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  WERERAT

  Jonathan P. Brazee

  Wererat

  Jonathan P. Brazee

  Copyright © 2012 Jonathan P. Brazee

  ASIN: B008IE9HG8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  All characters, places, and events in this novel are fictitious and though may share similarities to any real person, place or event, all similarities are purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The scream erupted from deep inside of him despite his determined intentions, echoing within the Pit.

  The pain receded slightly, allowing Rafe to open his eyes. His heart was pounding as he gulped in deep breaths. That air almost made him gag, though. He looked down at his naked, sweat-covered body, and to his shame, saw that he had fouled himself, sending shit to join the vomit on the rough stone floor, vomit he had previously spewed even before the pain had gotten too intense.

  Mortified that he was being observed, he sat up and put his back against the wall, hands covering his crotch, waiting for the next attack. His body still ached, but that was peanuts compared to the agony of his body being torn apart as each wave washed over him.

  He looked up the walls of the Pit to the grate-covered opening some 30 feet above him. Moonlight already lit the top couple of feet of one side of the round walls, but Rafe could not yet directly see the moon itself.

  The next wave began to manifest itself, and a small cry escaped his lips. He didn’t know how much longer he could take it. He fell over to the floor in the fetal position, arms clasped around his stomach. The pain started slowly, centered in his gut. For a moment, it began to recede, and Rafe looked up, daring to hope that it was over. But that was a feint. The full brunt of the piercing agony exploded in his gut, then took hold of his spine, wrenching it, tearing it apart. Rafe didn’t even attempt to hold back. He let loose his despair, not caring who watched him, who heard him.

  He wasn’t even aware of when it began to ebb away again. He slowly began to be cognizant of his pulse, of his face against the rough stone floor, of the smells of vomit, shit, and rancid sweat. He turned his look upwards, and just at the lip of the opening, the edge of the moon could be seen. He looked at it dully, almost with resentment, where only a short time before, the moonrise had filled him with nervous excitement.

  He didn’t bother to move as he watched more and more of the moon edge into view. He had been somewhat embarrassed to be stripped and shoved into the pit by the others, to know they were observing him. But now, none of that mattered. He only watched the moon, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen, just wishing it was over, one way or the other.

  A hot knife seemed to stab into his back, right between the shoulder blades, forcing him to arch his back while every joint seemed to come apart. This was worse than the other attacks, and his abused body could not even scream its misery. He lost complete control of his movements as bones were wrenched apart, flesh abused. He began to shake uncontrollably, and he finally admitted to himself that he was a failed, that he was going to die. The admission came with a sense of relief. At least the agony would be over.

  Unexpectedly, with an almost audible click, the pain fled as pieces of his body began to slide into place. He looked up at the moon, and it seemed to both shrink away and take on a different tint, as if in an old black-and-white movie. He felt another fleeting wave of nausea, of disorientation, then surprisingly, a sense of calm. For a moment he wondered if he had died, but then he realized that he had made it. His first shift. He was a full-fledged member of the tribe.

  Elation filled him where despair had taken over. What was he? What form was his?

  The Pit seemed much bigger than it was when he had been shoved through the small door. He shook his head. The Pit was not important now. He tried to look down at himself, and saw fur. Well, with his family tree, that was to be expected. But just what was he? His vision, while a bit blurry, seemed to encompass everything around him all at once and without having to turn his head, and it was taking him a moment to get his bearings to make sense of what he was seeing. He brain was able to take in his new tail behind him. A naked, hairless tail.

  Horror struck Rafe as he recognized that tail, what kind of animal had that tail. The blow was almost as bad as the pain of shifting. Rafe, to his despair, was a rat!

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  10 hours earlier

  The afternoon before his First Shift, Rafe walked into the kitchen, dropping his school books on a chair and looking at what was for dinner. He lifted the lid off a pot on the stove only to have Jaira, the family’s maid, smack his hand with a wooden spoon.

  “You get out of there. You’ll eat when the rest eat, and no sooner!” she admonished him in mock anger.

  Rafe smiled and walked on, snatching a piece of cucumber that Jaira had been cutting on the counter. “Love you too, Jaira!”

  He continued walking out into the family room. Well, it was designed as a family room, but his mom had commandeered it for her office. The huge wooden table-type desk took up most of the room, leaving a small tan couch under the window as the only other piece of furniture. His mom was on the computer as Rafe flopped down on the couch.

  Without taking her eyes off the screen, she asked “Have a good day, dear?”

  “Sure, mom. We got to eat human fetuses in biology, and then Mr. Sandusky and Miss Thierry acted out on the desk what we were taught in sex ed.”

  “That’s good, honey.”

  Rafe snorted in amusement. “And now, Erica is coming over tonight so we can do our practical application homework on that.”

  “OK, have fun,” she responded, fingers never slacking their assault on the keyboard.

  Rafe looked at his mom with affection. She was a bit scatterbrained at times, but she was still a powerful figure in the tribe. Her black hair and slightly exotic looks were probably what got her quite a bit of attention in the jello world, but in the tribe, as a tiger, she was unusual and admired. Rafe didn’t know of another tiger in the US, although he knew that they were not quite as rare in some Asian tribes. The why of that was beyond Rafe as he had not had his First Shift yet and so was not privy to the ways of the tribe, but he figured that as his mom was half Korean, that might have something to do with it.

  Rafe wondered what his form would be, whenever that time came. His father was a wolf, which was no real surprise considering that over half of the tribe were wolves. But his dad was a pretty powerful wolf, so with a tiger as a mom, Rafe figured that he would be something powerful as well. Pre-shifters were kept on the dark about most things were, but Rafe seemed to be pretty popular with the female pre-shifters as if they knew his were-form would one day make him a powerful player within the tribe.

  His mom took her tribal duties seriously. His father worked out in the world, the only were in a company of jellos. Were or not, money had to be earned, a living made. But that freed his mother up for tribal duties. Rafe still didn’t know quite what those duties were as he was still a pre-shifter, but soon, he hoped, that would change. Five kids from his age group had already shifted, and Rafe was a little envious of their new status.

  Rafe got up off the couch and left to go up to his room to do his homework before dinner. He gave his mom a squeeze on the shoulder as he walked past and went into the living room. This room was the only part of the house given over to the Korean part of the family. Korean furniture and art dominated the room, and there on her rosewood chair, his grandmother stood sentinel as
was her wont.

  “Hi, Gammy,” Rafe said as he passed her.

  A wizened hand reached out to grab him. Rafe was shocked as his grandmother was never too physically demonstrative.

  She pulled him in with a surprisingly strong grip and buried her nose into his armpit. Rafe didn’t know what to do. This was pretty weird. He wanted to pull back, but despite his size, he wasn’t sure he would be able to do so.

  She pulled her head back and stared at him for a moment before a smile creased her lips.

  “Ann, Ann!” she called out. There was no response from his mom, so she stood up and went back into the family room, hand still clamped on Rafe’s arm, dragging him along.

  “Ann!” she called out once more, her slight Korean accent softening the “A” in his mom’s name.

  His mom held up a hand, finished typing, then looked up. “OK, Omani, what is—” she stopped as she saw the look in her mother’s eyes and at Rafe in tow. Realization dawned on her.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I smell it. Now is his time for sure,” Rafe’s gammy told her with conviction.

  Rafe’s mom clasped her hands to her mouth, eyes shining, as it dawned on him just what his grandmother was saying. A sense of excitement crept over him. His First Shift? Today?

  His mother stepped over to take Rafe in her arms and crush him to her. “Ah, my Rafe, tonight’s the night. I’m so happy,” she whispered into his ear.

  Rafe felt a sense of euphoria. The time was finally upon him. He would be an adult. There was a small sense of dread as well. What if he was a failed? What if he was banished from the tribe? He couldn’t take that. Or worse, what if the shift didn’t complete? There were rumors told by the young ones to each other of grotesquely half-shifted weres, weres who died or were even killed. Could that be possible? Rafe pushed those thoughts down and buried them. His mother and father were both powerful weres. His older sister was also a strong, impressive wolf. It was in his genes, right?

  The next eight or nine hours were a jumble of emotions and feelings. His father came home immediately after his mother called him. Other friends and relatives came by and mostly sat silently, only giving him a word of encouragement as they left.

  He thought he wouldn’t be thinking of food, but his stomach evidently didn’t get the message that he should not eat before his First Shift. It rumbled menacingly, which turned Rafe’s thoughts to his missed dinner. He was surprised that routine life could go on before such a momentous occasion.

  Time seemed to crawl as they waited for moonrise, but at the same time, when moonrise did occur, it seemed to Rafe that no time had passed at all. He felt he needed a bit more time to mentally prepare himself.

  The doorbell rang, and his father answered the door.

  “Is this the home of one who is ready to evolve, one who is ready to take his part in the tribe and our race?” a voice intoned, the robed speaker covered by a hood.

  The voice sounded familiar, but muffled by the hood, Rafe couldn’t quite place who it was.

  “Yes, it is,” his father solemnly replied.

  “Bring him to me,” the voice ordered.

  His mother took Rafe by the hand and brought him forward. Rafe looked back into the house, the last time he would be home as a child. He turned back and followed the hooded and robed figure. A good portion of the rest of the tribe followed in trace as the two walked down the street, over the baseball diamond, and to the back of the community center. Two more hooded people waited for them there. Rafe could feel something begin to build inside of him, something he couldn’t quite place. He had time to look up at the rising moon before, without a word, the four of them entered the building. The others followed them inside and into the main meeting room, where Rafe and his escorts left them and went through the back offices and to the door leading to the vault. The vault was secured with a huge lock, the kind you see in the movies at a bank. One person spun it back and forth until it clicked, and the door ponderously opened. The vault was a mystery to the pre-shifters, but Rafe peered inside to see a normal-looking stairwell leading down. He followed the first person and was followed in turn by the other two. At the bottom of the stairs was a dimly lit passage. An emergency exit light seemed incongruous in this place, but building codes were building codes, Rafe guessed. Rafe followed his guide down the passage to the curved wall of the Pit. The existence of the Pit was no secret to the pre-shifters, nor to any jellos who came into the tribe’s development. The round top was clearly visible in the trees in back of the community center. But Rafe had no idea of what was inside.

  A small door, perhaps three feet high, blocked access to the Pit. The lead guide, turned around at the door. “Please remove your clothes.”

  Rafe had been told that he would go into the Pit naked. It didn’t make much sense to shift and destroy whatever clothes he had, and he understood the symbolism of going into his second birth just as he came into the world from his first birth. But still, he felt uncomfortable taking his clothes off.

  Once he was naked, the guide merely opened the door and stood aside and Rafe got on his hands and knees and crawled through. He was surprised at the austere nature of the Pit, and surprised that there was no roof, only a grating between the pit and the open sky. He shivered and crawled to the Pit’s far wall, conscious that he was being observed. Well, he wasn’t going to show fear, that was for sure. He sat down and waited for what was to come.

  Chapter 2

  after his shift

  He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in his rat form after his shift. Time didn’t seem to be that important. Once, the door opened and one of the hooded men crawled through to stand silently and look at him. Rafe scurried to the far side of the Pit and looked up at him, fearful. Was that his very human fear of what the others would think, or was part of his rat core? The man stood there for a few moments before turning and crawling back out the door.

  The moon made its way across the top of the Pit, and sometime after it had passed, Rafe felt a tugging, a pulling inside of him. It was if tenterhooks had latched onto his very essence, yanking him back. With much less pain, and in only a few moments, the human Rafe was back. Immediately, the door opened again, and two men came in, one handing him his clothes.

  “Welcome, brother, into the tribe,” was all one said as Rafe got dressed. Without a backwards glance Rafe followed them out of the Pit and down the passage into the community center.

  The rec room was full of tribe members, most with forced smiles on their faces. A ragged round of applause broke out while his mom, dad, and two sisters came up to hug him.

  “I’m so proud of you,” his mom told him.

  “But I’m a, I’m a….”

  His mom put her finger up to his lips. “You are a were, a shapeshifter. A member of the tribe. You did not fail, and you are one of us.”

  “But a rat?” The despair surfaced in his plaintive croak.

  “The Compact only states that a person must successfully shift and then shift back. Period,” his dad interjected.

  “But—”

  “No buts. You’ll learn more later.” He tilted his head indicating Tabitha, Rafe’s little sister, standing alongside of them and obviously confused.

  “Your dad is right,” his mom said. “Let’s just enjoy the welcome. All of these people have been waiting here for you, so get some cake, walk about, and shake hands. You’re still a Turner, and that means something to the tribe.”

  A table had been set up with a cake and a punchbowl. Besides the table was cooler filled with ice and cans of soda and beer. Rafe let himself be guided over where Mrs. St. John, evidently the mistress of the cake, offered him a piece.

  “Here you go, young sir. Welcome to the tribe.” Her hand touched his as she handed over the plate, and she brought her hand down and unconsciously wiped it on her red and white-checked apron. At least Rafe hoped it was unconsciously. It wasn’t as if his “ratness” could change her own wolf shift-form. He was desperately hungry
, though, so he wolfed down the cake. The “wolfing” aspect of that made him cringe, though.

  The next half-an-hour was torture. He almost wished he was back in the Pit. No one made any mention of his shift-form at all, which was odd in-and-of-itself. When others made their First Shift, their form was usually mentioned, often trumpeted. Only Trevor seemed to make any reference to it. Trevor had done his First Shift only the month before, and he was a wolf, as was most of the tribe. He stood to the side with a Mountain Dew in his hand, and when he caught Rafe’s eye, he wrinkled his nose up and down, then mimicked a rat using his paws to clean off his face. A day earlier, Rafe probably would not have taken any guff from Trevor. But now, he simply turned to his mother and told her he had to leave.

  He walked out of the community center and made the walk home alone. Climbing the stairs up to his room, he didn’t bother with the light or with his clothes. He simply lay down, pulled the blankets over him, and thought about his fate.

  Chapter 3

  later that afternoon

  Rafe lay on the bed, face to the wall, pretending to be asleep. His mother sat next to him, fingers softly twirling his hair. She had been sitting there for about 20 minutes, and after an initial whispered “Rafe?” she had been silent. He just wished she would leave.

  Finally, with a sigh, she got up and left, closing the door behind her.

  “How is he?” his father asked her out in the hallway, their voices clear to him despite their subdued volume.

  “He’s not moving. I guess he’s pretty disappointed.”

  “Of course he is. I just wonder what happened? A rat? There’s nothing like that in either of our families.”

  “Who knows? Recessives work in mysterious ways. But he’s healthy, and he made the shift. That’s what matters,” she responded.