The Meowmorphosis

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES
BY
J
ANE
A
USTEN AND
S
ETH
G
RAHAME
-S
MITH

“Jane Austen isn’t for everyone. Neither are zombies. But combine the two and the only question is, Why didn’t anyone think of this before? The judicious addition of flesh-eating undead to this otherwise faithful reworking is just what Austen’s gem needed.”—
Wired

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS
BY
J
ANE
A
USTEN AND
B
EN
H. W
INTERS

“The effect is strangely entertaining, like a Weird Al version of an opera aria, and Eugene Smith’s amusing illustrations add an extra touch of bizarre hilarity.”—
Library Journal

“It’s a monsterpiece.”—
Real Simple

ANDROID KARENINA
BY
L
EO
T
OLSTOY AND
B
EN
H. W
INTERS

“Android Karenina
lives up to its promise to make Tolstoy ‘awesomer’ ”—
The A.V. Club

“Winters does a spectacular job, adding robots and mechanical terrorism to the misery, adultery, and philosophical introspection of Tolstoy’s masterpiece.”—
Library Journal

“This is quite possibly the definitive mash-up novel. If anything, the sci-fi elements add to the book’s feelings of isolation and humanity.”
—Den of Geek

“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It was no dream.

“But, sir,” called Gregor, “I’m opening the door immediately, this very moment.”

She held out her arms and Gregor leapt happily into them, propelled by some ancient instinct.

She bathed him vigorously, ignoring his caterwauls of protest.

Near the monument lounged a large cat not unlike himself—a tabby with a languorous expression.

The two cats tossed Gregor into a dank corner of the room.

Someone must have been telling lies about Gregor Samsa.

“I dreamed, I think, that a strange and beautiful cat was standing before me.”

Gregor’s labored breathing seemed to have reminded his father that he was a member of the family.

Gregor had no desire to create problems. He remembered his family with deep feelings of love.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten. He lay in bed on his soft, fuzzy back and saw, as he lifted his head a little, his brown arched abdomen divided into striped bowlike sections. His blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place as he rolled from side to side. His legs—too many!—pitifully thin compared to the rest of his rotund circumference, pawed helplessly before his eyes.

“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It was no dream. His room—a proper room for a human being, only a bit too small—lay quietly between the four well-known walls. On the
wall above the table, upon which was spread an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods—Samsa was a traveling salesman—hung the picture that he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman in a fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm had disappeared. Samsa felt a powerful urge to leap upon the sample cloths and scratch at them thoroughly, but as soon as it had come, it passed.

Gregor’s glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather—the raindrops were falling audibly on the metal window ledge—made him quite melancholy. “Why don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness,” he thought. But this proved quite impractical, for he was used to sleeping on his back, and in his present state he couldn’t get comfortable in this position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto his back, he always rolled again onto his furry side, or his belly, his haunches settling last onto his old bed. He must have tried it a hundred times, closing his eyes so he would not have to see the waggling paws, and gave up only when he began to feel a light, dull pain in his side that he had never felt before.

“O God,” he thought, yawning and stretching his front paws. “What a relentless job I’ve chosen! Day in, day out, always
on the road. The stress of sales is much harder than the work going on at the head office, and on top of that I have to cope with the problems of traveling: the worries about train connections, the irregular and bad food, the never-ending stream of new people with whom you never get to make a real connection. To hell with it all!” He felt a slight itching on the top of his back, between his shoulders. He slowly wriggled closer to the bedpost so that he could lift his head more easily, found the itchy part, which was entirely covered with small white spots—he did not know what to make of them and wanted to feel the place with a claw. But he retracted it immediately, for the contact felt like a cold shower all over him.

“WHAT’S HAPPENED TO ME?” HE THOUGHT. IT WAS NO DREAM.

He slid back again into his previous position. “This getting up early,” he thought, for his thoughts were already becoming quite feline, “makes a man stupid. A man must have his sleep.
Other
traveling salesmen live like harem women. For instance, when I go back to my inn during the course of a morning to write up the sales invoices, the other gentlemen are just sitting down to breakfast. If I were to try that with my boss, I’d be fired on the spot. Still—who knows whether that mightn’t be good for me, really? If I weren’t keeping this job for my parents’ sake, I’d have quit ages ago. I would’ve gone to the boss and told him just what I think from the bottom of my heart. He would’ve fallen right off his desk! And how bizarre it is, anyway,
for him to sit up at that desk and talk down to the employees from way up there, particularly since the chief has trouble hearing, so we have to step up quite close to him. Anyway, I haven’t completely given up that hope yet. Once I’ve made enough money to pay off my parents’ debt to him—that should take another five or six years—I’ll do it for sure. Then I’ll make my big break. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.”

He looked over at the alarm clock ticking away by the chest of drawers. “Good God!” he thought. It was half past six, and the hands were ticking quietly on; in fact, it was
past
the half hour, already nearly quarter to. Could the alarm have failed to ring? No, he saw from the bed that it was properly set for four o’clock; certainly it had rung. Yes, but how could he have slept through that noise, which made the furniture shake? Now, it’s true he’d not slept quietly, but evidently he’d slept all the more deeply. Still, what should he do now? The next train left at seven o’clock. To catch that one, he would have to go in a mad rush. The sample collection wasn’t packed up yet, and he really didn’t feel particularly energetic. And even if he caught the train, there was no avoiding a blowup with the chief, because the firm’s errand boy—the boss’s minion, really, lacking any backbone or intelligence—would’ve waited for the five o’clock train and long ago reported the news of his absence. Well then, what
if he reported in sick? But that would be extremely embarrassing and suspicious, because during his five years’ service Gregor hadn’t stayed home sick even once. The boss would certainly come with the doctor from the health insurance company, would reproach his parents for their lazy son and cut short all objections, echoing the insurance doctor’s avowed opinion that everyone was always healthy, just lazy about work. And would the doctor in this case be totally wrong? Apart from a really excessive drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor in fact felt quite well and even had a very strong appetite.

As he was thinking all this over urgently, yet still unable to make the decision to get out of bed—the alarm clock read exactly quarter to seven—there was a cautious knock on the door by the head of the bed.

“Gregor,” a voice called—it was his mother!—“it’s quarter to seven. Don’t you want to be on your way?” Her soft voice! Gregor began to answer but was startled when he heard his own voice: It was clearly and unmistakably his own, but in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressibly pert and endearing squeaking, which left the words distinct only for an instant and distorted them in the reverberation, so that one didn’t know if one had heard correctly. Gregor wanted to answer in detail and explain everything, but in these circumstances he confined himself to saying, “Yes, yes, thank you, Mother. I’m
getting up right away.”

Because of the wooden door the change in Gregor’s voice was not really noticeable outside, so his mother calmed down with this explanation and shuffled off. However, as a result of the short conversation, the other family members became aware that Gregor was unexpectedly still at home, and now his father was knocking on one side door, weakly but with his fist. “Gregor, Gregor,” he called out, “what’s going on?” And, after a short while, he yelled again in a deeper voice: “Gregor! Gregor!” At the other side door, however, his sister knocked lightly. “Gregor? Are you all right? Do you need anything?” Gregor directed answers in both directions: “I’ll be ready right away.” He made an effort with the most careful articulation and by inserting long pauses between the individual words to remove everything mewling and kittenish from his voice. His father turned back to his breakfast. However, his sister whispered, “Gregor, open the door—I beg you.” Gregor had no intention of opening the door; he congratulated himself on maintaining his wise travel habit of locking all doors during the night, even at home.