We got back into Jess’ car. Her hands were shaking as she placed the janglers into their resting spot. Water leaked from her eyes, splashing off the steering wheel. Ben-Ben was licking it up.
“It’s salty like bacon. Do you want me to save you some?” Ben-Ben asked me.
“You thought him worth saving?” Patches asked me as she sighed from the back seat.
I turned my head to the side, which I think is near the same as when a human shrugs their shoulders. “He has his good parts,” I told her.
“Let me know when they show, get the girl moving,” Patches told me.
“You are a bossy little thing,” I snarled at her.
“I’m a cat and I’m female, I fully expect others to do my bidding.”
“Shouldn’t we allow her to rest?” I asked Patches. “She just watched two of her own die.”
“More will be coming. I cannot imagine you with that preposterously large nose not being able to smell them,” Patches said.
Ben-Ben’s water slurping was not allowing me to think clearly. “Sit down!” I barked at him.
“I just wanted some bacon,” he whined. “I miss Santa, and the Alphas, even Alpha-cub,” he whined softly.
I missed them, too, and I felt for Ben-Ben; but we needed to leave. Survival was all that mattered. Instincts that had been muted my entire life were now coming to the fore. I barked to get Jessie’s attention and again when she didn’t respond.
“Riley, what?” she asked with a pained expression.
I barked through the front viewer.
“I don’t see anything,” Jessie said, peering.
“She really needs to learn animal-speak, this is as bad as Lassie,” Patches said.
“Who’s Lassie?” Ben-Ben and I asked.
“If you two stopped playing tug-of-war with your tails you’d know,” Patches said snidely.
I turned to the front when the four-wheeler awoke.
“Again you guys saved me,” Jessie said, stroking the side of my face. Ben-Ben nudged me away so that his face was now in contact with Jess’ front paw. “Oh, Ben-Ben,” Jess said as more water flowed from her eyes.
“Think she could fill a bowl with that?” Ben-Ben asked me. “I’m very thirsty. I ate the casing the bacon came in.”
“Dumb dog,” Patches chimed in.
“What? Faye threw it in the giant dog bowl…I figured it was mine to eat!” Ben-Ben exclaimed.
“That’s the trash,” I said, shaking my head back and forth.
“Yum! It’s all the same to me!” Ben-Ben said excitedly, his tail wagging furiously.
“I have got to start thinking on my own,” Jess said to us. “I have Zachary to think of. It’s just us now,” she said as she snuggled up to my face. My whiskers tickled as she did so; I sneezed in her face. “Why thank you for that!” Jess said, pulling back a bit.
She put Zach in his special seat. I could tell from the smells that were leaking from him that he was in desperate need of elimination. I have yet to figure out why the two-leggers make their young keep the waste in their fake skins. Even the lowly cat doesn’t walk around with offal in its coat. When I was a summer younger I thought it might just be my Alphas that did that, and then I went to the kid zoo—or they may have called it the park, I can’t remember—but all the little ones there had fake skins on, and more than seven had waste tucked in with them. Two-leggers are a funny animal. And then I remember Ben-Ben when I think sometimes that we dogs are the superior being; he brings it all back. Patches might have it right, not that I’m going to let her know it. The only thing we have in common is that we’re both females.
The wheeler was moving, and just in time, I saw zombies coming from around Winke’s house.
“Something is wrong with Santa!” Ben-Ben howled.
I turned; my fur bristled as I saw him standing at the window. He looked to be eating a particularly large hunk of meat, it was not bacon, of that I was sure. Jess did not see, and I was thankful for that, she would have just leaked more eye water.
“I need to get to Justin,” Jess said aloud. I could sense the desperation in her voice. “Until then, though, I’m going to start doing what it takes to keep us alive,” she said with some determination; not much, but at least it was there.
“Finally, now I can take this burden off my back,” Patches said as she puddled her tail around her body.
“As if,” I snorted at her, she paid me no attention. “Typical cat, do nothing and take all the credit.”
“I’m sleeping, dog, why don’t you be a good second-class animal and shut up,” she told me.
If I thought I could get into the back without hurting Zachary, I may have done so. I wouldn’t hurt her, mostly. Maybe just fit her whole body in my mouth and give her a shake or two, let her know who was boss. I drifted off to sleep with that image in my mind; one of the better sleep thoughts I’d ever had.
“Nevada!” Was what I heard Jessie shout as she took me out of my sleep; good thing, too. I had been chasing a fat squirrel, and then when I got close, he stopped and turned towards me. His eyes lost the fear of the pursued; they turned as black as the night my pack died. And then he started to run towards me! A squirrel started to chase me! I would have been embarrassed if any of my dog friends had seen. Like sometimes during the autumn months when the two-leggers would parade me and Ben-Ben around in fake skins like theirs. Ben-Ben loved when they dressed him up. Last time he had looked like an orange toy ball, they kept calling him a pumpkin, but he sure didn’t smell like one.
They put some frilly scratchy thing on me, said I was a ballerina, whatever that is. I tried my best to get away from the two-legger tether, but they offered a peanut butter cookie, and I’d do just about anything for a peanut butter cookie. Walked around the whole neighborhood with the Alphas, Zachary, and Daniel. They made sure to go to every house, kept saying something about ‘tricks or treats’ it was alright at some of the houses as the two-leggers that lived there would give me and Ben-Ben something. And then it got bad when that big Siberian Husky, Duke, saw me. He was howling in laughter. I made sure to mark his fence. He couldn’t get past it to get to me. He was soooo angry!
“We’re in Nevada!” Jessie shouted again.
“Cat, what is Nevada?” I asked. I hated to, but what choice did I have.
“We crossed an imaginary line in the dirt the humans created to mark their territory. We left what they call California and are now in Nevada,” she answered.
I didn’t have a clue what ‘imaginary’ meant, but I didn’t want her to think I didn’t. “So we’ve almost completed the big move?” I asked, trying to sound smarter than her.
“Dogs had to team up with humans or you would have never made it,” she said, curling back up to go to sleep.
I looked around trying to figure out what made Nevada any different than California; I couldn’t see anything besides dirt and rocks. Yup pretty much looked the same…except for the change in Jess. She seemed happy once we crossed that funny line. I would be happy with her; I just wished I knew how many more funny lines we would need to cross to see the pheromone boy.
“I think we’ll go to Las Vegas,” Jess said as we were driving along.
As long as they had food I would go willingly. We stopped once so that Zachary could get a new set of fake skins. I gladly got out and relieved myself behind the wheeler, I made Ben-Ben get up too and go outside. He would have been just as happy to go on the back seat. Patches hopped down and walked right under me, her tail smacking into my nose. I had visions of grabbing her by that offensive tail and sending her for a little ‘fetch’ ride.
Zachary was screaming; I went over to sniff him while Jess was busy digging the fake skins out. His bottom was the same color, Jess’ skin had been this summer when she fell asleep outside. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be, he was sitting in his filth and he had no fur to protect himself. I smelled something else, too, the baby cub was sick. I could smell it in his breath. It wasn’t bad yet, but it would be. I could only hope that this ‘Las Vegas’ would offer some help.
***
Zachary had been full-throated screaming since we left our relief station. The wheeler was traveling faster as maybe Jess realized something was wrong and was trying to get some help. If she was merely trying to outpace the noise, she wasn’t doing such a good job.
“Shit!” Jess said, slamming her hands against the wheel. “We need gas.”
I thought that was actually pretty good since we were just about to pass one of the smelly liquid dispensers. That was until I saw the dead ones walking around the pumps.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Jess said. “We need gas or we’re going to be walking.” She looked over at the three dead ones who were now approaching, as she pulled in.
I alternated between looking at Jess and the dead ones. Jess was alternating between looking at them and looking down at the number gauges on the wheeler. She reached behind the back seat and took out a metal stick, and then she got out of the car. She almost slammed my head in the heavy door as I tried to follow her.
“You watch out for Zach,” she told me. I barked furiously at her.
“Cat, what is she doing?” I kept barking.
“This is bad,” Ben-Ben said as he piddled.
“And that’s going to help?” Patches said as she jumped into the front with me to get away from the stench and flow of Ben-Ben.
“I wish Santa was here,” Ben-Ben said as he watched Jess.
“She’s going to try and kill the zombies,” Patches said.
“She’s a fool!” I growled.
“Get me out of the wheeler, cat, NOW!” I was barking so loud I was actually making the baby cub stop his screaming as he looked in wonder at something that was actually complaining louder than he was.
Patches moved her paw to a button on the door. I heard something click on all four doors.
“Wrong button,” Patches said, looking down at her paw. “I think I locked the doors.”
The zombies were getting closer to Jess as she had come to my side of the car. She started to wildly swing the hooked metal stick. “They’re going to kill her, cat. Get me out of this thing!” I was howling.
I heard a whirring sound as the window in the back on the driver’s side began to go down. I had already jumped into the back seat and into Ben-Ben’s urine when the other windows began to go down. The triumphant words of Patches were cut short as I dove through the opening.
“A thanks would be nice,” I thought I heard her say as I came to a skidding halt when I landed.
I yelped a moment when I felt something in my paw tear. I turned my body and started to run around to the front. Jess had just hit the first zombie on the shoulder with her stick. It had no effect; his hands were reaching out and were about to close on her neck as I launched off the ground, my momentum taking us all to the ground.
I saw Jess’ look of surprise and relief as I wrapped my muzzle around the creature’s neck. Skin practically sloughed off in my mouth as I dug my paws into the ground pulling the monster off of her. She scrambled and got out from under us; she stood back up as I was shaking back and forth violently. I wasn’t satisfied until I heard the bones in its neck begin to snap, and still the thing tried to bite at me.
“Back!” Jess screamed loudly.
I had just let go as she brought the metal stick down on the top of its skull. The splintering of its head was loud. Finally, it lay still. Jess was heaving from the exertion and the stress; I turned to face the remaining two.
“Oh God!” Jess bawled.
Unlike the Alphas’ home, these zombies were much more interested in me than they had been. I knew what was happening. They were hungrier now, I might not be the favorite food choice for them, kind of like my kibble, but they’d eat me in a pinch. I darted to the side. One of the zombies turned to follow me, but she was slow, even slower than the fat Alpha-cub. I got behind her and snapped at the small fleshy tendon behind her ankle. She went down face first, a few of her two-legger fangs cracking as she hit the fake ground.
I wanted to finish her off, but Jess was looking like she had lost her will to fight. She had the metal stick pressed up against the third zombie’s forehead and was merely trying to keep him at bay. I didn’t think her tactic was going to work.
I barked at her. “Swing!” I yelled over and over. She looked at me pleadingly for help. I barked again, she needed to kill it on her own or she would begin to doubt her ability to survive; next she would be fear urinating like Ben-Ben. This wasn’t a funny time, but it was a funny thought, and I planned on thinking about it later when we were safe.
“Riley!” Patches admonished me from behind the clear viewer. “She needs your help!”
“Then maybe you should get out here!” I yelled to the cat. She shut up after that.
I kept barking at Jess until something in her finally released; she let reason and higher thought go as she reached into the depths of her being and pulled out instinct. Survival took over. She realized this thing wanted to take what was most precious to us all: Life. She swung the stick much like I had seen on the picture viewer when Alpha watched a game he called baseball. The game made absolutely no sense, but the balls were delicious whenever I could get a hold of one.
When I was a puppy they had talked about sending me to puppy prison when I got a hold of one of the round, cow tasting things. He had kept screaming that a baby had signed it and that it was priceless. I still don’t know what ‘signing’ is, or who Baby Ruth was, but I sure was glad She-alpha had told him in no uncertain terms that I was staying and that maybe he should put things out of reach of puppies. Although, in all fairness, I had jumped up on his chair and onto his desk and pushed the clear viewer material out of the way so that I could get to it. Seemed like such a waste to have the fun ball under clear viewer material.
Her first hit seemed to stun the monster but did not put him down. The second one split through his hairline. Vile smelling liquid began to ooze down its side. Jess gagged, but she struck again. I watched as the side of the head where she hit indented, the oozing became a gushing. The thing wasn’t moving forward, but it still hadn’t gone down. I thought Jess was done…until she brought the stick one more time against it. This time his head seemed to swallow the stick, a wet sucking sound ensued as the thing fell. The stick was pulled violently from Jess’ hands. She let it go as she winced from the pain.
She was sobbing uncontrollably; much like she had been when she got off the plastic talking box at the house one time. She had told She-alpha that Bobby DiCarlo had broken up with her. I didn’t know how the plastic talking box knew, but that wasn’t important. I made sure that I was within petting distance for the next two days as she watered her eyes. There was a time and a place to be sad, this wasn’t one of them. There were no zombies around us right now, but they were nearby, I could smell them. And if more than seven came, we would be in trouble.
“Do you need my help?” Ben-Ben was barking from the clear viewer on our side.
The dog was so dense, I bet he didn’t even realize there was a way to get out and help. That was unfair, he had proved his reliability more than once; humans weren’t the only ones that suffered from stress.
“Just look for more of them,” I answered.
He seemed to like that answer.
I felt like I had to add this next part. “And let us know if you see any of them.” There was more than a fair chance he would spot some and leave it at that.
Jess thought my barks were for her, didn’t matter that they weren’t, it seemed to get her moving. She had been looking down at the zombie by her feet. I couldn’t tell if she was celebrating her victory, despairing in it, or just maybe trying to decide if she should pull her weapon free from its skull. She shuddered once and looked around at our surroundings. She immediately headed towards a wheeler that had its door open. It was the kind that the two-leggers that always wore the same fake skins drove. Always blue with a blue hat, some have a shiny hard piece over their breast, some don’t—like the one that used to come to my Alpha’s door almost every day.
I couldn’t stand him. Most days he would come up to the house. I could hear him moving around behind the door, and he would do something with the small paper holder that the Alphas called ‘male?’ (I never got any scent of male from it.) I would bark mercilessly until he would get scared and run away. Funny thing is, he would go to the next house and do it again, and they didn’t have a guard dog like me at all. He was just a scared man that threatened to go into homes uninvited. I would bark at him through the clear viewer on the side of the house until he would leave there, too. Even pressing my paws and face up against the viewer to let him know I meant business.
This wheeler had the funny bright lights on top. The uniformed people it held, I didn’t like them much either, but that wasn’t stopping Jess from reaching in. She pulled out a short metal object and a firing stick that looked a lot like the one her sire had used. She leaned back in.
“The keys are in it, Riley,” she said.
“Okay,” I answered. I wasn’t sure what she meant, and she had absolutely no clue what I had replied.
“Do you think there’s gas?” she asked me.
“Do you think cats are the root of all evil?” I asked back, neither of us had an answer for the other.
I whipped my head around at the shouting from Ben-Ben. “Rileeeeeeeeyyyy!”
If this was about finding him bacon I was going to nip him in the behind for almost scaring the waste out of me. I could quickly tell this wasn’t about food; that was more of a whine, this was a warning. I couldn’t see anything from where I was, but I could hear the shuffling of feet. I ran to the other side of the wheeler, the blue fake-skinned man was approaching, and he was huge. I couldn’t even imagine how he had fit in the two-wheeler to begin with.
He was holding a large, shiny stick in his hand. Although it didn’t really seem that he knew he had it, he was holding it out in front of him as he came at me. I barked at him, hoping it would stop his advance, it didn’t. I was longing for the days of the ‘door hider’ this blue fake skinner scared me like no other had. Flaps of skin dangled from the side of his face, I could see his teeth as they mashed together. Part of his top fake skin had been ripped off revealing a body that did not look like it had fared much better. Ribbons of meat hung from him almost to his knees.
Muscle and sinew glistened back at me, I tried to hold my ground, but every step he took, I found myself involuntarily backing up. Unlike the other zombies, this one seemed to have some spark of intelligence, like the cat. It watched me warily, almost willing me to attack. The ends of its ripped lips pulled up in what I had learned was the two-legger equivalent of a smile. On him, it looked like death. Its eyes followed me constantly until it caught sight of Jess, and the small smile pulled back even further to reveal blood-stained teeth with bits of meat stuck in between some of the larger gaps.
Jess was now in the wheeler and moving the seat when she caught sight of the aberration looking at her. The monster moved faster than I thought possible. Jess barely had time to shut her door, as it was; I think she caught the tips of its front paws. It didn’t seem to care; it brought up its stick hand. The wheeler started up with a throaty roar.
The zombie paused for a moment, almost like it was searching its inner picture thoughts for what it was trying to remember. Jess got the wheeler moving as the zombie brought its stick down heavily on the back of the vehicle.
I barked in happiness as Jess got away. That was a mistake as the beast turned towards me. It moaned some deathly mournful war cry, and the pursuit began. I had not realized how much my torn paw hurt until I started to run for my life. Bits of rock and dirt were getting into the wound and made running extremely painful. I was thankful that two-leggers were wholly unequipped for pursuit. It would give up soon when it got tired and realized it couldn’t catch me...ever. I ran around most of the entire fake grounds, further than I’d ever had to when Alpha or Alpha-cub were chasing me. But when one’s life is on the line like now, it seemed wiser to run the extra distance.
I slowed up and was about to stop so that I could lick the debris clear from my wound when I heard him still coming. I had gained some distance on him from when we had initially started but that he was still this close was unsettling. I winced as I took a painful step and ran towards the grass hoping that the softer surface wouldn’t hurt as much. I made sure to stay as far away from Jess and Zach as she moved the baby over to the new wheeler. I noted that Patches immediately got in the new machine, but Ben-Ben wouldn’t as he watched me running for my life. He almost started running towards me until Jess picked him up and threw him into the wheeler.
I found myself running with only three legs, still faster than the dead two-legger…but not by much. And I was in pain and getting tired, the zombie seemed like he could do this for a full cycle of the burning disc. I was glad Jess had gotten away, and now it was time to fight or die. I stopped and turned to face my pursuer. The smile pulled so far back on his face that he literally split his lips. He raised the club as he advanced, this time he seemed to be reveling in the fact that he was coming slowly. I do not think it was hard for him to see that I was not faring well, my front paw was held up in front of me and I was panting heavily—partly from the pain and partly from the running. But he was truly insane if he thought I was just going to lie down and die for him.
I raised my hackles trying to look bigger; I got my front lower and bared my teeth. I rumbled a growl my ancestors would be proud of; then I heard the loud ‘goose’ sound the wheeler can make, this is usually followed by the Alpha shouting some colorful language and displaying one finger to other wheeler operators. I had, as of yet, been unable to figure out what that one finger meant, but it always seemed to make him mad or maybe it was the goose sound the wheeler made. I know I hated that sound. The zombie turned to the approaching wheeler. He seemed to be trying to figure out what to do.
Jess drove the car in between us. The window behind her was down. Ben-Ben was looking out at me, his tongue hanging out. “Hey, Riley!!!” he said loudly. “You coming in?”
“If you get out of the way,” I told him, preparing to scrabble up the side and through the window.
“Oh yeah,” he said, still not moving.
Time was running out, the zombie was coming around the car. Jess was fumbling with the small firing stick. Ben-Ben and I were about to get real close. I took a couple of steps and jumped up. I yelped as I grabbed the lip of the door with my front paws, my back legs were moving rapidly trying to seek purchase on anything in an effort to get me in the wheeler.
I yelped in surprise as I felt Ben-Ben’s teeth sink into the fur and skin on the side of my neck, and then I silently thanked him as I figured out what he was trying to do. The small dog was helping to pull me into the car. I was afraid that if I lost my grip we’d both go tumbling out. My right rear paw finally caught on the handle, and I was able to launch inside just as Jess got the wheeler moving. I was pushed in to the seat from the movement as Ben-Ben fell to the floor.
“Thank you, Ben-Ben,” I told the dog. I truly believe he tipped the scale in getting me in.
“You taste like chicken!” Ben-Ben said excitedly as he licked his maw.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I told him.
“Sorry,” Ben-Ben said as he hopped back up.
“For what?” I questioned him.
He looked down to the seat where I was getting my breath back; I now realized it was soaked. “It’s alright…this time,” I told him.
“You’re bleeding, dog.” Patches said, looking back at me from her lofty position in the front.
“I didn’t know you cared,” I told her.
“Suit yourself,” she said, looking back out the front clear viewer.
“That was close…too close,” Jess said. I saw her shiver a bit. She reached her hand back to seek comfort from our contact. I moved my muzzle closer so she could touch me.
Jess drove further. My paw would not stop bleeding as I tried my best to not get it all over the place. From time to time I would catch Jess looking in the reflector back at me. I guessed she was trying to figure out what I was doing. She finally got so curious she pulled the wheeler over to the side of the hard ground.
She swung her head into the back. “You’re bleeding, Riley. Are you hurt?”
I almost cracked up when Ben-Ben answered, and he hadn’t even meant to be funny. “Riley, if you’re bleeding aren’t you already hurt?” he asked me.
“Two-leggers don’t know everything,” I told him.
“Are you sure?” he asked conspiratorially. “I mean, they know how to make bacon. That makes them pretty close to perfect for me.”
I kind of had to agree with him on that one.
Jess had gotten out from her door and opened mine. “Oh, you poor girl,” she said as she lifted my paw. I thought she was going to touch my torn pad. I would have had to let her know what I felt about that if she had. “I need to wrap that up.” She looked up and down the road, when she was confident we were alone, she shut the wheeler down and grabbed the janglers. She opened the back of the machine. “There’s a first aid kit in here!” Jess said excitedly. “And food!”
Ben-Ben nearly stepped on me in his haste to get out of the car. “Sorry, Riley,” he said as he jumped down, “food is food!” He yipped more excitedly than Jess.
Even the cat seemed somewhat interested at the mention of food. Who would have thought evil had to eat?
“You did good,” Patches said as she brushed past and out to see if she could get a hold of something.
The cat’s words shouldn’t have mattered because of the constant disdain we felt for each other, but still I felt proud that she had even noticed, and then I was mad at myself because I had let her words affect me. Stupid cat.
Jess came back to me a moment later. She had a small packet in her hand and some bandages she called them. She grabbed my leg and lifted it up. “Ooh that looks like it hurts, girl,” she said as she brought the small packet closer to it.
Ben-Ben came up behind her. “Is that food, Riley? Why is she putting food on your paw?”
“It is medicine for Riley’s injury,” Patches explained.
I wanted to ask the cat if it hurt, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The sticky liquid she placed on my paw initially stung and then began to cool; I felt relief almost instantly from the pain.
“This will help, Riley, now I’m going to put a bandage on it. Don’t chew this off.” The bandage hurt some as she wrapped the wound and then she grabbed strips of sticky cloth and wrapped that around the bandage. “That ought to hold it in place,” Jess said, seemingly admiring her handiwork. “Thank you,” she said, grabbing the sides of my face and pulling herself close. She rested her forehead on mine. “You saved me again, girl. How will I ever be able to repay you?”
“You already have,” I told her as I licked her face.
“Gross, Riley!” she shouted, smiling for one of the first times in a while.
“Does she taste like chicken?” Ben-Ben asked as he danced around her feet. “I’m starving.”
“Okay, okay,” Jess said, going back to the end of the wheeler. “Wow there’s got to be over a dozen MREs back here. I know what these are from Mr. Talbot!” She said as she held one up.
I didn’t know what a dozen, or what an MRE was, but it was hard to not pick up on how excited Jess was about it.
A few moments later, when Jess had come back to the front of the wheeler and had ripped some packets open, we all got to find out what MREs were.
“What is this?” Ben-Ben asked in bliss. His face was covered in the substance, and he was doing his best to lick it all off of himself.
“Peanut butter,” Patches told him.
“This might be better than bacon!” he said as he brushed his face up against the seat back so that he could lick the peanut butter from the cloth.
I ate something Jess called ‘beef stroganoff’ it wasn’t much better than the cat food I sometimes ate. Not because I liked the stuff, but so that Patches wouldn’t have anything to eat. Although the last time I had done that, she had eliminated water waste in my water bowl. Even after the Alpha-female had washed it out twice it was a week longer before I stopped smelling the cat in it. It was the last time I had eaten her bad food. This was alright, though, because the stuff made my stomach hurt anyway.
Jess was trying to give noodles to Zach, but he wasn’t touching them. His eyes were barely open and they seemed to be staring at something that wasn’t there. Even Ben-Ben knew the importance of what was happening. He was greedily eyeing the noodles that were dropping to the seat, but he stayed away.
“Why isn’t the cub eating?” he asked me.
“He’s sick,” I told him, looking at the baby.
“Very sick,” Patches added.
I wanted to pull her face off for her words, but she was right. Noodles were not going to fix whatever was wrong with the cub, and even Jess with her two-legger nose could smell trouble.
“I need to get him a doctor,” she said.
Jess got back into the front and got the wheeler going, Ben-Ben quickly began to clean up the backseat.
“Is that good, Ben-Ben?” I asked, not trying to be nice.
“Oh, it’s delicious,” he answered, his tail wagging like crazy.
I could feel heat radiating off the cub as Jess drove down the hard ground, I had no real concept for how fast we were moving, but if how quickly the scenery changed was any indication, then we were moving quickly…maybe even faster than I could run.
Jess kept looking back to see how her litter mate was doing. His cheeks at first had been blazing the color of a setting burning disc, and now they appeared whitish. I could smell death. Patches had the unfortunate ability to go one step further.
“He’s here,” Patches said, her fur standing on end.
I shivered as I felt icy cold fingers brush up against my coat.
“Patches, stop him!” I barked.
Patches hissed and spat so violently that Jess pulled the car over. She looked quickly towards the cat and then to her sibling. “Zach? Zachary!” she screamed, scrambling to get into the back seat. “Oh my God, he’s not breathing,” she said as she pushed a slumbering Ben-Ben out of the way so she could lay her brother down.
It looked like she was doing that funny custom two-leggers do of pressing their muzzles together but there was more to it. She was blowing her breathe into her brother and pressing down on his chest.
“Patches!” I yelled.
“I’m trying!” she spat back.
Jess’ eyes were leaking as she kept breathing for the cub. I wasn’t sure if that was even possible, but she thought so.
“I think it’s working!” Patches said triumphantly. “He’s fading!”
“I think it’s working!” Jess said breathlessly. “He’s coming back!”
Zach coughed and spit up some brown bile, his breathing sounds came back in ragged gulps, but at least now he was doing it on his own. And then he started full-throat crying, a sound that was generally annoying, but right now sounded like timber wolves howling in the wild; I loved it. Jess grabbed a wet liquid container and put the small suckling device into her brother’s mouth. He sucked the sweet liquid down contentedly, his eyes never straying far from his sister, as if in a silent thank you.
Jess looked exhausted as she got back into the front of the car.
“That was close.”
“What?” I asked Patches.
“I didn’t say anything,” she replied, looking into the back seat.
I may have thought it was Ben-Ben, but after he realized the cub was okay, he went back to trying to get the peanut butter off his whiskers so that he could eat it. He looked like the damned cat the way he was brushing up against the seat.
“I saw my mommy and daddy. They said it wasn’t my time yet.”
“What?” I asked again. This time I knew who it was…I just couldn’t believe it. “Zachary?”
“I love you, Riley,” Zach said.
I almost fell off my seat. “You can talk?”
“My mommy just showed me how, she said it was the only way we would have a chance.”
“Patches, are you hearing this?” I asked.
I wished I had looked to the front earlier, the cat was frozen in mid-movement, and her bottom jaw was hanging low, her eyes wide as she stared at the infant cub. I think the two-legger term was ‘shocked’.
She jumped into the backseat and was straddling Zach’s special seat. “This is impossible,” she said as she got right up to Zach’s face. “Say something.”
“I love peanut butter!” Ben-Ben yipped as his head came up. “Hey, Patches, what are you doing back here? I mean grrrr, cat! I’m growling at you like Riley would want me to. Do I still have any peanut butter on my face?” And then he began to rub up against the seat again in a desperate bid to discover any as yet previously unfound treat.
“Human cubs cannot speak!” Patches shouted as if Zach was an insult to all she knew.
“Patches, what are you doing?” Jess asked. “Is Zach alright?” she asked as she nudged the cat to the side. Her smiling brother’s face shone back, slightly red, but better than it had been only moments before. “I need to find a hospital,” she said as she made the two-wheeler go faster.
“Speak, boy,” Patches said indignantly.
For a moment I was beginning to think I had imagined the whole thing. Humans went crazy all the time; why not me?
“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.