by Mark Tufo
I’d known the cat long enough to realize this wasn’t a compliment, but I hadn’t figured out quite yet how big of an insult it was. “No on the chickens then?”
“No chickens,” Patches said, shaking her head in a very human, disapproving way.
Patches showed me how to lay low and wait for animals to come our way, but the fire disc was hot and the ground was getting even hotter. I wasn’t getting any fuller waiting for stuff to come our way and besides it just felt wrong. I was supposed to be chasing things not slinking around waiting for something to come our way. I was panting hard, I was getting hot, and in some real need of water.
“You sound like a train, could you maybe shut up a bit?” Patches asked contemptuously.
I didn’t know what a train was but they must be loud. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m finding food,” I said stood up.
“Wait! It was almost here,” she said resignedly to my retreating hind quarters. When I had stood I startled a rather large lizard within a couple of strides. It looked about half as big as Ben-Ben.
“You’re fast,” I said to the lizard bounding away toward the roadway.
“Stupid, stupid dog,” Patches said behind me, she had joined in the pursuit. “A hundred more heartbeats and it would have came to us.”
“This is funner,” I barked, I was staying even with the lizard, no matter how fast I tried to run I couldn’t catch it and it was heading for the bushes where its size would be of huge benefit for it. “You’re going to have to get it when it gets to the bushes,” I said to Patches.
“It’s the same size as me, I can’t kill that thing,” Patches said as she caught up.
No wonder I’d never caught her, the cat was fast!
“Ben-Ben!” I howled. “Food is coming!”
“Wet meat?” he barked back.
“Sure!” I replied. The lizard ran straight under the bushes, Patches was no more than half a dog stride away. I had to slow down and get lower to get through.
“It’s out the other side!” Patches said excitedly.
“Wet meat!” Ben-Ben said happily, then he must have caught sight of the lizard. “Oh, broken garage bags what is that?” he shrieked.
“Catch it, Ben-Ben!” I yelled.
“Are you sure, Riley?” he whined.
“He has wet meat!” I said trying a different tactic.
Howls and shrieks of pain and rage assailed my ears. I struggled to get through as quickly as possible. When I finally got through to the other side, Patches was sitting on the edge of the hard pathway, her head shaking back and forth. She may have been smiling but it’s tough to tell with her kind, it could just as soon have been a sneer.
“What’s going on? Did it get away?” I asked her.
“Look for yourself.”
I looked. Ben-Ben had the huge lizard protruding from his mouth. “Rastes rike ricken,” he mumbled past the obstruction.
“What’s all this noise?” Jessie asked rounding the corner to see Ben-Ben with the lizard in his mouth, she jumped back a step. “Ooh, gross, Ben-Ben what do you have in your mouth?”
Ben-Ben placed the lizard down and began yipping. “Chicken, I definitely have chicken,” he said repeatedly.
I went over and nudged the dead lizard toward Jessie’s foot.
“What are you doing, Riley? That thing is gross, just get away from it.”
I kept rolling it her way and barking.
“This a gift? You want me to eat it? Riley, I don’t think I can,” she said, still backing farther away every time I nudged it closer.
“She’s not going to eat it and I’m starved,” Patches said, coming up alongside me. She was just about to sink her fangs in when I yelled at her. “Don’t you dare!” This is for her.” I growled.
“Do we get to have any of the chicken?” Ben-Ben asked, looking down at the lizard.
“This is a victorious kill,” Patches said. “I will not see it wasted,” she said biting into its midsection, blood and intestines streamed out. Jessie retched, turned away, and quickly walked out of sight.
My tongue was dry from the effort and somehow the green slimy thing did smell like chicken and it seemed like a waste not to eat. “Dig in, Ben-Ben,” I said as I ripped a leg off. The meat was meager but it was somehow more gratifying that I had helped to kill our food. It felt good and deep down it seemed like the way it was supposed to be.
Five minutes later, what was left wouldn’t have sated the infant. Patches was busy cleaning her paws and her mouth, Ben-Ben was still looking at the carcass probably hoping it would fill back in.
“I really like chicken,” he said. “When are we going to get another one?”
Jessie slept as the burning disc got higher and then finally started to come back down. Patches and Ben-Ben got under the two-wheeler and were resting; I thought maybe a little too closely but the hunt may have done us some good and brought us all a little closer. I walked slowly up and down next to the pathway, trying my best to stay off it. The heat burned through the pads on my feet. On occasion I would rest under a bush getting away from the worst of the bright beams and when I felt better I would do my patrol again.
It was perhaps after my tenth, maybe seventh time I had done this when I caught whiff of something that did not smell quite right. It was still far away and I could not catch sight, but whatever it was, it was raising the hairs on my back. I barked once in warning.
“I’m sleeping over here,” Patches said, opening one eye to respond, her head resting comfortably on her leg.
“Something is coming,” I told her.
“More chicken?” Ben-Ben asked excitedly, bonking his head on the bottom of the wheeler as he got up too fast.
“Not chicken,” Patches said, coming out from under the car, careful to keep off the part of the pathway that was still bright.
“You can smell that?” I asked her.
“My nose might not be as good as yours, but I think even the humans should be able to smell what is coming soon,” Patches said.
I quickly crossed the path, it was not quite as hot as it had been, but I didn’t want to stay on it any longer than I had to. Jessie was lying on her seat asleep, one of her legs was hanging out the door and she was wet with salty water all over her body and I began to lick it.
“Riley, leave me alone,” she said with her eyes still closed. “I’m so hot and tired.” She brought her hand up to wipe the liquid off her forehead. I greedily looked at the pooled fluid in her hand as she wiped it on her fake skins.
I almost forgot why I had come up to her when I caught an even stronger scent of the zombie coming our way. I barked.
“Riley! Shut up, the baby is sleeping!” Jessie yelled louder than I barked.
I was saddened to think I had upset Jessie, but right now it didn’t matter, she wasn’t getting the point and I needed to get more aggressive with her. I started outright barking. “Warning!” I was yelling to her. She sat up slowly, her eyes barely open. She looked a lighter color than usual, like maybe she was getting sick. She didn’t smell sick but that could happen later.
“Riley, what girl? What’s the matter? I don’t feel so good.” She clutched her belly.
Patches came up beside me. “The girl needs water.”
“How do you know? She’s covered in water,” I told Patches.
“She’s overheating. I can feel it from here.”
“Why doesn’t she just lick the water off her body?” I asked.
“First because it’s salt water and second the dead ones are coming,” Patches said. There was a slight hint of anxiety in her response, but she wasn’t fully alarmed yet. “You need to get her moving or we need to leave.”
“You would leave her?” I asked.
“To save myself, I would,” Patches answered, not disgusted with herself in the least.
“Something’s coming, Riley, and it doesn’t smell like chicken,” Ben-Ben said and sneezed, trying to get the smell out of his nose.
I barked more warnin
gs at Jessie; I could not understand how she couldn’t smell it yet. “How many are there, Cat?” I asked.
“More than you can count,” she answered back.
I couldn’t tell if she was being condescending or helpful—this was getting old really fast.
Zach cracked an eye open.
“Great, Riley, you woke the little twerp up. I’ve been trying to get him to sleep all day.” Jessie said looking back.
I moved back from the opening as Jessie swung her legs out of the wheeler. She stood, shielding her eyes from the flaming disc. “What is that smell?”
“About time,” I responded.
“Ohmigod, zombies!” Jessie screamed. Patches hopped up into the car. I might not like the cat but if I wanted to live, following her might be the best thing I could do.
“Riley, we fighting or running?” Ben-Ben asked, looking from where the cat was perched in the backseat to the bunches of zombies as far as the farthest stick throw Alpha had ever made.
I barked again to get Jessie moving, she seemed to have been frozen and was now sending out panic chemicals.
“What do I do? What do I do?” Jessie screamed, hopping back and forth from foot to foot, her hands out in front of her swinging wildly from side to side.
“Riley, get the girl moving,” Patches said forcibly.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. Now I was panicking.
Ben-Ben solved the problem for me as he nipped Jess on the calf. I felt bad when her kick made him yelp and sent him sprawling some distance away. “What the fuck, Ben-Ben!” she yelled.
Whatever trance she had been in was broken by the pain of the bite Ben-Ben had inflicted. “Come on, Riley, let’s go!” she yelled to me, patting her seat like I needed any incentive to get up there. I hopped up quickly and got into alpha female’s usual seat.
Ben-Ben was still away from the car, his body low to the ground and tail tucked under in an apologetic gesture.
“Come on, Ben-Ben, let’s go,” Jess said with more than a hint of anger in her voice. “You shouldn’t have bit me, but I’m not leaving you here.”
Jessie didn’t realize Ben-Ben’s bite had probably saved us all.
“Come on!” I yelled to him, “we need to go!”
“She’s mad at me, Riley!” he whined.
“Someone’s always mad at you, get in this car!” I yelled back.
Ben-Ben hopped in and was smiling wide, his tongue lolling to the side as he crossed Jessie’s seat and sat next to me.
“Nice view,” he said to me as Jessie got in the car and closed her door. Within a few breaths we were again moving, the dead ones were following but they were far behind now.
I looked over to Ben-Ben. “I don’t think so,” I told him.
His expression dropped as he clambered into the backseat.
“Get off of me, you oaf!” Patches complained.
“Sorry,” Ben-Ben said.
In a little bit Ben-Ben finally got situated. I turned to look at him. “Good work, Ben-Ben,” I told him before I turned to look back out the front; I could see the pride in his eyes as he sat up just a little bit taller.
“Did you hear that?” Ben-Ben asked Patches. “Riley said I did a good job!”
“I’m sitting right next to you—how could I have missed it?” Patches said disdainfully.
I don’t think he even heard her reply his tail was wagging so fast it was thumping against the back of the seat.
Jessie turned to see what the noise was. When she saw Ben-Ben’s tail wagging she spoke. “I don’t know what you’re so happy about? You’re a bad dog, you bit me!”
I barked loudly at the side of Jessie’s face, I could not understand how she could see Ben-Ben’s actions as anything less than the heroic deed they were. Jessie turned quickly to stare at me. “What, Riley?” she asked me with a confused look on her face, one of her eyebrows arched in a questioning manner. I just kept staring at her.
“He bit me, Riley.”
I barked, “Yup.”
“The zombies were coming and he bit me,” she added.
I barked, “Yup,” again.
“And then we got in the car to get away from them.” The questioning look on her face began to diminish and then disappeared altogether. Water leaked from her eyes as a cry escaped from her mouth, the car came to a slow stop. She turned around and grabbed Ben-Ben, hugging him fiercely. “You saved us!” she said, her mouth buried in his fur.
His tail, which I didn’t think could go any faster, was now slamming against the seat, Patches was having a difficult time getting away from it.
“I’m so sorry—can you ever forgive me?” she asked as she pulled away to look into his eyes.
Ben-Ben licked from her chin, up to the top of her nose.
“Oh, gross, Ben-Ben,” she said pulling back. “Who knows where your tongue has been!” She was smiling. “Thank you,” she said, hugging him tight once more before turning to get the wheeler back in motion.
“I did good, Cat!” Ben-Ben said proudly.
“You did good, Ben-Ben,” Patches said begrudgingly.
“I did, didn’t I?” He yipped excitedly.
The high-pitched noise was enough to fully awaken Zach; his full-throated cry dominated the inside of the wheeler.
“Oh, Ben-Ben,” Jessie said, having to again pull the car over.
CHAPTER FOUR
The events of the day had me more tired than I could ever remember. I tried to stay awake for Jessie, but I was so tired, the heat from the great sand pit had me exhausted. I fell asleep almost immediately. For a while in my sleep images, I was very happy. I was again asleep on Alpha Female’s large couch. I had never been more comfortable! Baby Zachary was bringing me some of his cereal, which never happened. He didn’t move around too much on his own but I would always stay near to his feeding grounds because the dry round O’s he used to eat would always end up in my domain—the floor.
But in my sleep images he was walking and tossing the O’s all around and most were luckily ending up in my mouth! Then it got bad—zombies had broken through the backdoor on my watch! One of them had Ben-Ben in its mouth and he was screaming to me for help. I was going into the kitchen when I saw more of them coming in through the backdoor, the zombie holding Ben-Ben ripped the small dog in half with its teeth but still Ben-Ben cried to me for help—‘Rileeeeey!’. I started to run away as life fluid poured from my small pack mate, no matter how hard or fast I tried to move I couldn’t get away from the flowing blood or the zombies. I started to get stuck in the murky liquid. I was crying out for one of the alphas, anybody to help me, one of the zombies grabbed my side; I waited for the searing pain of teeth ripping through my flesh.
“It’s okay, girl. It’s okay—good girl,” Jess was saying to me as I awoke with a jolt. “You just had a bad dream, girl, it’s alright,” Jess said soothingly as she rubbed my side. “You were yelping in your sleep and your paws were going a mile a minute.” She laughed a little bit, but it was a nervous laugh. I did not believe she felt any merriment, I could not smell anything to indicate she was happy. Nervousness smells a bit like rusty iron and she was flooded in the flakes of it.
“I need to stop, Riley, I’m so tired. Do you have any ideas?” she asked me.
I didn’t know how long I had slept; the burning disc was gone, replaced by the cool pale version, the moon is what my ancestors called it. The heat of the day was gone and I was now getting cold, hunger was still gnawing through my stomach like an un-chewed squirrel. I looked out the window, the sand was being replaced by more and more brush but it still looked very empty of everything two-legger built.
“She needs to find a house, Riley,” Patches said, standing on the center console, looking out at the same scene I was.
I looked in the back of the wheeler. I didn’t know if it was the light from the wolf howler (moon) or baby Zachary was sick but he looked pale and his breathing didn’t seem right. In contrast, Ben-Ben who was asleep was still wea
ring that happy grin he had when Jessie had praised him. I felt good for him that he was happy, that dog had not done much right since he’d been reared and more praise and less scorn was always a good thing.
“Our house?” I asked Patches.
“Another’s,” she answered.
“Are you sure, Patches? Two-leggers are not always very accepting of each other. They reek of distrust when they come across others they do not know.”
“The girl needs help. Food and sleep for herself and the baby is sick.”
“Do you see anything?” I asked Patches, somewhat ashamed I again had to defer to her better abilities. I would swear the cat could see with absolutely no light. There had been times at home when I knew she was padding around me as she thought I slept on the couch. I could smell her clearly, I could not see her, though, and that always angered me. She would come down when the skies were covered or the pale disc was not present. I would growl, she would laugh. I miss those times.
“Hi, Patches,” Jessie said wearily as she stroked the cat’s back. Patches purred in content and rubbed her head up against Jessie’s shoulder.
“There is something coming on your side,” Patches said. How she saw it I didn’t know, her eyes were closed and her head was facing in the wrong direction.
The wheeler kept moving for a while longer before I began to make something out. It was a two-legger home but not nearly as big or nice as the one we had left. Large old rusted wheelers were in the front along with all manner of two-legger stuff, most of which I’m sure Alpha female would have called trash.
I barked as we got closer, pulling Jessie’s attention away from the cat.
“A house,” she said wearily, with a small measure of hope. At least that was what I got from the scent of her but then it flooded with mistrust, fear, and apprehension. “Sure is a pigsty. Trash all over the place, but it looks lived in. Should we try it?” she asked.
It was tough to not be swayed by her feelings, what seemed like a good idea a moment before now seemed dangerous.
“Cat?” I asked.
“Plenty of places to hide,” Patches told me as she looked at the garbage strewn across the yard.