CHANGE OF LIFE Chet Williamson

When Leonard Drew checked into the Ramada Inn, he was polite and dignified with the girl at the registration desk, bluff and hearty with the middle-aged man who carried his luggage, and debonair and witty with the woman at the bar, who, for a certain sum, was willing to meet him in his room later that evening. It wasn't just the money, Leonard told himself. She liked him, he was sure of it.

And why shouldn't she? Leonard was well liked everywhere because, as he told the junior sales trainees, he was adaptable. People liked him because he became one of them, because he used their language, because he said "So the bitch don't work so good, huh?" to the guys in the machine shops that used his company's products, and because he told marketing managers that he would make his report "just as soon as I access the data and interface with my associates." Leonard was adaptable, and that, he well knew, was why he was going places in Bentson Industries.

Now, as he kicked off his Florsheims, undid his yellow power tie, and flopped down on a bed as solid as his portfolio, he became aware of a sound issuing from the throat of the only sort of human with whom he did not feel comfortable — children.

"Daddy? Izzis the one?" Leonard Drew's doorknob rattled as the, no doubt, filthy urchin out in the hall shook it.

"Just a minute, Tommy!" came a woman's voice weakly.

"Izzisit?" The doorknob rattled again, and the door clunked against its frame.

Leonard nearly shouted, No, iz izn't it, you little asshole, but restrained himself, and instead, in a more devilish mood, leapt from the bed, tiptoed to the door, and growled as deeply as he could.

"Grrrr-aaaahhh!" said Leonard.

"Waaaaaaah!" the urchin remarked, and his cry grew fainter as he ran down the hall. "A bear! A bear, Mommy!"

"Aw, f'crissake," came a man's voice, followed by the woman's clucking. Leonard giggled and listened, his cheek and ear against the cold metal frame, to the boy's insistent cries of A bear, a bear! and then a key seeking its hole, a door opening and closing, and silence. Leonard giggled again, climbed onto the bed, and closed his eyes for a little nap.

When he woke up fifteen minutes later, he did not get upset about the growth of new, black, wiry hair on his hands. He was too busy being upset about the way his fingernails had grown into hooked claws. But that was before he noticed that his body, which was also covered with wiry, dark hair, was about three times its normal size and had burst out of its clothing. The thing that upset him the most, however, was that he could see his nose. Not see it as he'd always seen it before, a little pink lump when he went cross-eyed, but really see it, far enough out there to be in focus. It too was black. And moist.

When Leonard finally roused the courage to look into the mirror, he saw that the sum of the parts did indeed make a whole. He had become a bear. A good-looking bear, well-built and with a handsome, shiny coat, but a bear who certainly had no future with Bentson Industries.

Leonard was not only adaptable, he was logical, and after only ten minutes of ursine blubbering, he realized that the boy in the hall had had something to do with his metamorphosis. It was absurd, but the little brat had called him a bear, and now he was one, so what Leonard had to do now was —

FIND BOY

It was a fat and lumpy thought, not at all like Leonard's usually quick and incisive ones, and he realized with a shock that it must have come from the fat and lumpy bear brain that was in the process of replacing his own.

FIND BOY said his brain again, and he wondered when he did find him, if he'd reason with the kid or eat him.

His bear body, primitively reacting to his human thoughts, lumbered to the door. Leonard had enough presence of mind to snatch his yellow tie from the bed with a hairy paw and toss it around his thick neck, hoping that no one would shoot a bear in a power tie.

FIND BOY

It wasn't easy to get the door open, but Leonard did it, sticking a Florsheim between the door and frame since he knew damn well he'd never be able to work a key. At that moment a door opened halfway down the hall and a man stepped out of a room.

"Can I come, Daddy?"

"I'm just going for ice. You stay with Mommy."

"All alone?"

"She's in the bathroom…" The door closed and the man went down the hall in the opposite direction.

BOY

Leonard trundled down the hall on all fours, feeling rationality slipping away from him, knowing only that he had to find the boy, and not knowing what he would do when he did. He sat up on his hind legs in front of the room from which the man had come, and scratched on the door with the long nails of his forepaws.

"Tommy, see who that is!" came a voice from inside. Leonard scratched some more, heard a thumping, and realized that the boy was jumping up and down, trying to see through the peephole.

"Tommy?"

"Huh?"

"Who is it?"

"I dunno…" Tommy answered, obviously afraid to open the door. "Just some man…"

Leonard felt something wiggle inside him, felt the clumsy bear thoughts begin to fade and be replaced by his own clear impressions.

Just some man…

God bless you, you little fucker, Leonard thought, shambling back to the door of his room, feeling himself get thinner and thinner, welcoming the chill, poorly heated hall air on his rapidly balding skin, and best of all, seeing his nose disappear.

And as he dashed through the door, a bear no longer, but a stark-naked man, he thought once more, God bless you, you weird little bastard, and I'm never gonna get near you again…

"Oh yeah, baby," moaned Lisa, the woman he had met in the bar, "you are somethin'…"

It was the usual patter, but tonight it sounded good, and he smiled as he thought how close he had come to doing it in front of a zoo audience. That kid, that weird little kid. Christ, if he hadn't said that to his mom about it being some man…

"Oh baby, oh God…"

He felt Lisa begin to convulse and speeded up. After they both shuddered for the last time, she collapsed on top of him. "You are incredible. You are an absolute stud bull," she said huskily, and in another moment he knew that it hadn't been the boy's fault after all.

As he struggled to extricate the tip of his right horn from Lisa's left earring, and heard the bed frame crunch beneath his weight, he thought that perhaps there was such a thing as being too adaptable.