Were
Norm Cowie
What they say about Norm's full length books
"I loved this book, fangs and all." Best selling author James Rollins on Fang Face
"... an amusing teen vampire tale..." Five starred review - Harriet Klausner, Amazon's #1 book reviewer on Fang Face
“… humorous fantasy at its best…” Armchair Interviews (Amazon Top reviewer), on The Adventures of Guy
“No topic is safe from Cowie’s incredible wit and entertaining turn-of-phrase.” On The Adventures of Guy - Pop Syndicate (rated one of Pop Syndicate's Top Ten Books of 2007)
The Next Adventures of Guy was Winner of Preditors and Editors Readers Choice award for best Sci-Fi Fantasy
Were
By Norm Cowie
(a 3000 word short)
This book is available in print at most on-line retailers
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...
(More necessary legal small print)
All rights Reserved.
Copyright 2011 by Norm Cowie
cover image by Lauren Cowie
Ticks and other animals copyright God
[email protected]
A hungry tick can’t microwave a frozen pizza. And no, not just because of lack of fingers. It also can't run out to the local McDonald’s for its dinner. A bag of Cheese Doodles does it no good.
The tick is a hunter. A quiet, effective, hungry hunter. A hunter that can't stalk its victims, or fly, or outrun its prey.
Instead, a tick quests.
That’s what the tick was doing on the blade of grass under the round silver moon. Six hooked legs hugged the grass while two other legs spread wide to catch whatever animal might brush by. Ticks are not bugs. They are in the family Arachnida, which includes spiders and scorpions and most tort attorneys.
A mournful howl rent the air.
The tick ignored the sound, gently swaying as the blade of grass danced in the faint breeze. The tick's senses were on the alert for the carbon dioxide emissions of a warm-blooded animal. Any warm-blooded animal. A tick isn't picky.
As the sounds of the huge predator crashed nearer through the underbrush, the tick harbored no hopes, no fears, no excitement. Its tiny brain was not developed enough for these emotions.
Instead, it waited with mindless patience.
Even so, it didn't have to wait long.
The werewolf rushed by in a typhoon of strength and fury, noise and hot blood ... and the tick calmly hooked a ride.
It hung on tight as the werewolf raced furiously through the brush.
The werewolf’s anguished rage was of nothing to the tick as it prepared to take its blood meal. It slashed into the hide with a harpoon-like mouth, and a sticky secretion seeped under the werewolf’s skin. Its saliva was a mash of chemicals including a natural anesthetic and anti-clotting agent. Even more, the clever mixture hardened like cement, anchoring the tick in place.
The tick settled down to gorge as its dinner raced through the darkness.
Its body began to swell deliciously from the werewolf’s blood. A tick's size can bloat twenty-fold over a several day’s feeding.
But there was something wonderful about this blood. The tick had never experienced such sensations before. A wondrous, fantastic, dizzying surge of ... something. The tick's little mind was benumbed with burgeoning power and its normal tick-like hunger for blood became more than that. It was more like … well, there was no word for it, as ticks have no capacity for introspection.
Then the werewolf vaulted through a crevasse between two trees, scraping its hide harshly against the bark and the tick was ripped away.
Slightly bloated, it plummeted to the ground. With the adroitness of Batman, yet without the wonders of Batman’s utility belt, it hooked onto a dandelion leaf just before hitting the ground. It dangled for just a moment. Then, feeling the pull of needs not sated by its partial meal, the tick scrambled to the end of the leaf where it once again fell into questing mode.
Meanwhile, the blood surging through the tick worked physiological magic on the tiny body. So when the mouse came sniffing by, the were-tick was ready.
