There were many misconception about the furry virus spread about online. One of the biggest was that mundane animals when infected with the virus would gain biomass from nowhere and grow into age-of-consent bodied adults with neurons connecting to create intelligence, reason, local language, and cultural understanding in the new animal all at once. This would destroy the local food chain if this was true. Let alone how there would far too few human prey to sustain a population of beasts that size. After all, animals included insects, bacteria, worms, arachnids, the almost microscopic skin mites that existed on every human being's skin on Earth ...
Another misconception was the idea that the beasts would somehow respect any human taboo... or because western humans thought old people were ugly that elderly beasts would cover themselves up (when in other culture it was the exact opposite).
This misconception actually enabled the virus to spread faster. Just because the animals could not suffer the virus' effects... didn't mean they couldn't be carriers.
Across entertainment was this idea the elderly, the very young, the pregnant, and other innocents, were always going to be immune to whatever harm was plaguing humanity, be it war, disease, or natural disasters... When in reality it was just the opposite. They were the vulnerable, and the vulnerable, are well, the most vulnerable.
And the carrier of the plague was the humble mosquito. It had bitten the last of a band of furs after they'd been gunned down by drone fire (machines having proven to be more effective than human beings against this danger for obvious reasons). There were even some speculations of in a couple hundred years, after the last humans were gone, the conflict would be between the furs and the machines.
The media had done a good job of playing down the furry virus as much as possible. After all, the people might vote for someone else if they learned the killer virus was proving very hard to contain and might even vote in new leaders this year. So the media let the rumors run wild that the furry virus was a hoax, while crushing any that reported on the virus' true infection rate as false information by their fact checkers.
The mosquito wandered into a forest where it in turn infect a deer, until it was killed by wolves, and the ticks left the dying host, until they latched onto some rabbits instead. The rabbit (which would have been eaten by a fox the same day for the record, and if had somehow avoided that fate, would have had its throat torn out by a rival male), was shot by an arrow and died instantly.
A boy and girl scout troop along with their scout mistress fed well on rabbit stew that evening before their parents were to pick them up the next day. Unlike most victims of the virus, the scout mistress and the scouts mostly slept through their transformation, the infection taking different time to alter each of them, but the long sleep gave everyone time to 'catch up'. The overriding imperative to feed on human flesh circumvented.
Eva, the scout mistress, her clothes discarded, examined herself that morning. She felt no panic nor fear. Only a calm acceptance. Her body was built like an amazon, and before she'd been in her forties, now she looked to be collage age. Not that it was easy to compared, her body now covered in black and silver fur, her head that of a wolf, with a tail to match, her feet digigrated, and her hands effectively paws with an opposable thumb.
She knew if she'd seen her scout troop, she'd have eaten them without hesitation. "Heh, I really a big bad wolf!" She laughed. She knew objectively she'd be disgusted and horrified at such thoughts before. Now, the only thing she felt was anticipation. The thought of human flesh making her muzzle water. "Children! Come out! Come out wherever you are!" She called. But already she smelled something very different.
Out the various scouts came... having discarded their uniforms like her, in this heat they'd have been cooking if they wore anything over their fur. She noted they all had bodies like junior body builders. And instead of growing bigger or older, if anything, had gotten YOUNGER and smaller... small compact masses of fur, fang, and muscle.
"Yes Madam Eva?" The scouts called like it was any other day, and lined up for roll call of what was supposed to be their last day at camp. Standing at attention like good scouts.
Eva noted there was no correlation in what any of them had become. One girl had become a goat, while her twin sister was a swan. One boy had become a piglet, while his little brother was now a bear cub. And there was a vast variety of beasts.
'Hmmmm. With how infectious this disease is... there's no way humans will last long. Combined with the instinct to devour humans... There's no way we're sustainable as a species as our numbers will quickly out-pace our prey. Humans are expensive to feed and take forever to grow to adulthood, they just don't make good cattle, stupid aliens. Though the variety of animals everyone turned into... can this virus really be natural? Or is it a buncha nanites getting random genetic information from the cloud? Would explain how one virus could contain the genetic samples of so many animals. Let alone how none of us grew paws out of our ears or had fur grow all over our internal organs. Could this have been the work of some lunatics who wanted people to 'get back to nature' and wanted to cleanse mankind from the Mother Earth? This is going to require some serious research. A blood sample to try and isolate the virus? Or the nanites. Or the magic runes in the blood. Maybe test some silver to see if this is some mad science modification of lycantropy? No less insane than anything else.'
That was when Eva heard the distant humming of car engines. She knew humans, the pack's parents, were coming for their children. No. Not their children. Another instinct struck her. One even more powerful and primal than the need to devour human flesh.
"Scouts... I am the largest and the strongest here, that makes me your alpha, you were hear and obey." She boomed.
"Yes Madam Eva." The scouts echoed.
"You are not human. The humans coming for you are not your parents. Not anymore. I am your mother. I will look after you. I will provide for you... Those humans are no longer your parents... they are your prey... hunt, feast on them, make your mother proud my cubs."
"Yes mother!" Her babies all echoed.
The pack of fourteen cubs (7 girls, 7 boys), made their way to the forested hill overlooking the roundabout where the former parents of Eva's cubs were parking to pick up their children from the camp grounds. But their children no longer existed, they were Eva's cubs.
"Go my children, make mother proud, burn your bridges, make your first kills."
"Yes mother!" The pack echoed and descended on their prey.