Tam clutched the precious bottle to his chest as he hid deep in the dumpster. Outside he could hear the angry voices of the men from the pharmacy. They were saying that they would kill him if they found him. Tam believed they really would.

They searched for a long time and even reached into the dumpster twice to rustle in the garbage. At last they went away, their voices low with gritted fury. Tam had learned to stay hidden well after things seemed to be safe, though, so it was a long time before he finally crept out of the dumpster.

No one saw him. Gripping the bottle in his teeth, Tam scrambled up a drain pipe and onto the rooftops where he could move more easily without being spotted. With one agile leap after another he made his way all the way home. The big hole in the roof made it easy to get inside without having to climb all the way down to the street.

Tam slithered down through the hole and picked his way carefully across the rotting floor to the stairs. He knew which ones to walk on without falling through all the way to the basement. Once at the bottom he stopped only long enough to groom the garbage-smell out of his fur before he tiptoed into the little room that he shared with his mother. "Mama?" he whispered. "I brought you some medicine."

The soiled mattress creaked as his mother rolled painfully over and smiled at him. "My sweet little boy," she said, her once-sturdy voice dry and frail, like the dead flowers in the windowboxes. "Where did you get the money?"

Tam swallowed against the lump that formed in his throat. "My teacher gave me some," he said. "He wants you to get better, too."

His mother smiled. "He is a dear man. Please tell him that I am very grateful and that I will pay him back as soon as I can." She pushed the blanket down from her thin body, her arms straining as though the blanket was too heavy. "Help me up, now."

Swiping at a tear, Tam knelt by the mattress and eased his mother upright. He hated lying to her, especially when she believed everything he said, knowing in her heart that her son would always tell her the truth. He did not have the courage to tell her that he had not been to school in months. They had sent him away because of who he was. Because of what he was.

She groaned as she sat up and leaned heavily on Tam's shoulder as he helped her to the corner to use the litter box. While she busied herself Tam hurried out to refill their water bottle from the hose at the gas station. When he returned, he found that his mother had crawled on her own back to the mattress. "No, Mama!" he said worriedly. "You should let me help you."

"Now, Dear, I have to keep my strength up somehow." She took the pill from him and lapped up the water from the bowl he offered her. "I'm going to get better soon. I promise."

Tam smiled and sat down next to her, his little head resting on her shoulder. She stroked at his ears with her fingers and purred soothingly. "I'll be all better," she whispered, "because my dear little boy takes such care of me. When I'm better I'll get a good job, and then we will live in a real house that is actually ours. You'll have a real bed to sleep in and I'll make wonderful dinners for you. You won't have to catch rats anymore for us to eat. And on your birthday we'll have a real big party and invite the whole neighborhood, and there'll be presents..."

A harsh coughing that shook his mother's whole body shattered the wonderful dream. Tam held onto his mother tightly, whimpering as her delicate frame rattled and jerked. He wanted so much to hear more of how happy they would be and how soon.

At last the fit ended, leaving his mother gasping and weak. "I need to rest some more," she panted. A gentle hand cupped Tam's cheek. "You go on out and play with your little friends. Just make sure you come in before dark. You know how I worry."

"Yes, Mama." Tam helped her to lie back and pulled the covers up to her chin. He mirrored her warm smile as he tiptoed out of the room and closed the door, but as soon as he was outside the smile went away. It made his mother happy to think that he had friends to play with, so he never told her how the human children called him names and threw rocks at him any time he showed himself. Even their parents sent him away with harsh shouts. The only time he thought he would fit in was when he started to run with the neighborhood gang, but then they took him and abused him in the most horrible way. He had to tell his mother that he was walking like that because he had fallen and twisted his ankle.

His mother's ragged breathing had grown slow and regular. She was asleep.

Tam hung his head and padded into the kitchen. The stairs to the basement were choked with trash, but a hole in the floor where the stove had been let him climb down to the only refuge other than his mother's warm embrace for him. Hidden in a corner was a little black and white television that Tam had stolen from a truck that was making a delivery nearby. Years before someone had wired a single outlet in the basement without the power company's knowledge, and it became Tam's salvation.

The pallid glow reflected in his wide eyes as images began to dance across the screen. He sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, motionless except for the excited flicking of his tail. Last night he had watched Count Dracula rise from the dead -- again -- and lurk in the shadows of some city in another country. Tonight, though, was his favorite. A dinosaur as big as a skyscraper was walking through the city and pushing aside buildings like they were nothing. The army was shooting at it but their bullets bounced right off. Nothing could hurt it.

"I wish that was me," Tam said to himself. "I would show them what happens when they throw rocks at me, and I would make them give me medicine for Mama. If they didn't, I'd step on them!"

That dream, too, ended too quickly, and Tam realized that it would be dark soon. Quickly he turned off the television and clawed his way back up into the kitchen. The sun was setting and the rats were starting to come out, and before long Tam had caught two which he carried proudly into the bedroom to share with his mother.

"That's my fine hunter," she said with a smile as she took the larger rat from him. "But could you only catch two?"

"I could have caught more," Tam said around his mouthful of meat. "But I didn't want you to have to wait, and besides, you said to be home before dark."

His mother chuckled weakly. "You always do what you're told. Next time, though, I want you to catch as many as you want. You're too skinny."

"Yes, Mama."

She smiled and nibbled at her rat in silence. She only finished half of it before she took a deep breath. "I think I'm done. You can have the rest of mine."

"No, Mama," Tam said worriedly. "You need to eat."

"But I'm not hungry." She looked into his anxious eyes and cupped his cheek in her hand. "But...I'll keep it here for later. I'm sure I'll be hungry again in the morning."

Tam nodded, still uncertain, but his mother drew him close and put her arms around him. "That medicine helped a lot. I feel stronger, and look, I'm not coughing any more."

Tam's eyes widened. "Really?" He grinned and hugged her close. "You'll be better soon, won't you?"

"Of course," she whispered, lying back with his head pillowed on her breast. "I promise." She began to purr deeply, her hand stroking Tam's ears. Joyful tears puddled in his eyes and he pressed them dry on her fur. Her purring thrummed in his ears, seeping all the way into his soul and lulling him into a deep and contented sleep.

In the morning, Tam was alarmed to find that his mother's breathing had grown gurgly and harsh again. "Mama, the medicine isn't working!"

She woke and was immediately seized by a fit of coughing. "It is," she choked, "Of course it is. I just need to take some more."

"But...Mama, maybe we can try to go to the clinic again. Maybe this time they will see you."

She shook her head. "No, Dear," she said, and for just an instant Tam saw bitterness flash in her soft eyes, but she quickly hid it. "The clinic is for humans, and besides, we don't have any money anyway."

"I can get...my teacher will give me some, if I ask him."

"No, Tam." She drew him into her arms again. "There are no doctors for you or I." She swallowed the pill with difficulty. Tam had to help her lift the bowl to drink. "But what do we need a doctor for? All I need is this brave little boy who takes such good care of his Mama." Her tongue groomed lovingly at his cheek. "Now don't you be late for school. I'll want to hear all about what you learned when you get home."

Tam tried not to wince. "Yes, Mama."

He left her in the darkened room and trudged outside. He used the back door, since he would almost surely be beaten up by the other kids on their way to school if he left by the front. "Maybe," he said to himself, "I can steal a book from one of them and show it to Mama. I can even read it a little. That will make her feel better."

He dismissed the idea. The human children could run fast and were quick to raise the alarm. "I'll make something up," he said miserably. It was more important that he try to find a way to get more medicine for his mother. When she had hugged him good-bye he could sense the feebleness in her body. If she was going to get better she would need much more than the bottle of pills he had taken from the pharmacy.

Sometimes prayers are answered. As he sat mournfully in the alley he caught sight of a passing truck with "Medical Waste" printed on its side. His heart leaped. In his brief association with the gang he had learned that these trucks often carried drugs that were no good any more for humans, but there were still plenty of people who would pay a lot of money for them. Maybe he would even find something in there that would help his mother.

Quickly Tam scrambled up to the roof and leaped from one building to the next, following the truck as it made its slow way through the city streets. He lost sight of it once when it turned away, forcing him to scramble down to street level and dart across traffic to keep up. To his relief he caught up with it, and climbed back to the rooftops to follow it once more. He watched closely as it turned into a loading dock attached to a sprawling old warehouse, and was surprised when three armed men climbed out of the cab. "They must know how much money we could get for that stuff," he thought bitterly.

Two of the men opened the back of the truck while the third unlocked the dock door. Inside were two men with white coats, which caught Tam's interest. "Doctors?" he thought. "Is this a clinic?" He was even more intrigued when they began to take boxes out of the truck and carry them inside. Usually the boxes were being taken away.

His curiosity became too much to bear when he caught the smell of fresh, clean prey inside. Rats and mice and other things with fur that would taste good. "I could get food and medicine in there!" Tam thought excitedly. He licked his whiskers and crouched down low on the roof, watching as the men finished offloading their cargo and drove away.

Now what to do? The warehouse had no windows and every door that Tam could see had a security keypad next to it. There were small ventilator windows along the peak of the building, but coils of razor wire encircled the entire roof to prevent anyone from climbing up to reach them.

"Anyone but me!" Tam thought. With a graceful leap he cleared the razor wire and landed with a thud on the metal roof. He lay still for several minutes to see if anyone would come running, but nobody seemed to have heard. Carefully he crawled up the sloped roof and nudged at the ventilator windows until he found one that would open, and he slipped inside.

Like all old buildings, this one had a rusty catwalk running the length of its peak. Tam giggled inwardly at the irony of the name. It was dusty, meaning that nobody had been up here in years. Silently, Tam stole along the walk and disappeared into the access hatch in the far wall. There were no lights, but Tam's eyes were made for negotiating the darkness, and before long he had made his way down the decaying ladder to the hatch on the ground floor. He opened it a crack and peeked out; seeing that the coast was clear, he slipped out and ducked behind a big metal box standing in a corner. It was there that he almost screamed out loud.

The box was not a box at all, but rather an enormous cage with metal sides. Inside was a rabbit. Tam had seen rabbits before in the park, even caught a few for dinner, but this one was the size of a taxi. It peered back at him with an indifferent gaze, its nose twitching as it sampled his scent.

Tam clamped his hand over his mouth to keep his cry of alarm inside, and realized just then that someone was coming. He looked around frantically, noticed that the cage was mounted on heavy wheels, and quickly scrambled under it. He saw a man's shoes approach and pause. There was activity and the cage rattled and shook violently, and the man walked away. As always, Tam waited for several minutes before he ventured to emerge from his hiding place.

The rabbit was chewing on green pellets as big as Tam's head was and kept peering at him with that cool detachment. Tam crept farther out onto the floor, and saw to his amazement that the warehouse was full of these cages. Inside were rabbits of every size; one looked to be as big as a bus. If he could get that one home, he and his mother could have food for months!

Fear seized him as he heard a door closing somewhere. He did not want to get caught, or Mama would have nothing to eat. He would have to grab some food and get out quickly. Casting about the room he caught sight of a big, meaty rabbit sitting in an oversized cage nearby. That seemed odd. The must have run out of the right size cages for this one, he thought. The size of the cage proved to be to his advantage, though, as he slide open the door and crouched inside. He did not rattle the bars as he pounced, slapping his hands down on the frightened rabbit and quickly snapping its neck before it could make a sound. Dragging the twitching carcass from the cage, he threw it over his shoulder and made his way as quickly as he could out of the building.

It was dark and the house was very quiet when he returned. "Mama!" he said excitedly as he carried the rabbit into her room. "Look what I got! I caught it in the park. It's a big one, isn't it?"

There was no reply. "Mama? Are you sleeping?" Still nothing. "Wake up, Mama. I brought you some food."

The room was silent. Tam dropped the rabbit and crept with growing dismay toward the bed. "Mama? Mama?"

Her hand was cold when he touched it. It felt like concrete.

Tam cried out and fell back as if he'd been punched. "M-mama?" he whimpered, and started to cry. The only sound in the darkness was his own choked sobs as his young mind struggled with the truth. "I'll get help, Mama," he stammered as he stumbled out of the room. "Someone will help you. Please, don't die!"

All his life Tam had hidden from the authorities; now he turned to them desperately for help. His finger stuttered over the buttons on the phone at the gas station and he could barely blurt out the words. "Mama won't wake up!" he bawled. "Please help me! I don't know what to do! I promise I won't steal anything again. Just help her, please!"

"We're coming." The voice on the phone was calm and strong, like his mother's used to be. "We'll be there soon. What's your name?"

"T-t-Tam."

"Tam, you need to be calm. We need you to stand on the curb and show the ambulance men where your Mama is when they get there."

"I will!" Tam dropped the phone and ran back to his house. Already he could hear the ambulance siren whooping in the distance. "They're coming, Mama. They'll help you!"

Brilliant flashing lights. Voices barking on the radio. Men in glowing jumpsuits carrying boxes. Tam shouting tearfully to them from the doorway. Footsteps clumping on the rotted wood floor. Flashlights sweeping the room, and then...

"Oh, Jesus. It's just a goddamn cat."

Tam was stunned. A flashlight beam fell on his tear- streaked face. "For crying out loud," a voice grumbled. "Let's get out of here."

They started to leave. Tam clutched at one of their legs in the darkened hallway. "No, please!" he sobbed. "You said you'd help her!"

The leg jerked, knocking Tam back, and the flashlight beam blinded him again. "There's nothing we can do," the voice barked. There was a pause, and the voice was just a little softer. "Look, Kid, we're gonna send someone else over. You shouldn't be here anyway and it's not a good idea for them to see you. Go across the street and stay there until they're gone. You'll do that, right?"

Tam bit his lip and nodded slowly. The beam turned away and the men departed. The ambulance pulled out silently, its lights dark.

An hour later Tam watched from across the street as a van pulled up and a man climbed out and entered the house. A few minutes later he emerged again, muttering to himself as he dragged along a big black plastic bag. Mama's arm poked out of it and bumped stiffly upon the stairs before the man hefted the bag up and threw it into the back of his van. Tam watched in silence until the man, the van, and his Mama were gone, and then he shuffled back across the street and into the house.

The room was silent. The covers had been tossed off of the mattress and Tam could still see the outline of his mother's body upon it. He pressed his nose to it, drinking in her scent, already missing her warmth. Sniffling, he lay on the bed and put his arm out, as if his mother was still there and he was holding her. He tried to comfort himself with thoughts of happy times, of his mothers soft purr and her gentle touch, but all he could see was her arm hanging from that black bag.

The rabbit still lay when he had left it, its eyes open, staring lifelessly at him. Tam did not feel like eating, but Mama had always worried that he did not have enough food, and to let this go to waste would have made her very upset. Sniffling back his tears Tam began to eat. The meat that he stripped from the bones was bitter, worse than that of the rats he caught behind the crack house, but he ate it all, because Mama would have wanted him to. When he was finished he crawled back onto the mattress and once again tried to imagine that he was cuddled in his mother's arms as he drifted into a fitful sleep.

Some hours later Tam awoke with a cry and sat up. "Mama?" he blurted out. He felt dizzy and shook his head to clear it. The room was all wrong.

His legs stretched well over the edge of the mattress, his heels resting on the cold floor. Tam stared in disbelief. This had to be a dream! His legs bulged with muscles that had not been there before. His body felt thicker, and he realized that his arms too, had grown enormous. Alarmed, Tam rolled to his knees and stood up, and immediately cracked his head against the ceiling. Plaster rained down as he fell to his knees, clutching at his head. "Owww! What's happening?"

The room had grown tiny. No. Tam had grown big. Just like the rabbit whose bones were piled in the corner. His astonished whimper gave way to a yelp as he felt a stabbing pain in his belly. He realized that it was a pang of hunger, stronger than any he had ever felt before. He had always been able to find food, even if only a little, but he felt now as though he had not eaten for a year. The pain made him almost dizzy. "Have to find food," he gasped.

Frantically he crawled forward and squeezed his shoulders through the doorway. It gave way around him, splitting outward and sending more plaster and pieces of wood raining down on his back. Panting, Tam clawed his way over the creaking and splintering floor to the back door and tumbled out into the alley.

His stomach was on fire. Tam cast his gaze wildly around the alley and spied a group of rats feasting on some of the garbage that had been dumped there. With a growl Tam leaped on them and seized the largest rat in his hand. He squeezed tightly to keep it from squirming free, and the rat's body popped. Tam gasped and stared, amazed, at the newfound strength in his forearm. Hunger clawed at his belly, though, leaving him no time to wonder. He hastily devoured the mangled rat and plunged his hand into the garbage pile to fish out more. Each would easily have made a meal for him just a day before, but now they were no better than tiny mice. He gulped them down without chewing, his appetite screaming for more. When he could find no more rats he tore into the garbage, bolting down anything with the smell of meat on it.

He thought that his hunger would be sated, but instead it burned more agonizingly than ever. His stomach screamed for greater nourishment. Tam knew where to find it.

The men who had entered the warehouse earlier had pushed a code on a keypad. Tam did not know that code, but that did not matter. Gripping the keypad in one large hand he tore it from the wall, and then he sunk his claws into the garage door and strained. Metal groaned and then broke, and the door rushed upward, slamming off its tracks. Tam ducked inside and gazed upon the rows of cages, their inhabitants rustling nervously in response to the intrusion. He leaped on the nearest cage and tore it open with a mighty pull. The rabbit inside screamed and kicked as he sank his claws into its flesh and dragged it out, his teeth crushing its throat and putting an end to its struggles. He tore it to pieces with savage lust, bolting down meat and guts in great chunks, leaving behind only a pool of blood and tatters of fur. He barely noticed that the ruined cage was now far smaller than it had been. He was thinking only of quenching the burning inside.

The next cage came apart even easier than the first. Its occupant bolted for freedom, but Tam slapped it down to the floor with a heavy hand, cracking its spine in two. He dragged it to his mouth and bit into its limp hindquarters, ripping off the meat and swallowing it while the front half still screamed and jerked.

The fire in his belly was dying down. After the second rabbit was gone it had faded to an ember, but it had not gone away. Tam was still hungry, and with so much food about he could think of no reason to stop. He ate three more of the rabbits before he heard the thud of a car door closing outside the building.

A jolt of terror hit him and he scrambled to his feet. Only then did he realize that as he had fed he had been growing. His eartips now brushed the high catwalk where he had first stolen his way into the building. The loading dock door through which he had burst in his hungered frenzy was now a tiny hole that would barely fit his arm, let alone his whole body. He was trapped, and too big now to hide.

A small door opened, letting in a shaft of early-morning light, and two tiny human people strode in. Tam stood motionless, terrified, trying to think of how to explain himself when one of the two screamed and pointed at him. Both of them started to babble in high-pitched cartoon voices and then both turned and ran for the door.

Tam whimpered as he watched them go and knew now that he was in even bigger trouble than before. His kind always suffered the most at the hands of the law. They would lock him away so far that he would never see daylight again. He would have nothing to eat but stale bread and water.

But wait! Lock him away where? There was no jail big enough to hold him. Even the walls of the warehouse trembled when he brushed against them and would probably rip like paper if he gave them a push. He started to smile as he thought of tiny people trying to find handcuffs big enough to fit the giant cat that he had become. It would be so easy just to flex his arms and break the cuffs off and then just walk away.

Or maybe...just maybe...for the first time in his life, he would be able to get back at them.

Tam's smile broke into a huge grin as he realized that his little prayers had been answered. He raised his arms and stared at one, and then the other. Always they had been thin and frail; now they bulged with gigantic muscles like the superheroes in the comic books he had found in the trash. He flexed his arm, turning his wrist and watching as his brand-new biceps slid to and fro beneath his stretched fur. His chest felt as hard as iron against his fingers. No more ribs. He couldn't even find them beneath the thick muscle.

A sudden cracking sound made him jump. The noise was coming from the concrete floor beneath his feet. Long dark lines were starting to snake forward from beneath his toes, then branching off and forming new ones. Tam stared in wonder, and then lifted his foot experimentally and stomped down hard. The entire building shook violently and many of the cages toppled. The concrete shattered beneath his foot and billowed up up in a white cloud of dust. When he lifted his foot again he saw a deep and perfect imprint in the floor, surrounded by a spiderweb pattern of lines.

Tam coughed out a disbelieving laugh and stamped his foot again, pulverizing another dozen square feet of floor. It was true. He really was a giant! He bent down and scooped up a wooden desk in his hand. It felt like doll furniture, and when he clenched his fist it broke easily into slivers. Laughing loudly now he cast the shards aside and beat at his chest just like King Kong. Nobody was going to push him around again. Nobody was going to sneer at him or kick him into the gutter or throw him out of anywhere he wanted to be.

As a matter of fact, Tam started to think that it was time he made them sorry they had ever done any of those things.

Every kick, every scornful glare raced across his mind's eye. He saw himself being pushed out of the doors of the school. He saw his mother and him huddled together in their dark, cold home. He saw his mother being carried off in a plastic bag like a load of garbage.

Tears of rage pooled in his eyes and he blinked them down his cheeks. It was time to show them. He would make them sorry for their cruelty. Now they were the weak ones, and he would show them.

Again his belly rumbled, reminding him of the gnawing hunger that would not go away. It brought a terrible idea to Tam's mind. His eyes narrowed and his grin turned savage. He was going to make them pay for letting him and his mother starve, and it would be such sweet and appropriate justice. He would chase them through the dirty streets, him just walking while they ran for their lives. He would overtake them so easily and bend down and snatch them up by the handful, and then it would be just like eating crickets in the summertime.

He turned his attention back to the rabbits. They were squeaking and throwing themselves against their cage bars in panic. The largest one no longer seemed so big. In fact, it looked to be just the right size to make a good meal. The bars of the cage tore like cobwebs in his fingers, and Tam feasted.

Before long the rabbit was nothing more than little red bones. Tam licked some of the blood from his muzzle and tried to stand up, but now there was not enough room. His back hit the catwalk and bent it with a loud creak. For a brief moment Tam cringed with remorse at having broken something, but the feeling faded quickly, and for the last time. With a loud laugh Tam gathered his powerful legs beneath him, then braced his back on the ceiling and pushed upward. The roof tented upward and then ripped away from its supports, rising up like the lid of a box and falling away behind him as Tam stood up.

The sun had risen by now, and Tam's gigantic body cast an ominous shadow on the street below. He laughed again, the sound echoing off of the surrounding buildings, and flexed his enormous muscles for all to see. Eager to demonstrate his newfound might he drew back one foot and kicked the front wall of the warehouse apart with a single blow, then stepped out into the street. Pavement crunched like crusted snow beneath his soles. A cab sped toward his foot and then screeched to a halt. All four of its doors flew open and four tiny, frail-looking figures scrambled out and scattered. Tam grinned ferociously at them and then placed his foot on the cab. It collapsed with comical ease, the metal groaning and tires popping noisily as he pressed it flat. He felt a surge within him and imagined that he was still growing, the city withering ever more feeble and helpless beneath him. He took a step forward, almost catching up to his first fleeing victims with that one stride. You look like bugs, he whispered gleefully to himself, and I'm gonna step on you!

A police car careened toward him, its siren screaming madly. It spun to a halt and a blue-clad figure tumbled out, then darted toward the giant and raised a miniscule hand defiantly. Tam roared with laughter at the insect's bravado. Slowly he raised his foot and swung it forward, until his toes blocked his view of both officer and patrol car. He paused, allowing his foot to hover ominously over the intended prey. "Better get out of my way," he thundered, "Or I'm gonna crush ya!"

There was a loud pop and a sudden sharp sting in the sole of his foot. Tam yelped and stumbled backward, wincing as his foot came down and sent a jolt of pain through him. It felt like he had stepped on a nail. There was another pop, a flash from the policeman's upraised hand, a stabbing pain and a rosette of blood in the fur of Tam's chest. Tam froze and stared, baffled, at the little hole. Suddenly another appeared next to it, accompanied by another burst of pain.

Tam yelped and backed away, throwing his hands up to try to shield himself from the policeman's fire. This was not the way it was supposed to be! Bullets always bounced off the monster. They weren't supposed to be able to hurt him, but then a burning sting in the palm of his hand made it brutally apparent that not all one sees in the movies is real.

Tam stared dumbfounded at a neat red hole that went astonishingly all the way through his hand, and then he felt hammering blows on his back. Policemen had gathered behind him and begun firing, their bullets crashing like a stinging storm of grit into his body. "Stop it!" Tam cried out. "I'm sorry! I wasn't really going to hurt anyone!" He turned and kicked impulsively at one of the police cars behind him. He missed, but the storm of gunfire increased. From the rear of the ranks of police one officer raised a tiny shotgun. Tam heard its familiar boom, and all at once he could not see. It felt like someone had thrown a handful of sand into his eyes and when he raised his hand to them they felt wet.

Blinded, Tam stumbled desperately away from the withering fire. His foot hit a wall and crashed into it, throwing him off balance. With a deafening roar he fell into the building, crumbling its facade and sending him sprawling to the ground. Bullets hammered into his body from everywhere, and try as he might he could not shield himself. His fur was starting to soak through with his own blood. "Mama!" he wailed. "Mama, help me! Make them stop!"

The only answer was the chatter of gunfire. Tam blinked his eyes frantically. "Stop it!" he pleaded, "I give up," but as he spoke the inside of his mouth caught fire and filled with blood. Sobbing, he tucked himself up into a tight ball. "I'm sorry!" he whimpered.

The pain was indescribable. Every inch of his flesh felt like it was burning. He could feel blood dripping down from his body and was starting to tremble. "Mama..." he sobbed. "Mama, help me, please! I'm cold, Mama. I'm so cold..."

He curled up tighter and drew a long, shuddering breath. He thought very hard about the comforting warmth of his mother's arms until it made the rattle of the police gunfire fade into the distance and the burning pain at last went away.

If so, please consider supporting the Arts with a small donation by clicking on the image below. Donations can be any size -- whatever you feel the story is worth -- and can be made via Paypal or Visa/Mastercard. Proceeds will go toward the "Buy Rogue enough meat so that he does not eat the people who visit his web page" account. Every donation will help to ensure that there are more stories posted in the future for your macro-enjoyment. Any payments are strictly voluntary. Of course, sparing your home town a visit from Rogue is also strictly voluntary.