My Favorite Pet

My Favorite Pet
By Theodore Laurence

Everyone started somewhere before the Howler took over. I started in Vegas.

People think Vegas means riding high and living in the fast lane. The trouble with life in the fast lane is no one likes getting back in the slow lane, and it hurts like hell when someone shoves you back down.

For a long time I was just a Joe waiting tables by day and losing my extra change by night. Then I got the bright idea to play something new. And wouldn’t you know, I made a fortune in roulette. $25,682. Like it matters now.

After that, I hit the bar. Four shots later the whole bar was drinking a round on me and the girls just couldn’t get enough. I guess some will do anything for a piece of someone else’s money.

Walking home wasn’t too hard. It’s pretty easy to walk drunk when you’ve got a looker under each arm. Strays scattered left and right and even the alley cats had trouble taking my singing. But I didn’t care. Neither did the chicks. They were too busy picking my pocket.

And that’s when he showed up. Roscoe. My favorite pet. That mangy little mutt always found the worst time to trip me up. He followed me to work once. I lost a whole tray of drinks on the patio because of that dog. $168 in liquor off my check and flushed down the drain. Roscoe got the beating of his life for that. And yet he still kept coming back.

And here’s something you don’t know. You don’t have to be a Howler to carry the disease.

That’s right. Disease. What? You thought that you just magically joined us once you were bitten or scratched? Everything follows a process. Everything happens for a reason.

There’s all sorts of animals that carry the disease. Bears, wolves, dogs, cats, snakes. I met this one girl who got infected by a bird in her yard. Problem is, most beasts end up looking rabid. And who bothers to check for rabies after you’ve shot the poor brute? Most just burn the carcass and move on.

I had to admit, even as drunk as I was, Roscoe looked pretty bad. His head hung down and lathered-up drool was dripping off his tongue in thick globs. He looked mangier than normal and his eyes were glazed.

At first I thought he’d gotten into another scrap with the local pack of strays. He sure seemed like he’d been pummeled into submission. But the closer he got, and the stronger the scent of blood grew, I started to realize this wasn’t the same dog I was used to. Roscoe was cheerful, even after a beating. Roscoe never dragged himself along like he was drunk as a lord. He always pranced up like the happiest idiot in the world. He was my favorite pet.

But that night he was something else. That night he was drunk from feasting on the blood of alley cats or whatever he could catch. But as drunk as he was, he was still on the hunt.

There’s a few major differences between rabies and Howl. Rabies is a virus. Howl is a bacterium. Rabies makes an animal mad, makes it lose its mind before it kills them. Howl heightens their instincts, makes them a hunter. Some assume that means they’ll attack anything, just like something rabid. That’s not so. They’ll attack anything, but they also know when to quit. They know how to survive.

I guess Roscoe figured a drunken man hanging off a couple of back-stabbing whores was as good a hunt as any. He didn’t even bother to growl. Just went straight for the jugular. And every day I cuss myself for putting my arm in the way.

He was stronger than I expected. He knocked me flat on my back. The thieving whores shrieked and made a run for the street, but Roscoe must have decided I would be too much work. He let go of my arm and took down the first one he could reach. Too bad it wasn’t the one with my wallet. She only got one good scream out before he ripped her throat open.

Being drunk generally means a quiet getaway is out of the question. Not that it mattered. Roscoe was too busy stuffing his face to notice. I stumbled the rest of the way to my apartment and locked myself in. My arm hurt like hell, but then so did my head. In retrospect, passing out on the couch was not the best idea. Especially since the bite was already infected by morning.

Here’s something else you should know. Howl can be treated. You fight it with antibiotics, just like every other kind of bacteria. The problem is you’ve only got about 12 to 24 hours before it’s too late. That’s just dandy for smart, rich folk that can afford a trip to the ER. But for poor idiots like me, well….

I waited three whole days before I went to the clinic. The swelling in my arm was down, but now I was feverish and hallucinating. My senses were sharpening, too. I could hear the doc’s breathing and his old joints cracking as he probed the bite. He smelled musty and sour, not very appetizing. But I hadn’t eaten in days.

Wait, what was I thinking? Eat the doc? EAT him? That couldn’t be right. But the Howler was rising now. A chubby young nurse came in to take a blood sample. Not too fat. Tender, sweet, plentiful meat. It was taking everything I had not to lunge for her throat.

One last thing you should know. It’s not really a matter of timing for the Howler. It’s about choice and control. The urge to rise is always there. It’s not always easy to shift. The full moon makes the change easier. Something in the magnetic shift works on the animal brain. But an experienced Howler can change any time they want. It’s just safer and easier to wait for night.

It didn’t take much to change that first time. The prick of the nurse’s needle triggered a fight instinct. Before I even knew what happened the doctor’s body was on the floor and his head was bouncing outside in the hall. The nurse was on her back gurgling with her stomach slit open. Yes, she was very tender. Somewhere buried under the Howler, what was left of my sanity realized she wasn’t even dead yet.

The armed security guard tried to take me down. You’d think that he’d know to aim for the head against something that big. It wasn’t long before the whole clinic was empty and the Howler was satisfied.

I vaguely remember a crouching, canine-like figure looking back at me from the glass doors. The arms were freakishly long and ended with giant hands covered in blood.There was dark brown fur all over it. So dark it was almost black. But the head was what caught my attention. It was like a wolf. I guess that's how were-wolves got their name. The funny thing is, past the appearance and the howling, Howlers are nothing like wolves. Wolves hunt in packs. Howlers keep to themselves. If you don't, you're food for whoever you cross.

The first shedding was one of the most disgusting things I’d ever felt. It was like someone had taken a skin off a bleeding animal and thrown it over me. You have to grab and rip the skin off. And just like the myth says, you come out naked and bloody. I found out later the shedding stopped when you gained more control and the change became easier.

I tried to stay in Vegas, but things were just too busy. There was too much to seduce the Howler. Even in this isolated place I can’t keep him subdued for long. But I had one thing to take care of before I left.

I found him in another alley near the main strip. He was feasting on a large cat and her kittens. It only took one swift blow on the back of the neck. I burned the remains in a metal trashcan.

Poor old Roscoe. My favorite pet.