Panthera Spelaea

Pain pushed me up as I fought through the fog. Once more, everything hurt, especially my head. I was lying on something soft, and I felt something stroking my hair. I could hear the television and the sounds of traffic outside in the heavy rain and thunder. I cracked open my eyes to see Svetlana looking down at me, a white ceiling above her blonde hair. “You’re back,” she said nervously.

“Where am I?”

“We’re in my apartment,” she told me. I forced my eyes open and looked around. I was on her bed with her sitting beside me, and I smelled blood. I tried to sit up, but the movement resulted in a stabbing pain in my stomach. I relaxed back onto the pillow. “We found you on the deck again. Don’t move; you took three bullets in the fight. I got the bullets out and patched you up as best I could.”

Shot? I could smell her nervousness and fear, and I hoped it wasn’t from me. I remembered what happened just before the blackout, with Svetlana and Anna captured and in danger. “Anna? Is she all right?”

“She’s fine, thanks to you,” Svetlana replied. “The gang is dead, and there are cops all over the park now. You took off after the fight, and we gathered your things and ran after you. We made it across the street before the police got the perimeter established and came home. That’s when we found you outside our door again.”

“How long was I out this time?”

“It’s been three hours,” she told me.

Some things didn’t add up. “I got shot three times, and I’m not in the hospital? Why?”

“What do you remember, John?”

“Water,” I said as I gathered my thoughts.

She had a travel cup with a straw on the bedside table and brought it to my lips. “Small sips. I don’t want you throwing up.”

I wet my mouth, then started talking. “You and Anna headed off to the hiding place, and I ran the other way. I put on speed, leaving them behind as I looped around the park. That’s when I heard your screams. I got close enough to see them holding you with a gun to your head. That’s when the pain came, and I blacked out.”

I heard the apartment door open, and Anna came into the bedroom, drying her hair with a towel. “I took care of it,” she told Svetlana.

I was lost. “Took care of what?”

“The bugs and the bloody stuff,” she told me. “We had to get rid of the soiled sheets and medical supplies after we patched you up. It wasn’t easy since the whole neighborhood is on lockdown while the search goes on. There are cops everywhere, but I managed to sneak across the parking lot to the dumpsters behind the office building.”

“Lockdown? What’s going on?” My head was spinning with the information. Someone shot me multiple times, and the girls fixed me up at home because they couldn’t risk a hospital. I’d shown up after my blackout on their deck. The gang was dead, and now everyone had to stay inside while they looked for the killer. “Did I kill them?”

“It’s not that simple,” Svetlana finally said. “You changed. I saw you scream in rage and pain, and then you changed.”

“Changed how?” I could tell they were struggling to tell me something, and they were both scared of it.

“Two guys were holding me, and one ripped my shirt off,” Anna said. “Another guy was holding Svetlana. They were yelling for you, saying they would rape us if you didn’t come back. I was scared, John. There were so many of them. They had this crazed look in their eyes, and I couldn’t get away. You yelled, and then it was like you exploded. One second you were there in your clothes, then your clothes went flying, and it was standing there.” She looked at her roommate, and Lana nodded. “You turned into a huge fucking LION, John, and you were pissed. You charged the men and started ripping them to shreds.”

My mind was telling me she was crazy. People didn’t just change from one species to another in the blink of an eye. I looked at her, then at Svetlana, and smelled the air. They were frightened and anxious, but she wasn’t lying. I looked at my girlfriend. “You saw this too?”

Svetlana nodded. “It happened so fast it was like your clothes shredded and flew away. You roared, and the man holding me let me go. He got two shots off before you were on him, and you bit his arm in half before you clawed his throat out. It was maybe five seconds from your shift until he was bleeding out at my feet. I curled up on the grass; I saw you look at me, then you took off for the others.”

Anna continued. “Someone else had a gun, but he was dead after a few shots. The others panicked and ran, but you didn’t let them go. One after another got chased down and ripped to shreds. The lion was a killing machine, John. It only took a few minutes to wipe out every one of them. When the screams ended, you trotted back to us. You were scary as hell, John! Your fur was full of blood, your mouth was dripping with red, and you were as big as a horse! I thought I was dead; I hugged Svetlana to me and waited for you to kill us too.”

“Apparently, I didn’t,” I said. “Did I hurt you?”

Svetlana shook her head, no. “You came up and smelled us. Your head was the size of a garbage can lid, and your paws bigger than dinner plates. Your breath was hot in my face as you sniffed my hair while I was too scared to move. You licked my cheek, then ran off to the west. We lost track of you in the darkness.”

Anna picked the story up. “That’s when we knew we had to get out of there, John. There were dead and dying people all around, but we didn’t care. You saved our lives, but we weren’t going to stick around and explain anything. We went over to where you changed and grabbed your torn clothes and your wallet. We could hear sirens coming, so we took off running. We got to the road when the storm hit. We ran home and got into the house before the adrenaline crash happened.”

“I smashed the bugs at that point,” Svetlana said. “The rain was coming down hard while Anna took her shower, and I watched out the window. It seemed like every police car in the city showed up.” From her window, you could see a narrow view of the park between the other buildings in the way. “Anna turned on the news while I was in the shower. They saw you, John.”

“Who did?”

“Everyone, now. One of the dash-cams on a police car caught your lion trotting across the road. You disappeared before they could kill you, but it’s all over the news. An escaped lion killed thirteen people in the park, including a cop. That’s why the city’s on lockdown while they look for you.”

Shit. “How did I get here?”

“I heard a thump on the deck, and when I went to look, you were passed out naked by the door again. Anna and I pulled you inside and dragged you to the bed, where we removed the bullets and sewed you up.”

“We were hoping you’d be able to tell us more,” Anna said.

“I don’t remember any of that.”

Anna played with her phone. “This is what they are looking for.” She showed me the picture. It looked like an African lion, but the lack of a long mane for an obvious male made it stand out. It was roughly nine feet long based on the road markings and over four feet tall at the shoulder and weighed eight hundred pounds or more.

It looked exactly like the cave lion I’d brought out of the permafrost.