You look around the darkened store. It's after-hours, so it isn't like there's any customers here to confuse the chase. Your nose twitches as you sniff the air, and you sneeze violently as the remnants of someone's perfume tickles your nostrils.
"Well, good luck," your Uncle says. In the time you've taken to try and find Alex, he's taken a smartphone from somewhere and started texting. "I'll just give Alex a headsup to this-" a distant 'pa-ding!' from a text notification attracts your attention. Some alien understanding immediately pinpoints it to the warehouse, and you drop to all fours and gallop off before your uncle has stopped talking, "-chase. Whoopsie-doodle, looks like it's on."
Clothing racks dart past your vision as you gallop towards the door that leads to the warehouse. You slide to stop on the carpet, feeling the friction in your butt, thigh and paws, then you stand, gently open the door by the handle, step through and quietly close it again. You crouch, ears swivelling, and you catch the subtle sound of someone using a smartphone software keyboard. You pass by racks of leering masks, huge boxes of accessories, and stop by the head of an aisle full of assorted bric-a-brac as you start listening again.
"Werewolf?" Your hearing picks up the word, and you dart forward on all fours, following the sound of Alex's voice. "He really expects me to believe he's told 'his pet werewolf' to 'go fet- OOF!"
You didn't actually mean to, but the moment you spot Alex, you lunge forward in a feral approximation of a diving tackle. Your clawed hands grip his belt as he falls, you tuck your legs under yourself, and you ride your cousin across the slick, painted floor, perched in the small of his back. There's a tearing noise mid-slide, you feel your hands move apart too easily, and you glance down and behind you to find that you may have been a bit too rough; somehow, in your enthusiasm, you've managed to snap Alex's belt and tear the denim of his shorts all the way down the back.
"Huff," you say, as you slide to a stop. A glance tells you that his phone has come to a stop several feet away, and that it's still spinning.
"AAAoow! Shit, man!" Alex takes a breath as you step off his back and crouch next to him, grin plastered across your muzzle. "I mean, there's jokes, and there's- oh FUCK!"
You watch your cousin's face fall slack as he rolls over and sees you, then he scrambles backwards and away, leaving a trail of shredded denim and cotton in his wake. There's a glistening path of liquid, and a sniff tells you that it's acrid, entirely too yellow and stinking of fear.
"Hrrrm?" You let your muzzle cover your teeth, eye the pee trail for a moment, then focus on Alex and tilt your head.
You can see that he's gotten tangled in the tattered remains of his shorts, and he's trying to kick them off in a panic. It looks like you may have accidentally shredded his underwear during the slide too. As you watch, you see a sneaker bounce across the floor in your general direction, then you stand up and walk towards him. He goes still as you approach, then his eyes widen as you crouch next to him, flash him a brief grin, grab his shoulder and hip and forcibly flip him over.
You firmly sit on his naked buttocks, let your weirdly small, skinny tail wag once against the small of his back, and then catch his remaining sneaker as he tries to kick you and delicately pull it off. With the care of someone who is trying to be as gentle as possible, you pull the remains of his shorts and underwear off and flick them onto the floor some distance away.
You turn your head and upper body to look at the back of his head.
"Hrff?" you ask
"Dude, I can't understand you."
"Hrff," you reply, then turn back to what you were doing, grab his feet one at a time and pull his socks off. You cough and make a face, privately wondering how long he's been wearing those rancid things, and toss them on the floor next to the nearby lone sneaker.
Then you stand up and get off him.
Alex lays there for a while, just breathing, and then lets out a shuddering sigh.
"You know, man," he says, relief in his voice, "for a few minutes there, I really thought you were going to eat me."
He puts his hands against the floor and pushes into the press up position, which you take as marvellous timing because you grabbed his feet and lifted at the same time. You feel one of his legs kick spasmodically in your grip, then open your mouth, line up his feet and pretty much engulf him up to the knees.
"Wha-?"
You feel him turn as you open your throat, place your hands on the floor and push your way up to his waist. The taste of Alex's fear-pee fills your mouth, making you wince, then you forcibly swallow, dragging him further into you.
"Oh, shit! You ARE eating me!"
You're pretty sure you can feel Alex's feet in your stomach as he starts trying to punch you and keep himself off the floor at the same time. You pause for a moment, then use one hand to flick his t-shirt and hoodie up, and then swallow again so that your teeth reach his lower chest. You blindly grab a few times, manage to grasp Alex's flailing hands, and then pull, dragging him further down your throat, just before you stand up.
"Uncle Jack," Alex shouts as he slides into your expanding stomach, "you're such a prick!"
Alex's hands are the last to go, reflexively grasping at air, then you swallow, snap you jaws closed and hard swallow, sending your cousin to your oversized gut. You shake your head to dislodge Alex's hoodie and t-shirt, and then rub your hands over your abdomen. Bulges appear in your furred skin; a face, an elbow, maybe a knee, as Alex struggles to try and escape, or at least hurt you. It only takes a few moments for the hard details to fade, and then abruptly you hear a liquid noise from inside you, and your stomach sags.
To your utter astonishment, the bulge keeps fighting. Now it's flinging its entire mass from side to side, even as it shrinks, and threatening to make you lose your balance. You hold on to your poor, abused gut until the movements become little more than a twitch behind your muscled abs, and then stop entirely.
Finally, with a sense of satisfaction, you let out a long, liquid belch.