Yes, But is it Art?

Yes, but is it Art?


Terry had parked the van in the lane behind the row of small businesses and he gently but firmly guided Arthur toward the main road.  Arthur was not very happy about this.
"Look, wha' the bloody 'ell is goin' on!"
Terry smiled a cold smile as they rounded the corner of the old brick building.
"The virus is spreading.  It started slowly at first, but by the time anyone knew what it was it was already out there, you know?"
"Ya, I git that.  Why…"  Arthur started to ask before Terry interrupted him again.
"When people first started turning, they went pretty much rabid.  They would go psychotic.  The government saw what happened overseas and when it started happening here they pretty much put out a licence to kill.  Every idiot with a gun decided we are fair game.  Every medical researcher after quick money sprung up out of nowhere to work on a cure.  As soon as that reward was announced, we all became walking lab rats, or at worst, moving targets."
The much smaller Arthur glanced around the street, weighing up his options, but the sign above the shop they were walking towards caught his eye.  Food.  And he was so very hungry.
But opportunity comes but once and he spotted a break in the traffic.  He had barely lunged towards the road when Terry grabbed him by the collar.
"Bugger off Terry!"
"I'm doing this for your own good!"
Arthur twisted to take a swing at him and Terry grabbed him around his waist, one arm under his to put him in a lock.  Arthur swung his head back violently trying to head-butt the younger man, but Terry was ready for him.
"Lemme go!  I don' wanna do this!"
Terry held him with inhuman strength with one arm around his chest and the other under his arm and his hand holding the back of Arthur's neck.
"You're not running away mate, because you don't have a choice in this!  If you change on your own you'll go feral and probably kill someone!"
Arthur was adamant.
"I don' wanna change!  I don' want me balls to stick out like dog's balls!"

A tall solid looking man stepped out of the shop with a white paper bundle of hot fish and chips under his arm, and stopped dead.  He stared at the two men locked in a strange embrace, before walking quickly past pretending not to see anything.
Arthur stopped struggling and Terry growled from behind him  "It's far more important than your balls, Arthur!  We're sticking our necks out for you, as well as to try and protect everyone around you.  Alright?  Now get a bloody grip."
"Okay.  Okay."
Terry relaxed and let him go.  "Look, I know you're freaking out a bit.  We all went through it.  The difference is you don't have to make all the mistakes we did, because you have people here to help you instead of being lost on your own.
Arthur nodded, thinking.

"Orright, so wha' re we doin' then?"  he asked.
"Well"  said Terry "First we're going to feed you.  You're about to go through something more painful and mind-altering than you've ever gone through in your entire life.  And you'll need a lot of energy to survive it."
Arthur grinned nervously  "Nah, I'll be right, mate.  I et Gav's wife's meatloaf once."
"Nope.  You need to eat and you need to do it very soon"  he replied before breaking out into a smirk  "Anyway, you pommy buggers live on that awful Bovril stuff.  Sheryl's meatloaf would be like sponge cake to you wouldn't it?"
Arthur ignored him and lifted his thin face up to the glass door of the shop before sliding it open  "Kebabs?  S'pose it won' be th' first time a kebab's saved me life."

The shop had a half dozen people waiting inside and was full of rich smells.  Cooking oil kept way too hot and crispy black bits of meat at the base of the roaster were the richest smells of all, and while it would be the first kebab Arthur had ever eaten while stone cold sober, the need for it now was like a body blow.
He looked over at Terry's youthful square-jawed face to see him watching him in return.  "Don't hang about, Arthur.  You'll need eleven of them.  Three chicken, four beef, two with no onion, two without tabouli but only one with…"
"Wha' the bloody 'ell?  Eleven?  Is this for like a ritual or sommit?"
"Yeah" said Terry  "Eleven.  Mitch doesn't like cheese, I hate tabouli, Gav only eats chi…"
"Get stuffed mate"
…cken and you need to eat at least four on your own.  It's allright mate, I'm buying"  he finished, pulling two fifty dollar notes from his jeans pocket.
Arthur looked back at the menu board above the two roasters.  An enormous Pacific Islander woman was cutting meat from the beef stack with an electric trimmer with frighteningly efficient gusto.  She smiled and laughed with the customers as she worked, and Terry leaned over to whisper into Arthur's ear.
"Be polite mate.  She scares shit outta me."
Arthur gave him a withering stare as he pulled a bag of roll-your-own from his pocket and expertly flicked a slip of tissue paper between his fingers.  He began to roll up a pinch of tobacco as he stepped up to the glass Bain Marie.
The lady slammed the till shut as a customer left and leaned down to look at the scrawny new patron.  Before she could say a word Arthur looked up and spoke with a big grin on his face.
"My God yer ugly."
She did a double-take.
"Gel, yer th' ugliest woman I ever did see.  Ken I have a free kebab?"
Her eyes bulged in her large round face under her black curled hair and she burst into laughter.  "You are a cheeky little man!  I think I charge you double!"
Arthur also laughed  "I'll have eleven, thanks luv."
"Eleven what?"
"Kebabs.  It's ten and the eleventh's free, yeah?"
"You want eleven kebabs."
"Nah, ten and a free one."
Terry stepped forward and offered the two notes.  She took them without taking her eyes off Arthur, still laughing.
"You are a cheeky little man.  Don't you light that filthy cigarette in here.  What sort of kebabs?"
"Gis' a mix, yeah?  Lots 'o onions. E'rebody loves onions."
"You're a bastard, Arthur" growled Terry.
Arthur just grinned at him.
"Okay, you come back in fifteen, cheeky boy.  Eleven kebabs."
Terry all but dragged him out of the shop as he shouted over his shoulder "D'nae ferget me free one!"

They stepped out onto the footpath.  
"You crazy bastard, Arthur!  You're lucky she didn't drag you over the counter and put you on the roasting spit!"
He grinned at the younger man "Wha.  Nah, she's orright.  You're just soft is all.  Why'm I buyin' kebabs."
"The pizza shop doesn't open 'til six, and we'll be back out in the forest by then."
"Why."
Terry ran his hand through his thick brown hair in frustration while keeping an eye on Arthur to make sure he didn't try and make a run for it again..
"Because you'll be on the hunt by then.  Look.  I… We discovered how to break out of the grip of the transformation.  When we change, right, we change completely that first time.  All humanity is gone.  There's no thought but the desperate need to kill something and eat its guts.  But I found how to break the grip the beast puts on you.  It has to be broken that first time you change, or you'll never be completely free.  Everyone else from work has gone through it, and so has almost everyone they accidentally infected, right?  That's why we can function as normal rational thinking human beings, and why we can change at will.  Those poor bastards that changed on their own became dangerous.  They kill lots of people and infect just as many, and have no hope of ever becoming human again."
Arthur raised an eyebrow before jamming the unlit rollie into his mouth.  The cigarette waved around seemingly defying the laws of physics as he spoke  "So th' cycle keeps goin' then?"
"Yeah.  Cat's out of the bag now.  There's no doubt shooting the psychotic changed on sight isn't a bad idea, but those of us that got a grip on it and learned the secret aren't any safer.  Less so in some ways, because the likes of the 'Good Doctor' want to find out medically why we're different.  The cops just sees us as dangerous and shoot on sight."
Arthur lit the cigarette  "So tha's wot Mick were doin'?  He musta knocked Mark out sommow.  Mark were lookin' fer sommit in th' office when Mick come flyin' out sayin' he had ta go ta th' 'ospital."
"Yeah.  Mark was trying to find out what happened to the company buyer.  The buyer was weird for a few months after a buying trip then quit.  Never said why and never saw him again.  He got back about the same time as the virus first broke out overseas, so…"
"So ye think 'e was probably th' one wot brought it 'ere?  God damn I'm 'ungry" said Arthur, distracted.
"Yeah.  Then Michael sold Mark to the doctor.  We need to find the rest of the crew if they're still alive, then find the buyer.  Did you know him?"
"Th' buyer?  Tall blondie fella?  Nah, seen 'im upstairs a' work but I dinnae ever speak to 'im.  I jes' drove the forklift, yanno."
Terry looked back into the shop to see the lady waving at him  "Kebabs are ready."
Arthur stubbed the cigarette out and poked the remains behind his ear before following Terry into the shop.
She handed over four large plastic bags of wrapped kebabs to the two men.
"Me free 'un in 'ere, luv?"  
"Yeah, the free one was eight bucks like the rest of them though"  she said jovially.
"Ye dinnae spit in it didya?  Coz if ye did, ye gotta spit in all of 'em!  I dun wanna miss out!"
"Cheeky man!  Get out of my shop!" She said laughing, and waved her hands at them both to usher them away.

Back in the van the kebabs were handed out to the occupants hidden inside.
"Dammit, I hate onion"
"Tough, Gav.  Eat around it"  said Terry from the front seat.
Arthur was busy unwrapping the aluminium foil from one when Franco leaned over and pushed it down and back into the bag  "Not yet, Arty."
"I'm 'ungry, mate.  I bought it, I'm gonna eat it!"
"I bought it, actually" said Terry from the driver's seat as he started the van and put it into gear  "You need to wait.  Trust us, right?  We're doing this for you, you know."
"Yah, right, fer me own good, like."
Franco, still in his lupin form, nodded.  "Partly.  Mostly for the good of everyone else.  People that go Lupe on their own go feral.  They'll kill anything that moves."
Arthur looked around the van.  He knew he should know these people, but in their changed form he didn't recognise anyone until names were dropped.  Gavin was a know-it-all and had become a black and grey werewolf; Mitch was mostly brown.  The others sat silently on the floor of the windowless van.  Of them all, only one was female.  
They leaned over one at a time to pull a roll of food from the bag, and he noticed the rust-brown and grey at the back of the van was wearing ill-fitting spectacles.
"Rowan?  Issat you?"
"Yeah" said Rowan timidly.
"No offence mate, but didn't you used to be…yannow…"
"Fat?"  Rowan offered expressionlessly.
"Yah."
"Here's an interesting thing"  said Terry from the front seat, also unwrapping a kebab as he steered the van with his knees  "It seems that the lupin virus follows DNA or something.  When we change, things like hair colour and build type and all that stays with you.  And when you change back to human, it's like a genetic reset.  If you have bad eyesight as a human from like a family trait, you still have bad eyesight.  But any scars or injuries that aren't genetic get fixed."
Rowan nodded before he spoke  "Yeah, I was fat but it wasn't genetic.  It was too many hours doing accounting and computer games.  But my eyesight is hereditary.  So I changed and lost all that mass, but still need my glasses."
The female leaned forward, and Arthur noticed her ample breasts under her golden fur and wondered who she was.
"Show them your hand, Terry"  she said.
Terry put his hand on his lap self-consciously before lifting it up for everyone in the back of the van to see.  Nothing out of the ordinary was visible with his hand, which was very much out of the ordinary.  Terry had lost one finger at the second knuckle and the tip of his little finger in the gears of a printing press in his first job.  For as long as Arthur had known him, he had been missing that finger.
"All good again"  he announced, wiggling his fingers  "Problem is, if you have a pacemaker or a stainless steel hip, you're in a lot of trouble."
Rowan pushed his spectacles along his long muzzle, trying to get them to sit properly.  "Even my fillings all fell out, but I didn't need them when I changed back"  he said.
"I'm just glad everything stayed where it's supposed to"  the female said, cupping her breasts.
Gavin whooped and Franco groaned.  
"Hah!  C'mon, cough it up"  said Gavin, snapping his clawed fingers at Franco.
Franco sneered at him "Dammit.  I left my wallet in my other fur coat.  Sorry."
"Excuse me?"  she said, offended.  "Am I right in thinking you had a bet running about my chest?"
Gavin grinned  "A bet I just won, thank you."
"You two are pigs.  I'm getting in the front."
Arthur watched the conversation trying not to laugh, even though he was still very nervous.
"You can't come up here unless you change, sorry Amy"  said Terry.
"Amy?  Wow gel, you come out orright"  said Arthur, realising it was Terry's wife  "But I thought you were a redhead".  
She declined to answer him but called back to her husband  "Come on Terry, I'm not changing back here with these pigs."
"I'll pull over soon and you can get changed in the van.  We'll all wait outside."

Arthur was surreptitiously unwrapping a kebab in the plastic bag while this went on, and was about to sneak a bite when Franco slapped it back down yet again.
"Wait, dammit."
"While yer all on about her fake tits, I'm sittin' here starvin'!"
Amy bared her teeth at him "Do you have any idea what we have all gone through? Shut the hell up, Arthur."
"So why don'tcher all change back to human and stay that way?" he asked bluntly.
John spoke up from the back of the van  "Consider this the normal state, once you change.  Fully human or fully wolf is okay for a while but we can't hold it.  At first you go full wolf but if you stay that way you can't normalise.  At least this way we have the option of change."
"I'm never changing back"  said Rowan quietly.  "Not ever."
The van slowed to a stop with the sound of tyres crunching on gravel.
"Okay, get ready to bail out.  I'll tell you when the traffic is clear, so when I say do the bolt over the ditch and into the long grass.  Let Amy change in the van.  Gav, Johnno, I'll need you two with Arthur.  Rowan and Mitch, I need you two to change back to human and once we get to the forest take the van back into town and find the others.  Get them to bring the doctor back if he's still alive."
"I'm not changing"  Rowan repeated, quietly but stubbornly.  Terry didn't seem to hear, or ignored him.
"Get ready" said Terry  "Okay, go!"
Franco slid the side door open and dragged Arthur out with him, and almost flung him over the shallow ditch on the side of the road then into tall grass that grew between the road and the thin scrub of outer suburbia.
Franco turned around to see if the others all followed, but when he turned back again, Arthur was nowhere to be seen.
"Dammit Arthur!"  he shouted.

Arthur ran through the grass with his head down until he reached the relative safety of the trees.  He could hear shouting behind him and kept running.  The sudden burst of exercise triggered something inside him and he became desperately hungry.  The more he ran the hungrier he became.  He felt like a fog had wrapped around his senses letting only the need to eat through to his mind.  The last smell and taste he had in his brain was that of kebabs, and before he knew what he was doing he had run in a wide arc back towards the van.
The others were still behind him, tracking his movements but the path to the van was clear.  He leapt over the ditch and swung the door open.  A half dressed human Amy screamed and clutched her shirt to her chest.
"Sorry missus; forgot me kebabs!" he said cheerfully before sliding the van door shut again and running back through the grass.
Unwrapping and eating four kebabs while running from werewolves was not something Arthur had ever had to do before but he resolved to do a good job of it, and he had made it well into the trees before Franco crash tackled him from behind.

Arthur barely noticed so desperate he was to finish eating.  He lay on the ground under Franco chewing on the remains of the last kebab; foil, leaves, dirt, twigs and all.
Franco stood up as the others stood around, watching.  
"Here comes the pain"  John commented with only a mild touch of empathy.  Arthur was on his hands and knees, coughing and moaning.
Mitch stood beside him with his arms folded  "This part right here.  This was the worst.  You finally get food in you but you feel like you want to throw it all back up again, but can't."
"Oh yeah, man that was rotten"  Franco agreed.  "Though this was what I hated.  See his bones shifting?  That feeling of your teeth moving around – that was the worst for me.  Ughh I still hate it.  Look, I recon Arthur'd agree with me."
Arthur writhed on the ground, screaming in pain.
Amy and Terry joined them and watched silently for a moment.
"Come on.  Amy can you take the van back?  Mitch; Rowan, go with her please?"
They turned and left wordlessly as Terry stood by still watching the transformation.
"This wasn't the best place for this to happen but it'll have to do.  Did he eat all four?"
"Yep"  said John.  "And a decent amount of dirt too."
"Looks like he's going to be an all-grey"  Terry commented.
John laughed "Well, he was mostly grey as a human so it stands to reason.  What was the worst for you, Terry?  Franco recons the mobile dentistry."
"Realising what I'd killed when I got my mind back."  Terry said flatly.  They watched Arthur's slow transformation continue with a less jovial mood.
Terry looked over at Franco  "Your post-shift kill was a wallaby, wasn't it?"
Franco nodded.  
"Mine was a feral cat, of all things"  John said, a little embarrassed.  "I heard Mitch killed a wallaby too.  What was yours, Terry?  You've never said."

Terry took a deep breath before speaking over the sound of Arthur's pained shouts, slowly becoming more guttural and animalistic.
"Amy's spaniel."
Franco let out a 'snnerk' sound from his throat, trying not to laugh.
"It's not bloody funny, Franco!  She loved that dog!"
"I'm sorry Terry.  But..  'snnerk'  a spaniel?"
John had his hand around his muzzle, holding his jaw closed also trying not to laugh.
"Yeah, hah hah.  But she tore that poor dog out of my teeth and it was her that made me break the grip.  If it wasn't for Amy and her stupid spaniel none of us would have survived.  She got torn up doing it too, which is why she got the virus."
"Sorry Terry"  Franco said, chagrined.  "We all owe you a lot."
"Never mind.  Get his clothes off him before he ends up all bent out of shape.  He'll break before his King Gee's do."
Franco and John groaned and complained, but stripped the work clothes from the howling and writhing form.
"Get ready.  He's nearly finished.  He'll bolt in a second."  He removed his own shirt and undid his belt buckle, stepping out of his jeans.  
Arthur lay on the ground in front of them, now a thin and lean grey wolf.  He slowly got to his feet, unsteady at first but like a snowball rolling down a hill, he gathered pace.  His brain making new connections to his muscles and his senses as he moved.
Without warning he ran at full speed between the trees.  Franco and John ran after him, while Terry changed to his full wolf form as he followed.
Arthur ran for the joy of running; his human brain locked away in a tiny corner of his consciousness while the remainder became flooded with smells, sounds and the feeling of his strong body moving swiftly.  Scents filled his nose with information he didn't have the tools to decode, and he whipped his head back and forwards following the scents as he ran.  Each new thing was filed into his predatory brain like file cards falling into a cabinet.  Random, but remembered.
His hunger returned, twice as strong.  In an instant his joyous discoveries were forgotten and he followed the smell of water and life.  He crouched down low and pushed his nose through the short grass until he triangulated the sound of his quarry ahead of him with his large ears.  Sniffing softly and listening carefully, his attention completely focused on his prey.  The tiny part of his brain that contained his human mind watched on with a mix of fascination and dread.
He moved closer until he could see it.  His long tongue licked his nose and lips, almost tasting what it will be like to eat.  With a sudden and swift motion, he leapt.  His snapping jaws caught it in his mouth, and he felt bones crunch.  Elated, he crouched on his belly with his prey between his paws, crunching the poor creature's bones as he ran his crushing teeth along its body.
Without warning he was grabbed by the neck with strong jaws, furry bodies pressing him down.  He growled and snarled and snapped, but couldn't twist far enough to bite whatever it was that kept him pinned.  Something stood in front of him, holding his prey; dangling it in front of him, but well out of reach.  He wanted it.  He wanted it so very badly.  He wanted to taste its blood and crunch its body.  But this thing denied him.  He growled and snarled with frustrated rage.

"Do you want this, Arthur?"  said Terry, back in his naked human form.  "How bad do you want it?  Tell me, Arthur."
Arthur snarled, but in the tiny corner of his mind, a pressure began to form.
"Here, Arty.  It's right here.  Come on now.  Do you want it, or should I eat it?"
The pressure increased.  He couldn't express his rage and hatred.  His snarls simply couldn't convey his deep rage.  He needed something - more.  The pressure in his mind pushed against the rage, but offered something to his bestial brain.  A word.
He growled a warble as the weight behind him shook his neck with its painful bite.
"What, Arty?  Did you say something?  Do you want this?"
His mouth changed ever so slightly as he growled, his rage driving his need to express himself.
"Grrrmmhh!  Grrrmmminnne!"
"Eh?  Can't hear you!"
"Grrmhhmmine!  Minneh  Mine!"
"Getting closer, Arty!"
Arthur's mouth formed the word easier each time he repeated it  "Mine!"
"Almost there, mate.  Keep going."
"Mine!"  The word was like a dagger in a crack.  The credit card used to force open a locked door.  More words flooded into his brain, and with them Arthur's human consciousness.
"Mine!  Tehrry yehh bass… bah.h.. bastarrrdh!"
Terry crouched down in front of him.  "Are you back, Arthur?  Is that you in there now?"
"Get off me!!"  He howled.  Franco and John pushed off him and stood up.  
Arthur sat up on one hip, looking at Terry with a mix of distrust and hate.
"Last step, Arthur.  Learn to control how your body changes."  With that he shifted back to his lupin form, easily seven feet tall on his strong digitigrade legs.  He dangled the prey above Arthur's head.  
He jumped up but couldn't reach it, his jaws snapping ineffectively in the air while he put his front paws on Terry's chest.  He danced around on his hind legs, trying to reach and once again his desire for his hard earned meal forced his animalistic brain to work with his human consciousness.  
He suddenly realised he was standing upright quite comfortably.  His front paws changing to hands and gripping Terry's furry chest.  He then realised he was still a lot shorter than Terry, even in this form.
"Dammit"  he said.
"Hey Arthur"  John said from behind him.  "Say 'through'.  Go on."
Arthur got as far as the 'TH' before his tongue had whipped out over his nose and he sneezed.  John and Franco doubled over in laughter, and even Terry smiled.
"Bastards"  Arthur proclaimed hotly.  He waved his hand towards his misappropriated snack  "Give me it, Tehrry"

"This?  You sure you really even want this?"  Terry asked, holding it up by one leg.
Arthur started at it in a new light.
"Uhh.  Nooh."
"You fought pretty hard for it, mate.  Are you sure you don't want it after all?"  Terry pressed as Franco and John howled in laughter.
"Piss orf Terry."
"Oh, don't be like that Arthur.  It really is a very impressive frog.  You know.  As far as frogs go."