Catnip

Harry Goldman, a teenage prodigy thrown into
jail for illegal research, is teamed up with a transgenic cat-girl
and soon finds himself in love and running for his life.

Harry Goldman, teenage DNA researcher,
genius, and total nerd, is thrown into jail for illegal transgenic
research. Freed by the FBI on the condition he works under their
aegis, Harry is taken to New York where he meets Anastasia, a
cat-girl and the product of transgenic engineering. No sooner do
they get acquainted then they are attacked by another creature, a
bear which is more than a bear, and are forced to flee for their
lives. Along the way, they encounter furries, Doug the Dog, find
out that they are more into each other emotionally than they’re
willing to admit, and end up in the Catskill Mountains where Harry
finds out the shocking truth about how Anastasia was created...and
what she was created for.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Catnip

Copyright © 2014 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0009-5

Cover art by Carmen Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any
review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in
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Smashwords Edition

Catnip

By

J.S. Frankel

Nick Winter crawled out of his cardboard box
in his New York alleyway, scratched himself all over, and rubbed
the sleep from his dirt-encrusted eyes. After scanning the area for
any immediate danger and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he
settled back against the hard stone wall, wiped his grimy face with
an equally grimy hand, and took a good look around at his home.

Yeah, this was the place. He thought of the
alleyway, a narrow, hemmed-in, broken and filthy concrete case as
his
turf, as in no one could come around and settle without
his permission. No walking or loitering. Follow those rules and
you’d live. Disobey them and there’d be hell to pay. He had rules,
same as any shop did, and he expected everyone to respect the place
where he’d chosen to settle.

Sure, it was a narrow, rat-infested and
filthy space populated by thrown away garbage, cockroaches and
other denizens of the lesser forms of existence, and yes, it stank
to high heaven when he or his alley mate relieved themselves in the
corners, but still, a man’s home was his castle, and he defended it
by any and all means when necessary.

He gazed up at the sky, noted that the stars
were still out and shining their eternal light upon the Earth
below, and felt at peace. Why shouldn’t he feel at peace right now?
The streets were quiet, with only the occasional passerby, and
anyone out on the street at this hour of the night had to either be
heading home from the graveyard shift or searching for a place to
flop down and sleep it off.

A quick glance at the moon’s position told
him it had to be around one in the morning, although he couldn’t be
sure, as he hadn’t owned a watch in years. He measured days only in
terms of when it was time to sleep, eat, take a dump, and drink.
Nothing else mattered. Red wine suited him best, but it wasn’t the
season.

Then he laughed, a harsh, wet sound, the
result of too many bottles of cheap hooch, bummed cigarettes from
the passers-by, and leftovers from the trash cans he scoured during
the hours of the day when he wasn’t sleeping off the aftereffects
of the previous night’s drinking.

Whether going at it solo or mano a mano, when
imbibing, he couldn’t be beat. Booze didn’t know the season and
Nick was a drinking man. He hit the bottle whenever and wherever he
could. His life had followed the path of alcohol for the longest
time, and now, at the age of forty-three, when he reflected on his
life during those all too few and rare moments of sobriety, he had
nothing else to live for.

He breathed the heavy nighttime air in and
out, felt conscious of the heat, and wiped more sweat from his
face. It was hot out, unseasonably so. New York always got pretty
toasty in June, but by now it had turned into the summer-from-Hell
category, even at night. Global warming, he thought abstractedly as
he picked at a scab from his right arm. Maybe there was some truth
to that rumor. The reporters always said so. He inhaled deeply once
more and savored the smells—both good and bad—of the city. A
coughing fit suddenly hit him and a wad of phlegm involuntarily
made its way out of his mouth and into the nearby sewer grate.

His chest, pale, white, and very hairy,
itched fiercely, so he opened his shirt and scratched himself all
over, shooed out a few bugs and checked through his worn clothes,
which consisted of a pair of found slacks, found shoes, lumberjack
shirt—he’d gotten that at a soup kitchen down the block—and leather
belt which he’d made himself in his spare moments some years back,
to make sure no one took his stash.

It wasn’t much, only about a hundred bucks,
old bills along with some pocket change, and he always kept it
rolled up in a plastic bag and secreted it in his worn trousers. He
called it his emergency stash, either for taking a bus out of this
place or buying a cheap bottle of Thunderbird when his other
sources dried up.

“Hey man,” someone called out. “Did you see
anyone around?”

Nick didn’t answer the other guy, although he
knew who it was. Fat George, a lumbering six-foot-six two hundred
and eighty-pound giant, hairless and bald like an egg, was the only
other regular in this alley located in the Bowery. George called
out again, “We got any visitors?”

Winter snorted with derision. George had to
be crazy coming up with the idea of visitors coming there and
invading
his
turf. Not likely, not now, and not ever! There
had been shambling losers in the past who’d tried just that, the
usual hopheads, the punks who carved others up for the sheer fun of
it, and of course some of the more zealous men in blue who’d tried
to roust them, but Nick wouldn’t have any of it. This was his place
and his alone.

Every possible invader passed through, and if
they dallied they were met either with silence or with rage. Nick
preferred the latter, as it stated his case once and for all, and
at six-two and around two-thirty, he knew how to fight. He’d
whacked out a few other guys armed with knives, and even the
toughest of the tough didn’t bother to disturb his sanctuary.

“Hey, it’s too hot to sleep, ain’t it?”

Yeah, no kidding it was. “It’s hot enough,”
Nick answered him in his thick voice and then decided to be nice
about it all. George was a decent enough fellow, shared his wine
freely, and often did guard duty. In return, Nick protected his
alley-mate’s space along with his most precious possession, a
radio.

He scratched his head, felt more scabs on his
scalp, and ran his fingers over his stubbly chin. What day was it
today? Oh, yeah, it was Thursday, which meant he’d be able to
shower up at the car wash later on when it opened. He liked to
shave when he could—beards weren’t for him—and unlike the other
bums, he also liked to keep clean. Phil down at the local car wash
always let him use the spray guns. He was an okay guy, Nick mused,
and after checking his clothes once more for bugs and finding
nothing save the usual grit, he turned his attention back to the
larger man.

“You gonna listen to music,” he asked
George.

“I’m outta juice,” the answer came amidst the
sounds of digging in a nearby bin. “I gotta scrounge me up some
power if I wanna listen to the Golden Oldies.”

“I’ll see what I can find.” Nick watched as
his friend tossed aside the various odds and ends all over the
alley, searched for the elusive battery, and came up with nothing.
Finally, his alley-mate gave a sigh of disgust and sat down,
scratched his chest and fished up his nose for some heretofore
unfound gold.

George didn’t have the best of manners, so
Nick turned away, figured he’d walk around a bit, check the backs
of the restaurants for leftovers, see if he could find some
batteries for George’s radio, and then catch some shut-eye. Yeah,
do all of those things in order? He’d get the job done. He always
had.

Nick was about to move off when he heard the
sound of someone landing right behind him. It was a faint, almost
imperceptible sound, and it startled him. He stood stock-still. The
impossible had just happened! No one could just up and land without
him hearing it first!

He was no commando, but the years he’d spent
in alleys like this one in as well as the others around New York
had taught him to be wary of anything and had sharpened his senses.
He whirled around and whipped out a rusty knife from his pants that
he’d picked up in his travels. His feet automatically settled into
a fighting stance.

“You’re tryin’ to steal from me? Mister, you
just bought yourself a can of beatdown. Whoever you are, come and
get some!”

A figure emerged from the shadows at
lightning speed and slapped the knife out of his hands. It
clattered to the pavement and Nick stared at the creature in front
of him. In the glow of the moonlight, he saw the thin coat of fur,
the tail whipping back and forth, and the eyes, yellow and bright.
He’d never been afraid of much, but this…this…whatever it
was…suddenly put the fear of God in him, and immediately he
experienced the overwhelming urge to urinate. He strained to keep
everything in and couldn’t. His bowels partially loosened and then
a hot stream of pee poured down his leg. “Who are you?”

The creature didn’t make a sound. It took a
step closer and Nick backed up in fear against the brick wall. He
smelled matted fur, excrement and urine, his own as well as the
more pungent smell that came from his attacker. It was a strong
smell—strong, penetrating, and dangerous—like a predator’s. And he
was the prey. This he knew for a fact, and in the back of his mind,
he also knew his time to die had come up.

“You mess with my bud?” George growled. “That
is the wrong thing to do, man!”

Oh Lord Jesus, Nick thought with relief, the
cavalry’s just come in. Good old George, there to watch his
back.

The behemoth clamped his huge arms around the
thing. The creature struggled briefly and then hung its head as if
in defeat. Nick thought it looked like a cat, but he couldn’t be
sure. It had a tail, yeah, fur, spots, but the features…and the …it
had
breasts
…it was a
woman
! His buddy yelled out in
triumph, “I got him, man, I got him…”

Abruptly, George’s voice rose into a
high-pitched scream as the creature casually raked its claws, long
and very, very sharp, up and down his forearms. The big man let go
and staggered back. Blood ran from his wounds and he howled in
pain. “Damn it, you cut me!”

To Nick, it seemed that everything happened
in slow-mo, and then the cat-lady—there was no other word he could
think of—whipped her tail around and smacked George in the face.
The impact sent him spinning twenty feet down the alleyway. He hit
the cement hard, stirred, and stopped moving.

Beyond terror now, Nick’s mouth opened and
closed spasmodically. “What are you, man?”

The creature pivoted gracefully to face him
and grabbed his shirt with one hand. He got a better look at the
thing now. Yes, it looked like a cat—and didn’t. About five-eight,
it had high ears, long, straight hair and the fur of the typical
house pet, but the features—the nose and mouth and eyes—were human.
The hands, while also human, were covered in a light coat of fur
and had claws instead of fingernails. The claws extended out almost
two inches in length, and yes, he’d seen how sharp they were. When
it spoke, though, its voice sounded totally feminine…and totally
pissed off. “First off, I’m not a man—
man
—and second, do you
have any food?”