I knew I probably looked ridiculous, but my parents knew about my “sleepwalking.” They didn’t know I was having nightmares all the time– nobody did. I just couldn’t tell anyone. Scary dreams were things that little kids got worked up over, not someone in high school.

It’d never been this bad, though. Then again, I’d never died either. Weren’t you supposed to die in real life if you died in your dreams? I’d come so close, so maybe that was why…

The clock caught my attention. Four in the morning. My mom was going to be up soon, and the last thing I wanted was for him to see me like this. I picked myself off the ground, bundled the blankets around me, and trudged back to my room so I could pretend to sleep for another four hours until I had to get ready for school.

The nice thing about having attention span issues is you can entertain yourself for hours with your own thoughts. The downside is it’s very easy to have those thoughts interrupted by things like a dog jumping on your bed and otherwise trying to get your attention.

“Go away, Soraya.” I shoved my head under the covers and tried my best to ignore her. So she tried to hide under the covers with me.

It’d never occurred to me before, but her name now struck me as strange. Soraya was an Arabic name, and she was an American Water Spaniel– not true to her heritage. And it always seemed like such a noble name. Noble was something American Water Spaniels aren’t. They’re silly-looking dogs whose main purpose in being was to bring back dead animals to hunters who would be otherwise too lazy or preoccupied to pick up what they shoot in the first place.

She’d always been something of a neurotic dog, which was why she was hiding in the first place. Half the time I didn’t even bother trying to find out what spooked her, but I was always the one who had to calm her down.

I felt her nudging in closer to me, so I reached out to pat her head in kind. “You’ve got it so easy.” It was true– I guess on some level I envied dogs, I had for a while. It was on some emotional or spiritual level I couldn’t quite describe. Dogs made sense in a way people didn’t, and they seemed so carefree.

I didn’t want to be a dog though, much as I liked them. There was something else out there that was better, I realized in a half-asleep epiphany. Something more me. Something like…

There was a loud creak as the bedroom door opened, and whatever answer I had slipped away. Mom was up. And I needed to pretend to be asleep. I closed my eyes and I drifted into periods of brief, fitful minutes of sleep interrupted by jerking awake, and then starting the cycle anew.

I shouldn’t have to tell you how incredibly miserable I was when I had to wake up. But energy drinks were made for people like me, and after a highly nutritious breakfast of Saltines (I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep any other solids down) and a combination of liquid sugar, fruit juice, and lots and lots of caffeine, I had about enough to make myself go to school without fainting along the way.

To my credit, I’d only ever fainted once, and that was attributed to a terrible diet. I can’t remember the last time I’d stepped into the cafeteria. I usually just skipped lunch. It was too noisy there, too loud, and too much high school politics. I didn’t want to bother with all the cliques. So I just hid out in the library. The librarians liked the company, I liked the books and relative solitude. It was mutually beneficial, so they never told the SROs.

The forty-five minutes I got to spend in there were almost always the best part of the school day. But it was over three hours away. And I had Advanced Algebra first period. I already hated today.

Of course, therein lies the advantage of being hungry and tired most of the time. It’s really easy to zone out when you’re like that.I could just glide through all my classes, not needing to comprehend anything because you’d have to be lobotomized to not at least marginally pass core classes, and I’d be fine with just marginal. If you haven’t inferred as much, I just want out of school.

So I shuffled into class, collapsed in the desk, and hoped the teacher wouldn’t notice me dozing off. They usually don’t. As long as you show up and don’t fail the tests, they’re not to concerned. I like things that way.

I had my head nestled in the comfiest part of my hoodie when I saw someone walk in out of the corner of my eye. A very tall someone with nondescript black clothing who I’d never seen before at school. He was wearing sunglasses, but I could tell he was staring right at me. Usually I don’t care if someone is, but there was something just wrong about that guy. I don’t know how to put it, he just weirded me out– there was something predatory about him. And he didn’t look strong, he was built like a scarecrow, but I got the impression he could rip me apart without trying. So much for my nap.

The teacher ran through the roll. There weren’t any new names on there, and he didn’t even address the creepy guy. Nobody else even seemed to notice him; the kid behind him seemed to just stare right through him.

I looked up the clock. Only five minutes into class. On the bright side, I was starting to feel a bit sick. Maybe I could call home and say I was coming down with something. It wouldn’t even be a lie for once, because the clock was now sliding in and out of focus. And my chest was tightening and my heart felt like it was going to explode I was starting to feel like I would be sick in the middle of class.

I staggered out the door without bothering to give an explanation. I think the teacher was yelling at me to get a hall pass, but I was beyond the point of paying attention. The world wasn’t just blurring now, it was sliding completely out of focus. The colors were all starting to blend together. The only reason I wasn’t running into anything was I’d been through these halls too many times to count.

I rubbed my eyes– it didn’t help. And I wasn’t tearing up or anything like that, so there wasn’t anything in my eyes. I still managed to stumble into the bathroom and turn on the faucet. I splashed water onto my face– it was ice cold and I didn’t really care. If anything, it made me feel a little better.

I took deep breaths in and out. The panic and sickness started to subside. I checked the mirror– I looked pale and gaunt and sickly and…

…And I was seeing things, because my ears had gone all pointy and furry. I stumbled back, blinked…and they were still there. I slumped against a wall, not daring to look at the mirror as if pretending they weren’t there would make them go away. Morbid curiosity drove me to touch the side of my head.

But nothing was there. Nothing weird, anyway. So of course when I looked in the mirror just to make sure, there was something weird behind me. Or someone, rather. He was only there for a second, his eyes seeming to bore right through me beneath his sunglasses. And then he was gone.

It took a few moments to sink in. And then I ran. I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t know where I was going, I didn’t what was happening, but it was just the only thing it seemed like I could do.

Next thing I knew I was hiding between some lockers on ground floor practically hyperventilating. “Deep breaths. Deep breaths.” I told myself. “It was just a panic attack, it’s over now. Calm down. Nothing’s wrong with you. Nothing’s wrong nothing’s wrong nothing’s wrong…” I eventually was able to make myself believe it, enough I could shakily stand up.

The intercom crackled to life. “Connor Glendon, please report to the administrative building, Connor Glendon, to the administrative building, please.”

Awesome. My truant ways were catching up to me.

“Doctor Reese is expecting you.” Or not. I guess the little incident earlier could have just been passed off as one big panic attack (and maybe that was what it was in the first place? Though I’d never felt like I was sick during one) and he was just worried about me. That didn’t seem so bad.

I flashed my ID at the SRO standing in front of the administrative building. It was probably unnecessary, I had to go here a lot, but policies are policies. I was halfway down the hall when the SRO yelled “Stop!”

I spun around– but it wasn’t me he was addressing, thankfully. It was two girls I didn’t recognize. One blonde with baggy shirt bearing the name of a band I didn’t recognize and a redhead with a scowl that seemed permanently set on her face.

The blonde girl smiled at the SRO. “I’m sorry. We’re new here, we just haven’t had a chance to get our IDs.” Her eyes flashed for a moment, and they turned bright yellow all over, with tiny, slitted snake-like pupils in the center. “Trust us.”

I felt a chill run down my spine. Actually, that was an understatement. I’m not sure how to describe how seeing that felt otherwise, but I’ll try. It’s like looking at something that can’t exist, but does. Yeah, I know some people will wear weird contacts that look kind of like that just to shock people, but this was different, more natural-looking.

And just a few minutes ago, I’d grown dog ears. Either I was going crazy or…well, I was probably just going crazy. But I was running a fever, maybe that just meant the heat was frying my brain. Which meant I was probably going to die soon. That didn’t seem much better.

The SRO’s eyes glazed over. “Well, alright.” And just like that, he let them by. Now that just wasn’t right. I mean, everything about it, right down to this weird gut feeling that she was scary and dangerous. And the officers here were supposed to be really strict, thanks to the fact we’d gotten school shooting threats and things like that. They strolled on right by me. The blonde one smiled and waved at me before they both disappeared down a corridor.

God, what a day. And I had to think of a way to diplomatically express the fact I might be having hallucinations to Doctor Reese really fast. I slumped into a chair outside his office. I just needed a few minutes–

“Connor!” He was standing right in front of me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Sorry.” He did one of those fake-y laughs. “Didn’t mean to scare you. But we’ve been calling you for the past ten minutes, I was getting worried.”

“Sorry…” Was all I could come up with.

“Well, come on in.” He gestured inside. “I’ve got some things I’d like to talk to you about.”

I had a sinking feeling about that. But I went inside anyway, it was better than being in class. Reese was shuffling some papers at his desk, one of those ‘I-know-something-about-you-and-I’m-not-going-to-rest-until-you-tell-me’ smiles about him. “You missed some of you classes today.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah.” I stared out the window. Eye contact just felt uncomfortable.

“Have you been feeling well lately?” More paper rustling.

“Well…” Diplomacy or honesty? “I’ve been having nightmares again, so I didn’t sleep much. And I think I had another panic attack in class today.” Mom always said honesty was the best policy, and it’d be a nice change of pace.

A glint of concern flashed through his dark eyes. “You haven’t been having panic attacks often, have you?”

“This was the first one in a while.” Several months, really, I’d had one the first time I tried to take the SAT.

“And the dreams?”

“A lot. Almost every other day.” I tried not to think about the jaws closing around my windpipe. And failed. I reached my hand to my throat. “They’re usually vivid. But sometimes I just wake up afraid of something and don’t know what.” He seemed to take notice of that, his eyes settling on my neck. I jerked my hand back down.

He still got the picture. He was really good at that. “Are there any recurring themes to these?”

“I guess. I’m usually running from something.” This was getting uncomfortably Freudian for me. I took Intro to Psych, I knew where dream analysis went.

“And do you escape, or…?”

“I don’t.” And I wanted to leave it at that.

He went ‘hmmm’ again and leaned back in his seat. “So your anxiety’s been worse than usual?”

Well, thank God, and here I was thinking he’d ask be about what my relationship with my mother was like. “I guess, yeah.”

“It’s entirely possible that’s just a reflection of that.” He steepled his hands. “You see, dreams often resemble our waking experiences and parallel then, though sometimes in abstract ways. If you’d like, you could tell me a bit more about them.”

I sighed. “I don’t know, it’s pretty generic. I’m running through a forest trying to get away from a monster, and I…I don’t get away. Then I wake up. But I’m pretty sure I sleepwalk during them. I don’t wake up in my bed.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Have you gotten this checked out by a doctor?”

“The medicine didn’t help any.” And it made me sleep so deeply my alarm clock didn’t wake me up.

His phone rang. “Sorry, one second…” He checked the screen and went ‘hmmm’ for what must have been the tenth time in the past five minutes. “I have a question for you that might seem strange, so I’d like to apologize in advance if I’m off-base here.”

“Shoot.”

“In addition to these dreams, have you been having any hallucinations?”

My stomach lurched. “How’d he know?”

And of course he noticed that too. “Perhaps that you’re becoming something else. Maybe you’ve even felt like that was true for a while, and it’s only just now these hallucinations have started happening.”

I was still too stunned to say much of anything.

He paused as if waiting for the inevitable confirmation. “It’s alright if you are. It isn’t your fault. But these are symptoms of a rare mental disorder–”

“So what? I’m schizophrenic?” I cut in.

“No, nothing like that.” He held up his hands. “This is much less permanent and much more manageable. It’s called therianthropic psychosis, I’ve worked with it before.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It hasn’t passed DSM review yet. But it’s very real, I’m sure of that. I get the feeling you can attest to that.”

“If I have this, what am I supposed to do–” Someone started slamming at the door. Reese jerked up, looking stunned. Obviously this wasn’t part of his script. Whoever it was– sounded like a she– started yelling, though it was too muffled to make out. “Shouldn’t you, like, call security or something?” There was a shrill edge to my voice I really didn’t like.

He was already reaching for his phone again when the door broke open. Literally. It just splintered.

The red-haired girl standing in the doorway seemed innocuous enough, except for the shards of wood in her hands. I’d seen her a few minutes ago trying a more subtle approach to breaking and entering. “You!” She hissed. She lunged at Reese, yowling like some kind of animal…and she looked like one too, she’d grown ears and a tail. Like I had earlier, except feline instead.

To be continued…

The light from the window behind my hospital bed was in my face, but I did not want to get up. It was probably midmorning, but I’d had a horrible night … and a horrible nightmare. About glowing, red eyes surrounding me, while screams echoed in the distance.

It probably had to do with what’d happened the day before, I thought. I’d spent all day throwing up and losing my hair. The chemotherapy hadn’t helped any, though. I’d started the day with a nose and mouth; I’d ended it with the painful, pinched beginnings of a muzzle. And let me tell you, it hurts to throw up when your nose is as long as your face. I could see it in front of my eyes now, inches long, black-tipped and sporting red fuzz. And I sighed, but it hurt to sigh, so I whimpered instead and closed my eyes again.

The best I could hope for was that it was cyclical. But if that was the case, then I’d have to go through this again twice a year … three times a year. More. However often it ended up being. At least there wouldn’t be chemo involved.

I felt so tired and disoriented. How long had I been here? Was it yesterday that I’d been throwing up … or the day before? Or sometime before that?

And why was the building so quiet?

I tried to sit up, but my head spun, and I groaned and flopped back down again. Doing so pulled on the tube attached to the needle inside my arm, and it stung and I winced. I lay there just breathing for awhile, feeling every inch of my weary, sprawled-out body; my new, strangely-shaped feet, and the tail that was lumped up and numb beneath me. My fur, that was thin and fuzzy but making the sheets uncomfortably hot.

My nostrils flared, and while they’d grown used to the scent I could detect the hints of all kinds of messes, including the blood I’d thrown up. I winced again, and pitied whomever had to clean the room. And change my sheets.

If there’s anyone out there …

The thought came to me unbidden. My ears twitched, and I listened intently. There was nothing but silence.

Loud, ringing silence.

No white noise. Not even machinery humming.

My eyes flicked open, and glanced around nervously before settling on the IV bottle next to my bed. It was empty.

How long had I been in here?

I groaned and tried again to sit up, straining to push myself upright. Then I tried to gasp for breath once I sat up, but it hurt as I opened my muzzle. Worse, my throat was completely dry, and there was a lump when I tried to swallow. I needed water and food. A shower, too. Where were the nurses? Where was my family? Why was no one else here?

First things first. I reached over and pressed the call button. The light from the windows was bright, so I had to cup my hand over it to see that the light hadn’t come on. Okay, that settled it … there was a power outage, and they’d evacuated the place because of whatever’d caused it. But what had happened? I wondered. The IV stand was still upright, so it probably wasn’t an earthquake …

I went to undo the bandage, then stopped. My arm had thin, red fuzz on it, and my fingers looked gnarled and had dull claws on them. I turned my hand over, and there were pawpads on the palm.

I looked at it for a long moment before my vision started to blur. Permanently disfigured, the voice in my head told me. Permanently scarred …

And what about mental changes? Was I a dog? A fox? How much of me was still left inside? I remembered reading a rabbit’s online journal, and how his whole life had changed because he was scared of everything now. But I couldn’t tell if I was having new feelings or not. I was just physically worn out, and in need of pretty much everything food- and hygiene-related.

Argh, I didn’t need to be thinking about this. I especially didn’t need to be crying, I was going to dehydrate myself. Maybe I should just close my eyes, and let myself be … think about nothing but the animal I was, and what it needed at the moment.

Okay. I shuddered. Okay. I can do this.

I carefully detached the IV needle from my arm, then patted the bandage back down around it. It was old and blood-stained — my skin had probably stretched while it was attached. I would take care of that when I could.

I removed the bedcovers, and my fuzzy skin was still way too warm beneath the hospital gown. The air conditioning seemed to be off. How long had I been sweating? How had I not dehydrated?

I slowly shifted around and put my bare feet to the floor. They touched something fuzzy, and I leaned forward and looked down, becoming a little light-headed as I did so. There were huge clumps of hair all around my bed.

I could feel the loss, and I knew I’d start crying again if I thought about it. But it seemed far away, and the floor also reminded me of a barbershop after a haircut. I just let it be that, in my mind, and tried to make myself stand, leaning on the IV pole for support as I balanced on unsteady feet. Then I gripped it tightly and winced, as my tail turned into pins and needles behind me. I’d slept on it for who knows how long, and it hurt.

I looked behind me at it, and it was surprisingly long; a couple of feet already, with bright red fur. It looked like it’d be fluffy if it wasn’t so matted. Was I a fox, then? They had neat tails …

I gasped as the pain sharpened. Then I reached out behind me, wincing and holding on with my other hand, and tried to straighten my tail out. It was limp and lifeless, and had been bent at a painful angle, still on top of the bed. I pulled it off and let it fall down behind me, and then cringed as blood rushed into it. But that seemed to help; it began to sway a bit as I tried to balance myself. I could feel it doing that without my thinking about it.

I looked behind me and tried to make my tail move on my own, and could see it do so about as feebly as I was moving the rest of myself. Then I took a deep breath, and tried to step away from the IV pole, one hand on the bed to catch myself if I fell.

My eyes went to the furniture, as I moved. The chairs were tipped over, and one of them was smashed. And it wasn’t just my hair on the floor, either; there were thick clumps of gray, black, even red hairs. Or was it fur? It looked like a herd of cats had shed all over the place.

When I got to the end of my bed I let go of it, and held out my arms to balance myself as I walked the few steps to the doorway. With the way that my lower legs were reverse-jointed now, it felt like I was walking on stilts. I stumbled and nearly tripped, but caught myself on the doorway and took more deep breaths to steady my heart.

I looked up at the edge of the door where I’d grabbed it and saw deep clawmarks scoring it. Below that, I saw a dark stain.

My eyes went down to my hand, and I slowly lifted it from the doorframe. Dried blood crumbled beneath my fingertips.

My heart began to race, and the room began to spin. I lurched downward, not fighting it, and sunk down next to the door, my back pressed up against it. My head pointed upward and my eyes were squeezed shut, as I gasped for breath through my dry muzzle. One hand was still holding onto the doorframe, and I slowly let it drop, then tried to adjust my tail behind me.

Oh man, I thought. Oh man.

I remembered that rabbit’s journal again, and could feel that same fear inside me: the fear of being a small, helpless animal. Was it because I was half fox now, or would I have had the same reaction as a human? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I couldn’t.

A thought came to me, and I winced at the irony. All the survival horror games that I’d played, and I couldn’t make myself look around the corner.

Then I heard a voice, from outside the room.

*whisper* *mumble* *hiss* *whisper*

Huh?

*mumble* *hiss* *whisper* *mumble*

My knees started to shake. This was not making me feel better about leaving the room.

I found myself trying to think how long I could survive in there, and what my chances of rescue were. Of course, I had no idea if anyone even knew I was alive, but at the time I really wanted to be talked into just sitting there. How long could I go without food and water? I thought.

My muzzle convulsed in a dry swallow, and I nearly gagged on the lump in my throat. I whimpered again, this time without tears, and tried to talk myself into going outside. There’s a water fountain down the hall, I told myself. There will be lots of food in the cafeteria …

*whisper* *mumble* *whisper* *hiss*

I clenched my fists, feeling dull claws press into my pawpads. Then, on all fours, I crawled to the edge of the doorway and peeked outside.

A long moment later I pulled back slowly, still on all fours, staring off into space. My mind had just numbed with shock. I couldn’t feel anything except my fox body.

Fortunately, it knew what to do. Without thinking about it I hopped onto two feet and stood up slowly, letting the blood clear out of my head, letting my tail swish behind me to balance. Then I walked outside, and examined things more closely.

Now that I was up close to them, the smears of blood on the floor and the walls didn’t seem so huge. There wasn’t much else left of him or her, either. A few scraps of fabric and other materials, and bits of loose hair (or fur). Oh, and a cellphone. The cellphone was making the noise.

I picked it up carefully, between two claws. There was still blood on it.

As I lifted it, I could see it was smashed, and pieces of it were scattered. It broke apart in my hand, and I put out my other hand and tried to catch the pieces but most of them dropped to the floor, plastic bits and glass shards skittering everywhere. I only managed to catch a few pieces …

… including the memory card.

“Day One of the Feral Apocalypse,” a high-pitched male voice said from right next to me.

Whoa! I tripped, fumbled, sent the fingernail-sized chip flying and barely managed to catch it. As soon as I did, the voice started talking again.

“-many have been infected so far?” the voice asked. “Of course, it always starts with one. Then some idiot fails to contain it, and everything goes straight to heck. We’ve seen it in movies, and we’ve seen it in computer simulations that compare it to other diseases. All it’ll take is a mutation that allows zooanthropy to be transmitted by infected humans instead of by animals. Then it’ll spread, whether we want it to or not.”

I stared at the card as it talked, and I could almost feel the fox and human sides of my brain being separately bewildered by it. I turned my head, cocking an ear towards it. Then I recoiled as the voice started again, loudly this time.

“You’d think that someone would have listened to me by now!” he complained. “I mean, it’s not like we already knew of an animal-borne disease that turns people into animals or anything. It’s not like it kills half the people it touches, without hospital intervention. And the ones who survive untreated become warped, twisted, and feral. Oh, no.

“I knew that it’d happen, and I knew that it’d start in a hospital. Doctors think they’re immune to everything. Peh, they don’t even wash their hands properly.”

I wasn’t hearing a voice in my head. I was hearing a physical voice from the memory card. But when I turned it around in my hand, or held it between my claws instead of next to my skin, I could hear it modulating; growing softer and louder, then softer again. What was going on?

My subconscious figured it out before the rest of my brain did, of course. You’ll have to forgive my conscious mind. All the blood that it’d seen in video games, and none of it had prepared it for what’d happened out there.

What had happened out there? And how come I could hear the card? No clue, my subconscious mind told me. What now?

I tried to figure out what to do with the card, as the male voice went on about how nobody listened to him. My hospital gown didn’t have any pockets, though. And it was missing certain other important pieces of fabric, which was convenient for me now that I had a tail, but very drafty. I finally just held the card in my hand, and tried not to think about what I was stepping over as I slunk down the hall to the water fountain.

The water was warm, but at least the plumbing was still working. I lapped thirstily for more than a minute, getting splashed all over my muzzle as the voice on the card lectured me.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “Patient One’s going to get checked in at the hospital, probably in the advanced stages. He’s got the mutated form of zooanthropy, but nobody knows it yet.”

Go on, I thought. I heard the voice coughing, away from the microphone.

“They start to treat him, but it’s too late. He’s flapping and flailing around, having seizures, throwing up contaminated blood-”

My stomach wrenched.

“-and making everyone around him instantly infected. They don’t know it, he doesn’t know it, nobody knows what’s happened yet. They’re just continuing to treat him. And when they start to show the first symptoms, they don’t realize what it is. The doctors and nurses drive home, his family drives home, and they infect other people by accident. So by the time anyone realizes what’s going on-”

I’d started to cry uncontrollably, still while drinking from the fountain. I had to turn the water off, and lean up next to the wall.

“-it’s too late.”

I could hear background noise in the audio, and I realized that he was driving. Not that it mattered that much to me. I had curled up into a ball, my tail wrapped around me, and was rocking back and forth with my head in my arms.

“Yup, there it is,” the voice said over the engine. “Hagerstown, Maryland. Population: The walking, furry dead.”

It was a while after that before I regained my senses. I think it may have started at about the time that the guy on the card mentioned using plastic explosives.

After that I ran (well, more like staggered) back into my room and climbed up on the bed, to look out the window behind it. Sure enough, there was a big freakin’ hole in the side of the building the window looked out on.

What the heck?

“Remember, when you’re being chased by zombies-” He coughed. “‘Scuse me, zoomorphs — you just can’t open the door fast enough. Better safe than sorry! Besides, explosives are awesome.”

I heard him picking his way through the rubble, kicking rocks aside and coughing through the smoke. Was this guy … had this guy been for real? And why was I hearing all this? How was I hearing all this?

I looked down at the card again. Something must have happened while I was asleep, while I was changing, so completely out of it that not even an explosion could wake me up. Something that somehow had to do with this new mutated infection … an infection that I had gotten just enough intervention to survive.

Either that, or I was as bonkers as this guy was. What was he even after? Or what had he been after?

“Night vision online … ” he said, voice trailing off as if adjusting something. I heard Velcro straps being fastened, and a metal bolt being pulled back. “Buckshot loaded. Time to confirm a hypothesis.”

I still wasn’t sure what he was going on about. Had he come here to rescue someone, or what? I was pretty sure most “zombie apocalypse” nuts weren’t the kind of people to be going inside a contaminated area. But that’s what the guy on this card was doing.

The next sounds that I heard from it were footsteps. I knelt there on the bed, looking at the card in my hand for awhile. Then I remembered how icky and dirty the bed was … not that I was any better. I got down from it, and tried to figure out what to do next, my tail swishing behind me.

My stomach growled, and twisted so much that it hurt. I winced, and put a hand to it. Then I stepped back out into the hallway, my mind made up for me.

It took me awhile to find the hospital cafeteria. I’d been rushed in the emergency entrance, and I hadn’t been to this hospital before so I didn’t know where anything was. On top of that, the elevators weren’t working, and it took me much longer to climb down the stairs than I’d thought it would. After a minute, every step started to hurt, and I had to lean on the rail as I went.

My stomach kept twisting in knots. I was starting to numb to the pain. I was so hungry I didn’t know if I’d be able to eat anything, if that makes any sense. And I felt so weak and fragile, like my skin was stretched out too tight. I’d probably lost a lot of weight.

I stood there thinking about all of this, gasping for breath for the umpteenth time, and all I could think was how absurd it was for me to be in this situation. What was my life expectancy, here? Five hours? Five minutes? Was there anything even alive in the building besides me?

I hoped not.

I heard something break, and almost jumped. Then I realized it was on the card. “What are they doing?” the voice whispered. “It’s like they’re going around breaking all the computers on purpose. No, that wasn’t a computer, it was a … some kinda … three-letter-acronym hospital equipment. Thing.”

Another smash. I strained to listen to the guy’s voice; he was whispering into the microphone. “They’re smashing anything electronic, but they’re leaving the furniture intact. What’s up with that?”

I was almost to the landing when he said something that stopped me in my tracks. “It’s like they can sense electrical currents … or magnetic fields, the way birds can. Are the computers driving them crazy, or something? And if that’s the case, will they be able to sense my-”

Something growled, on the card. “Oh crud.”

I heard a feral growl, something big and animal and alien, and it made my fur stand on end from head to tail. Then I heard gunshots, and running footsteps and slamming doors. After that was some kind of commotion I could barely make sense of, then more footsteps.

I was shaking when I made it to the foot of the stairs. For a long second I could do nothing but wrap my arms around myself and shiver, leaning up next to the door to the ground level. I’d just gotten a glimpse of what could be waiting for me, and I didn’t want it. I wanted to un-hear it, and pretend there was nothing out there. It’d have to have moved on, right?

… right?

I almost opened the door before I realized something: if he was right, and they could “hear” electronics like I could, then I didn’t need that card giving me away. There was a tiny ledge on the wall, a sort of a decorative horizontal striping that stuck out just under an inch, and I set the card there and made a note to myself to pick it up later. Then, taking a deep breath, I opened the door and crept through.

The sunlight was bright, through the glass doors of the lobby. I pressed my paws and nose up against them, looking out at the hospital parking lot … it almost looked normal. Just dead quiet.

The doors were closed.

“They went out another way … ” I whispered to myself.

But the doors were still closed.

There were houses across the street from the hospital. Even with the smashed windows, they still looked inviting, and I stared at them longingly. Then my stomach tightened again, and my pawpads squeaked on the glass as I tried to hold onto it, cringing. I couldn’t wait. I needed something now.

I turned around and hurried, clutching my stomach, past the door of the gift shop and the empty reception desk. There was a sign that said “CAFETERIA,” with an arrow pointing to the right … I found the door, and pushed on it.

It was locked.

I started to sweat, already anticipating the next hunger pang. Then I thought What if there’s a back entrance? I hurried again, back to the hallway and around the corner. There, at the end, I saw double-doors, closed almost shut but held open by a fallen mop. I walked toward them as fast as I could, driven by instinct.

The hallway leading up to it was dark. The doors were just open a crack, and what there was inside was pitch-black. I’d almost got up to them when I stopped, suddenly nervous.

Don’t go in there.

I could hear it inside my head. It was as if someone had said it, but I knew it was my own instincts again. I stood there, hesitant, looking wistfully at the doors. Scared, but starving to death.

Don’t go in there.

Another pang tightened my stomach, and I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed my eyes shut, trying hard not to cry. It hurt so bad. I didn’t care what was in there, I just wanted-

DON’T GO IN THERE!

And then I realized what I was smelling. It was masked by disinfectant, metal trays and utensils, and a thousand hospital smells, but it was strong right next to the door. There was something alive in there.

I heard it breathing.

All of a sudden every muscle in my body locked up. My breath froze and held there, and my tail stopped in mid-twitch. My eyes were wide, and fixed on the door.

It took another breath. Three. Four. Regular, even.

Asleep.

I was still frozen in time. It took all of my effort to make myself move, to start running back out of that hallway, each step as light and as urgent as possible. I almost slipped and ran into the wall, but my tail swished and I held my arms out to balance, wobbling as I rounded the corner. I made it all the way back to the front before taking a breath, and I started gasping, slumping down next to the glass doors and leaning on them. Fogging them up with my breathing.

I had to get out. After I’d caught my breath enough I stood up and braced myself, rubbery pawpads gaining traction on the tile floor, then pried at the doors with my claws. My arms were rail-thin and I weighed even less than I usually did, but I put everything I had into it. Then I took another deep breath and tried again, not making a sound as I strained against the doors.

They didn’t budge. I tried different ways of getting purchase on them; using my hand pawpads, digging in as deep as I could with my claws before prying them apart. No dice. The doors wouldn’t open. For a moment, I considered throwing something through the glass … but that thing back there would hear it, and I’d step on the glass with my bare feet trying to get out.

I still needed food before I could do anything else. I looked at the gift shop entrance, but the sign said “closed” and it was probably locked up. I tried it anyway, before looking back at the door to the stairwell. What other choice did I have? I sighed, one ear still perked toward the hallway.

But where could I go to get something to eat? Then I remembered visiting my great-aunt at the nursing home, and how the nurses’ station out in the hall had cartons of dry mixes. And cans of nutrition drinks and the like.

I carefully opened the door, and picked up the memory card before pulling myself back up the stairs.

What I wouldn’t give for an elevator, I thought, as I pulled myself up the rest of the way to the first landing. I couldn’t feel my stomach or my misshapen feet anymore, just numbed masses of pain. My heart felt like it was going to give out, too, although that was probably because of what’d happened downstairs. At least the voice on the card was being quiet.

I pushed the heavy crossbar on the door, leaning into it until the door opened enough for me to slip inside. Sure enough, there was a nurse’s station, and while the chair was way out in the walkway the shelves looked pristine. I wheeled the chair back into the station, then climbed up on the counter and started opening cabinets, peering around paperwork to try to find something that looked edible.

Then I heard a door creak open, and I jumped and nearly fell off the counter. But a second later I realized it’d sounded recorded, and that it’d come from the card I’d set down next to me. I sighed.

“Going to have to figure out what to do with you … ” I muttered, as I found what I was looking for. I pulled out the cardboard box of brand-name “balanced nutritional drink,” feeling loose cans clanking inside of it. Then I set it down on the counter, before hopping down and taking my dull claws to the box’s seams.

As I got out a can and fumbled with its tab, I found myself wondering if I’d be able to digest this. Shouldn’t I be looking for something made for zoomorphs, instead? Then my stomach began to tighten again, just as I got the tab open, and I put the can to my muzzle and drank greedily. It tasted like vanilla chalk; it spilled down my chin onto my dirty hospital gown. I didn’t care. It was the first food-resembling-thing I’d had in I didn’t know how long.

I started to get out another can, when I heard a door opening down the hall. And this time it took me a second to realize it wasn’t coming from the card.

Something took two deep sniffs of the air, so loud I could hear from this end of the hall. Then it growled, a bass rumble that shook the floor.

It sounded like angry purring.

The thing snorted, and stepped towards the landing where I was at, claws clicking on the floor. And I realized I was just standing there, still messy and leaning against the counter. It was like I was seeing myself from far away. I was so scared that I couldn’t move, could just watch myself shake in third-person mode and feel my heart pounding inside.

There was so much tension and nervous energy in me that if I moved, I knew I’d just freak out. I’d scream and run and bounce off the walls, and claw at the windows as I got eaten. Or would I? I could feel another impulse, alien and familiar at the same time. And as I looked at the desk in the nurse’s station, the space underneath started to look like a burrow. Or den.

I dove silently into it, muscles tense and movements as precise as I could make them, just stopping myself from hitting the side right as the thing stepped out. There was an inch or two between the side of the long, L-shaped desk and the floor, and I could see claws the size of my fingers … on misshapen, nearly-furless paws the size of my head.

I went through every swear word I knew just watching those giant paws, and hearing the thing they belonged to taking deep sniffs of the air. It growled again, and I couldn’t do anything but watch and wait for it to find me. My heart didn’t even let up when it started to turn back around and go back down the hall …

… but when the voice on the card started up again, I nearly jumped.

“Okay … ” The voice sounded out of breath. “I think that confirms my suspicions!”

I couldn’t hold still anymore; could only try not to bump into anything while I was shaking, watching the thing’s balance shift on its paws. Seeing matted fuzz on the tip of its pasty white tail, swishing in and out of my vision.

“That virus is mutating fast … already it’s making them into some more advanced form of life. Where by ‘advanced,’ of course, I mean ‘more than a match for the rest of us.’ And why shouldn’t it be?”

The growling started again.

“After all, virii can evolve faster than macrobiotic life. And this one’s like a super-virus. It copies and retains genetic traits from all the animals that host it. And now that it’s spread through infected humans as well, it’s making some rapid progress!”

The pawpads came towards me, turning around the corner of the desk, and I held my breath and tried to press myself against the inside of the desk without making a sound. I didn’t look — I couldn’t make myself — I just tracked it with my ears as it walked past me, up to where I’d left the card on the counter behind the desk.

“The only thing that makes sense now is for me to-”

Run.

I wanted to be stealthy. I wanted to somehow do a Metal Gear Solid right behind the thing’s back, and ninja out into the hallway while it was distracted. (What I would’ve given for a cardboard box!) But I couldn’t. My nerves were too shot, my muscles were too tense, and I was too panicked to do anything but hide there trembling or run like heck. No. I’d hid long enough.

Of course, it noticed. It made a noise like a growling bark, and I heard and felt it turn towards me as I skidded around the corner into the hallway. Doors were open, doors were closed, claws were clicking behind me, no time to think. I grabbed the inside of one of the open doorframes to check myself, then flung myself into the room and shut and locked the door. It looked like the room I’d woke up in, except that it was even more of a disaster. There was a mess of some kind on the bed, and flies buzzed up from it in the window light. The IV rack was overturned, and there was a smashed EKG machine nearby. Had someone been sick? Had they gotten eaten? Was I next?

Probably.

It’s right behind you, my instincts said, as its footsteps stopped outside the door. I held my breath, knowing this was my last chance.

Then it pounded the door, loosening hinges and throwing me forward away from it. I almost fell onto the mess on the bed, but I deflected myself off the mattress and stumbled into the wall, pressed up against it with eyes shut. My fur was standing on end, and all of my strength was leaving me. This is the end, I thought.

I’m so bad at this game.

The door smashed, splintering open, and the thing snorted as it tore it aside. I could feel its eyes on me, I could smell its breath in the room, and the worst part is? I could still hear the guy on that card going on.

“It’s like I’ve always said.”

Big, powerful footstep.

“If there was a zombie apocalypse … ”

Another footstep. I could hear the creature’s weight shifting as it stepped over the door, could almost feel its tail swishing to balance.

” … the zombies would become the dominant ‘life’ form in under a decade.”

It stopped, right above where I’d curled to the fetal position. And I realized I had like a second to decide if I wanted to look before it ate me.

I chickened out. I squeezed my eyes even tighter. But then I felt something tiny drop onto my headfur, and I realized that it was the card. “My bunker isn’t completed yet,” the voice on it said, “so I guess there’s just one thing to do. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!”

A long second passed, before I looked up.

It was wearing night-vision goggles.