by Mark Tufo
“You’re whiskers tickle,” Zach said as he rubbed his face.
Patches sprang back and into me, normally I would have taken advantage of the proximity and given her a little bite, but I was too shocked myself to do much of anything beyond stare at the baby.
“Hi, Zach, do I have any peanut butter on my face?” Ben-Ben asked the baby as if it were the most natural thing. He moved his muzzle from side to side so the baby could see.
Zach smiled and said no. Patches pushed even further into me; she must have been scared if she was this close to me on purpose.
“This isn’t possible,” Patches said, finally removing herself from my side, but only by a few inches, I was fairly certain that if Zach said ‘boo’ she would be right back to her previous position.
“Sure it is,” Ben-Ben said. He had a foil packet stuck to his forehead as he spoke. “We all just heard him so it must be, right?” he asked at the end as if right now he wasn’t sure if he had made a valid point or not.
“Why have you never spoken before?” Patches asked, approaching, but from an angle as if she were stalking prey.
“I couldn’t until Mommy showed me the way.”
Patches’ tail was wagging back and forth violently. I really wanted to bite it, but I showed unbelievable restraint and didn’t.
“You sure are making a lot of noise, Zach,” Jess said. “You feeling better?” she asked, looking through the small image reflector. The relief in her voice was easy to pick up on.
“Mom and Dad say hi, Jess, they are so proud of you,” Zach gurgled.
“Oh, you sound so much better, Zach,” she said as she reached her hand back and tickled the bottom of his foot. “And your warm, thank you, God,” she added as she momentarily looked up.
I followed her line of sight to see if I could notice this God she spoke of and to.
“I don’t think I like this,” Patches said, her tail still swishing crazily about. “I don’t like surprises. I like to know where my food is, where my water is, where my litter box is, and where my bed is. That is what I like. This I don’t,” she said as she hopped back into the front seat. She made sure to keep looking into the back at Zach.
I moved closer to Zach. He tightly gripped my cheek in his fist. “My mommy and daddy said we need to find Michael.” And then he let go.
“Cat?” I asked.
“I don’t know who Michael is,” she answered, still peering intently at the baby.
“He’s Justin’s father,” Ben-Ben said, trying to rub his paw on top of his head to knock the packet off.
“Who?” I asked.
“Pheromone boy,” Ben-Ben replied.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Jess took me for a ride when she took Justin home one night. It was the best ride of my life; I found a bag of potato sticks stuck between the seat cushions…even had some of the red sauce the two-leggers call ketchup on it. Oh it was so delicious, even the bag it came in was good, tasted like grease.”
“Can you get back to the Michael part?” I asked.
“Oh, okay,” Ben-Ben said. I could see him trying to rip himself from the memory of eating the old french fries. “Jess and Justin were smelling each other faces.”
“Kissing,” Patches interrupted.
“Smelling faces,” Ben-Ben repeated, looking scornfully at the cat. “Now I know why Riley growls at you. Then this man comes to the wheeler and he had whiskers like us, and he knocked on the clear viewer, told Justin that he needed help moving something. Justin rolled the clear viewer down and told him he’d be right there. Jess said ‘Hi, Mr. Talbot,’ and the whiskered man said ‘Call me Michael,’ then he reached behind Justin and petted my head, said I wasn’t an English bulldog, but that I was cute anyway,” Ben-Ben said with his tail wagging.
“You believe that?” Patches asked me. “You can’t be considering it can you, this from the dog who chases his own tail because he doesn’t know what it is!”
“Hey!” Ben-Ben shouted. “Who knows where that thing has been!” The food packet finally fell from his head and he tore into it like he had found a box of hamburgers, completely forgetting that he had been a part of the conversation. “Whether he’s right or wrong, we don’t know where this Michael is or how to tell Jess what we know,” I told Patches, trying to take in all that was happening here now. “Zach, you know about your sires, right?” I asked cautiously.
“They’re on the other side,” he said sadly. “I miss them.”
I wasn’t sure about the exact meaning of his words, but he was conveying the right tone. “And they told you how to talk to us?”
Zach nodded.
“We should kick him out of the car,” Patches said.
“Don’t listen to her,” I told Zach.
“I didn’t even say anything,” Ben-Ben’s words were muffled, his face stuck in the packet.
“Interesting,” I said.
CHAPTER TWO
“Vegas! They should have doctors here, right?” Jess asked. The excitement in her voice faded quickly. The wheeler moved past some other wheelers that had been burnt like some of the food Alpha-male used to cook. And not all of them were empty; dead two-leggers were in more than one of the wheelers.
“Whoa what is this place?” Ben-Ben asked, shaking the packet off his muzzle. “I don’t like it,” he said needlessly. None of us did.
“We should leave,” I barked.
Jess jumped in her seat. “You don’t like it here either, girl? I need to get help for Zach, though.”
“Not going to happen here,” Patches said, putting her paws on the side clear viewer. Her tail was eerily still as if she didn’t want the evil of the place to see her.
“I see lights up ahead,” Jess said, bringing the wheeler to a stop. “Maybe the next city will have a doctor.” She began to turn the wheeler around.
“You have some nerve coming here, pig!” someone shouted off to our side.
“Someone say bacon?” Ben-Ben asked.
“You know what we do to cops here?” another voice asked.
“I’m not a cop,” Jess said softly.
I started barking, the voices were threatening.
“It’s a K-9 unit, I HATE dogs!” another voice said.
“That’s why you keep losing your bets,” the second voice said just as our wheeler was lit up with a fake burning disc.
Patches dived under her seat.
“I can’t see anything, Riley!” Ben-Ben said, still staring into the light.
I had turned my head. “Stop looking, Ben-Ben.”
“Oh...better. Many spots!” he answered.
“It ain’t no cop, Creighton. It looks like a kid and some dogs, maybe a baby,” the one who had shined the light on us said.
I think it was the one called Creighton that spoke next. “Alright, kid, I want you to come out of that car nice and slow. No funny business, no guns. You got me? And I see you thinking about trying to get out of here. There are at least five rifles pointed at you, we’ll fill that car with bullets before you can go fifteen feet. Are you willing to take the chance we’ll miss everyone with you?”
Jess was frantically looking around as if one of us might possess an answer to this problem. We all heard the familiar sound of multiple fire sticks being primed and readied for use.
“I’m not a very patient person,” Creighton said. “Never was and now that I don’t have to be to fit in, it’s gotten worse. Get the FUCK out of the car NOW!” he screamed.
Jess was fumbling with the handle to the door, she stepped out.
“Well shit, it’s just a girl,” the fake sun operator said.
“Keep your fucking eyes on the car, dumbass,” Creighton yelled. “Icely is going to want to see her. Who else is in the car?”
“Please, I just need a doctor for my brother, he’s sick,” Jess said.
The figure that had been approaching stopped and backed up a step. “Is he a zombie?” Creighton asked.
“What?
” Jess asked and then answered when she realized what he was asking. “No, not a zombie, flu maybe.”
“Have any of you been bitten?” Creighton asked.
“No,” Jess told him.
“Then welcome to Vegas, you are now property of the Republic of Icely.” And then he laughed a cruel laugh as he waved some more men towards our wheeler. They all had fire sticks pointed at us.
The one named Creighton had a small light pointing inside the car. “A baby and two dogs, although one of them isn’t going to fair too well at the games.”
“I love games,” Ben-Ben yipped. “You think they’re talking about fetch, Riley?”
I doubted it, but I didn’t say anything. And how had they not seen the cat?
“You a good boy?” Creighton asked me through the clear viewer.
I bared my teeth at him. I would have bit him just for calling me a ‘he.’
“Ooh, we got a live one. I might actually put a few bucks on you. Steve? Gonna need you to come over here with the collaring stick,” he said to someone on the side of him.
Steve came over holding a pole with a loose noose of what looked like a tether hanging from it. I bared my teeth again, this time in fear.
The other side of the wheeler opened up and Ben-Ben hopped into the arms of a male two-legger on his side. Stupid dog, I thought.
The man shut the door before I could get out that way. And where would I go anyway? Zach was still in his seat, I couldn’t leave him.
“Bad men,” Zach said.
“You know that?” Even in my fear I was able to wonder at what more knowledge he possessed.
“Not too hard to figure out good or bad, I’m a baby, not stupid.”
“Sorry, your talking is new to me.”
“Babies know more than anyone realizes, they’re just not developed enough physically to express themselves either through body language or speech.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I told him as the one they called Steve placed his hand on the door handle.
“You be a nice, fella, okay?” Steve said, trying to soothe me with his voice. Much like Zach said, it was not difficult to see the malice behind his words.
I started a rumbling growl deep in my chest. I bared my fangs and made sure that I had long lines of drool hanging from my mouth.
“What the fuck kind of dog is this?” Steve asked, looking around.
The one called Creighton came around. “Looks like some kind of Bulldog.”
“Pit bull?” Steve asked, sweat coming from his brow. “He looks like he could rip my arm off and feed it to me.”
He was nervous. I could smell it all over him, good.
“Hey, little girl, you calm your dog down or I’m going to put a bullet in his head,” Creighton said, turning to Jess.
“No!” Jess said, running back towards the car. “I’ll calm her down.”
“Oh, she’s a bitch, fitting.” Creighton said. “You got a minute to put this collar around her, Icely doesn’t like to wait.”
I was still growling and barking at the men outside when Jess came in the door she had got out from.
“Riley,” she said softly.
I turned to her, my fear and adrenaline still rushing through me. I turned to her still barking savagely, I wanted to lunge, I wanted to attack. We were in danger!
“Riley girl,” Jess said softer.
“Shoot the fucker,” Creighton said to Steve.
“I might hit the baby,” Steve said.
“Yeah…and I give a shit,” Creighton said.
“Wait!” Jess screamed. “I just need a minute, she’s scared. Just back up a little, give me the damn collar. I’ll get her to come.”
“Give me the keys,” Creighton said, being careful not to stick his hand anywhere in the car. Jess handed him the janglers, Creighton took the collar device from Steve and handed that into the car. “You’ve got two minutes.” And then he stepped back a few paces.
“Girl,” Jess said.
My eyes were blazing, my ears were pulled back. “Need to fight!” I barked at her. I watched out the front viewer as the idiot Ben-Ben was running around and through the legs of our captors.
“Riley, they’ll kill you, please come out with me. We have no choice. I’m so sorry I got us into this.”
Water was flowing from her eyes. We were in trouble, and I knew getting shot with a metal bee was not going to help fix anything. I was trying to get my anger under control; the fear was going to be another thing. I was scared for myself, but it was the safety of the pack which affected me the most.
I turned to the baby.
“Live to fight another day,” he said.
I pondered for a moment the wisdom of his words. “How can you know that?”
“Thirty seconds!” Creighton yelled.
“Riley, please,” Jess said.
I turned back to face her and placed my head down as she wrapped the tether around my neck. “Come around front,” she said as she positioned the pole so that I could get into the front and out.
Creighton pushed Steve to grab the pole as Jess stepped out with me in tow. Steve ran up quickly and grabbed the pole. He jerked it around, twisting the rope around my neck, I yelped from the pain of it.
“You’re hurting her,” Jess pleaded.
“Lucky the bitch isn’t dead,” Creighton said, coming up and grabbing Jess by the arm. “Steve, put the mutt in the kennels. I’m taking her to see the boss.”
I turned just enough to see someone reaching in and grab Zach before Steve pulled me forward. I bit down on the pole; it was a lot harder than the sticks I used to fetch for Alpha.
“This is a strong one,” Steve said.
“Yeah, but she’ll never beat Thorn,” another man said.
“I’ll take some of that action,” another spoke up. They were all laughing and having a good time, but it was an evil fun to those who weren’t on their side.
I ripped on the pole, pulling Steve to the side.
“Fuck me,” he yelled.
It was just enough that I was able to see Patches slink away from the car while none of the two-leggers were paying attention.
“What about this little fuck?” one of the men asked of Ben-Ben who was following happily behind. “Should we just feed him to the others? No one would bet on this little rat dog.”
Steve was sweating from the exertion of trying to rein me in, his speech was labored. “No, those little terriers can be ferocious. Maybe we can have some sort of small dog fight. If nothing else, it’d be fun to watch.”
“Your call, boss.”
“I’ll take him if he’s not too big a pain in the ass.” Creighton replied. “Just drop him at my house, I’ve got to take the girl to Icely.”
I could see where we were heading. They were like the small animal shelters that the two-leggers used to put Patches in when she would go see the animal doctor. Maybe a little bigger, but the one we were heading for, it didn’t look like I’d even be able to stand.
“Vick, Matt, go grab the kennel keep it in place while I wrestle this fucking demon into it,” Steve said.
I could tell he was getting tired, but we were close to what the two-leggers called a kennel. One of the two-leggers was close to the front of the kennel, and I was going to let him know what I thought of that, teeth first. The other one grabbed him by the arm, though.
“What are you, a fucking retard? Get back here with me.”
The rope pulled tighter around my neck. I was having difficulty getting any air, and I was starting to see black spots in front of my eyes. The spots got bigger as Steve pushed me into the kennel. I stopped fighting as my eyes began to close, my tongue hanging out.
“Not so fucking bad now, are you!” Steve screamed at me as he released the rope and slammed the door shut.
I had some small amount of satisfaction as I lunged up against the door and he stepped back.
“Stupid mutt,” he said as he wiped his brow and walked away.
I was right. I could not stand in the small enclosure…or even turn around for that matter. Right now, that was alright, I was exhausted. I could not see Ben-Ben, Jess, or Zachary; the cat I did not figure I would ever see again. My neck had just stopped hurting, and my breathing was not as labored when a couple of different two-leggers stopped in a bigger wheeler. They came and grabbed my kennel and threw it in the open back of the machine. They didn’t say anything, and I was too tired to bark at them. When we stopped, one of the men pulled my kennel out of the wheeler and let it slam to the ground. My whole body jolted as I hit the hard ground.
Once the pain subsided, I realized that I was next to way more than seven other dogs. They were all in different sized kennels like I was. I caught all sorts of snippets of conversation, ranging from ‘I’m hungry,’ to mostly ‘I’m scared’; though some were threats about tearing another’s throat out. I shivered from the savagery of the words. I slept.
It was long moments later, and the burning disc was coming back up. My throat hurt so badly; I just wanted some water and to be able to stretch my legs. They hurt so bad, not being able to stand was worse torture than the time Alpha-male had made me get in the indoor water holder. He had said I was dirty and that I needed a bath. I had let him know in no uncertain terms what I had thought of that! And right now that memory sounded like bliss.
I could hear dogs on the other side of whatever building I was in beginning to howl. After a while I saw the reason why. The two two-leggers that had brought me here were giving food and water to us. One was carrying a stick that had blue electric sparks shooting out from the end, the other had the bowls. I almost cried when they finally got to my kennel.
“You gonna be a good girl?” the one with the stick asked. “Otherwise I’m gonna shock your mangy hide.”
The end of the stick pulsed in blue, didn’t need to be as smart as a poodle to figure out that stick was dangerous. I pushed as far away from the end of it as I could.
The other man opened my door and hurriedly pushed my food and water in, spilling most of the liquid onto the bottom of my container. I rushed ahead before he got the door shut, I almost got to feel what that stick felt like, but I had been going for the water not the man.