"Easy there, boys," AJ chuckled at the monkeys. "I know you're not used to me this late but I forgot my wallet. I can't buy groceries without it."
He had left his wallet by accident earlier that day at the zoo where he worked. He didn't realize until this late where he was about to do some late night shopping. Despite the zoo being shut down for the night, he let himself in with his keys to get his wallet. It was his day off tomorrow and he had plans to order pizza and maybe buy that new online game he had been eyeing. He needed that wallet tonight.
"See you around, boys," he said.
He ran past the monkey cage. The monkeys weren't his responsibility. He was zookeeper for the big cats. He hurried through the dark zoo and stopped to cast a glance down the paved trail leading down to his big cats.
"What the hell?" He mumbled.
He could have sworn he just saw a human walk towards the tiger cage. No one should be in here at this hour, and most certainly no one should let themself into a cage, but it happened from time to time that a crazy person broke into animal facilities around the world to get close to the animals. Most often with deadly outcomes.
"Not tonight, asshole!" He hissed lowly.
He hurried down the paved trail, passing different cages on his way. He felt the eyes of the lions and panthers watching their food slave run by at an hour where he normally didn't come. He heard the male tiger start going crazy as he reached the cage. Normally he was the most calm one of their three tigers. The females were more on edge than him but something had him angry tonight, and the anger was aimed at AJ.
"Easy there, Cheeseball," AJ said. "It's just me, boy. It's AJ. Where are the ladies? Banana? Tofu? Where are you, girls?"
He cringed a bit over the food names that the zoo owner demanded they picked for every animal in this zoo. Something about children finding it funny which AJ never understood. More children than adults told him they found the names stupid.
"There's one," he looked at one tiger. "Relax, Cheeseball. What the hell is going on tonight?"
He moved his eyes around in the darkness to try and locate the third tiger. To his surprise he found two tigers in the back looking scared as hell. He quickly moved his eyes to the female tiger closer to the front. There shouldn't be four tigers in that cage. Only three. One male and two females.
"Who the hell are you?" He asked.
The tigress moved up to Cheeseball, and the male tiger instantly stopped raging inside the cage. Whoever this tigress was, she was keeping him calm and the other two females scared.
"I don't know who you are or how you got in there but I'm calling for backup," he said.
He took out his phone and looked for the zoo owner's phone number. Maybe a new tiger had arrived today, and the owner had somehow forgot to inform AJ. That still didn't make sense though. No one would dump a new tiger into the cage like that before spending a lot of time having them sniff each other out and getting used to each other in cages side by side.
"Where are you?" He mumbled as he looked for the number. "Ah, there you are."
He didn't get to call anyone. Movement inside the cage made him look up. The unknown tigress started transforming. His jaw dropped when he saw a naked woman with long, reddish brown hair suddenly standing there.
"I'm dreaming," he said. "Wake me the fuck up! I'm dreaming!"
He pinched himself and groaned at the pain. The woman inside the cage walked over to let herself out. She closed the cage behind her and continued towards him. He started backing away in fear.
"Easy there, lady. Let's talk about this. How the hell did you just transform into a tiger? No wait, I'm hallucinating. That's gotta be it. I fell and hit my head, and I'm passed out somewhere. I'm not even here," he said.
He stumbled over something and landed on his ass. He looked at the clothes that apparently had been left on the ground. Black boots, camo pants, camo shirt and a dog tag in a chain on top. It had to belong to the woman who was still moving in on him with a deadly look in her eyes.
"Please!" He held up his hand. "We can talk about this."
She jumped on him without warning. He fell backwards and hit his head on the paved trail. He felt dizzy and blinked before looking up into those dangerous, dark brown eyes belonging to this crazy woman.
She lifted her hand, and he stared at those long nails ready to slash into him. It looked like they were transforming back into tiger claws. He couldn't be sure. He moved his hands around to find something to defend himself with. He felt something metal in his hand and closed his fingers around it. It was too small to do anything, and he never got a chance to even try. Everything went black as she slashed through his chest.