“NOW, WHAT DO WE have here?”

A silken voice woke me from a nightmare of teeth and water.

“No more riddles,” I mumbled as I staggered to my feet. I had finally allowed myself to fall asleep in an abandoned car beside the tracks. The back window had been rolled down far enough for me to squeeze through, and I had gorged myself on the cold fries in the backseat before passing out. Other than garbage, what did animals outside the house eat on a daily basis?

I turned around in a circle on the backseat, not seeing the source of the voice, and suddenly terrified it was that evil white opossum again, haunting my every step.

“Up here,” called the voice, and my eyes swung up to the sun roof, where the most beautiful creature I had ever seen sat licking her paws. She was an Abyssinian, a breed I had read about in One Hundred and One Dalmatians. I knew her coat was ticked with shades of gold and that her eyes were like burnished copper. I tried to speak, and found I had to swallow to make my voice engage.

“I … How … Hello,” I finally managed, wondering if the sun followed her around to make sure she glowed everywhere she went.

“Hello,” she replied with a toothy grin. “You on your own, little lady?”

The question flipped my paranoid switch and I jumped onto the back window well to take a better look around us. “I might be, I might not. How about you … little lady?”

If possible, her grin got even wider at my throwing the term back at her. She was not little, she was long and lithe in a way my breed would never be.

“I tend to rub other mammals the wrong way,” she replied, not really answering the question. “You done with those fries?”

I looked down at the leftovers and decided they were fair game. “All yours.”

She slid down the side of the car and through the same open window I had used. I gave her space, staying on higher ground just in case, like Wally had always told me, but she moved without fear, eating the fries slowly, obviously not as ravenous as I had been the night before.

“There’s more than enough to share,” she said, looking up at me with those liquid eyes.

I considered denying my hunger, but my stomach growled loudly in direct opposition. She laughed, a deep sound that was both unsettling and enticing at the same time. I was becoming as stupid as a mouse in her presence. Defiantly, I jumped down to her side and took a bite of cold fries.

“My name is Hannah,” she said, pausing between bites.

“Pickles,” I answered.

“The salty lumps sealed in jars of vinegar?” she asked with another deep laugh. I stuck my head back into the fries so she wouldn’t see my embarrassment.

“Your pet must have been in an ironic mood to name such a beautiful cat after such an odd thing.”

I would have smiled at the compliment if not for the reminder of my pet, and how this graceful distraction had made me forget him for a moment.

“I should probably go,” I said, cleaning the salt from my whiskers.

I jumped up to the armrest, looking over my shoulder, sure I would never see such a glorious feline ever again. “Good luck, Hannah.”

“Wait, where are you going?” she called.

“I’m on a mission to find my pet,” I explained, and pushed myself through the window. I landed on the ground and started walking towards the tracks to resume my journey. I had only gone about ten yards when she caught up to me.

“Surely all missions were canceled when the zombies appeared? The circle of life is in flux. We must adapt,” she said, falling into step beside me.

“My pet is only two in human years,” I said, “and I’ve received no word of his safety or the end of the mission.”

She absorbed that, and then said, “How can you even be sure he’s alive if he is a youngling?”

I explained finding Connor’s stuffed horse at the hospital as we reached the tracks. I made sure the sun was in the east, and that I was still headed south, and kept walking. Train cars littered our path for several miles, some on the tracks, some tipped on their sides. I checked each one for humans, but they all seemed to be empty.

When she made no move to withdraw or turn away, I had to ask, “Where are your pets?”

“I told you,” she answered, shaking her head. “I don’t get along with other mammals.”

“You were never assigned a pet?” I asked, finding that hard to believe. Surely a cat that looked like her would be coveted among humans. They were notoriously shallow and picked their cats based on looks rather than skills. Though I supposed that when I was a kitten my best skill was my focused concentration on a moving piece of yarn. Really not much of a resume.

She didn’t answer, stopping suddenly, her large pointed ears cocking to the side. I mimicked her and heard the light footsteps of other cats.

“Hide,” she hissed and then she was gone, a flash of gold under the nearest train car. I had dropped low to follow her when two short-haired cats leapt into my path.

“We found you just in time. Didn’t we, Liona?” said one to the other.

“Oh, indubitably, Jaguar, we did.”

I stopped in my tracks, my heart hammering, trying not to look like I was looking for an escape route, but really, really looking for an escape route. “Your names are Jaguar and Liona?” I asked.

“Our slave names were moronic, so we adopted new ones when our pets turned,” said Jaguar, sliding up close to me. “And what’s your moniker my fine feline friend?”

I decided on the truth. “Pickles. Though I still have a pet, so I think I’ll keep it.”

Liona wrinkled her nose at the name. “Bast, we have to give this poor girl a new name.”

A huge white cat waddled into our midst. “Agreed; we can’t travel with a condiment.”

All three cats laughed uproariously at that joke, and I tried to demonstrate my lack of concern by licking at my whiskers. Really, I had no idea how to get out of this situation, and Hannah seemed freaked out, so I was officially on high alert. Then again, I’d faced zombies, eagles, and an army of rats led by a mad opossum. I was having a bit of a weird week.

Bast squinted her eyes at me. “Oh, this is a cool customer here.”

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” I admitted, amazed my fake relaxation technique was working and wondering if Hannah was still in earshot. “I really need to get going. And it’s not safe to just be talking out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Liona said, “which is why we’re traveling as a pack.”

I nodded: that made sense. “Where are you headed?”

“The highlands, where humans are rare and fowl and rodent are plentiful,” Bast said, nodding her head westwards. I guess that answered my question as to what cats ate when they were outside the house. Gross.

“Bast had a vision, she did,” Liona explained reverently, “the first night the dead humans rose. She was touched by the Saber.”

I suspected that all three of these cats were touched by something. And it rhymed with crazy.

“You can come with us,” Jaguar said. “Every claw is a help.”

“Well, almost every claw,” Bast interjected, throwing a meaningful glance at her followers.

“Thanks for the offer, but the thing is, I’m following the trail of my pet. He’s a youngling and he needs my help.” I rose, starting to walk away, and hoping for the best. The “best” being that they walk in the opposite direction.

The cats looked at each other. “A noble quest,” said Bast, licking her lips nervously, “but I must insist.”

I felt my heart rate accelerate again, and a bit of that anger rose in my throat. “Insist all you want, but unless you have proof that Connor is in these highlands you speak of, I’m heading south.”

“If you’re not with us,” Bast said, arching her back, “you’re against us.”

I hissed in response, all my anger at zombies and missing pets exploding to the surface. “This is ridiculous! You can’t force every cat you come across to follow you!”

“You will respect Bast’s vision!” screeched Liona, and she vaulted at me. I leapt straight up, swiping with my left paw in mid-air and landing on the other side of the tracks. I think I was more surprised than she was when I actually connected with her leg. She yowled in pain, but I took too long staring at my success because by the time I turned to run, Jaguar threw himself at me. I was sure I was a goner, but a blur of gold came flying at him from under a train car. I used his confusion to scoop dust into the black cat’s eyes with my paw before rolling underneath him and swiping at his tender belly. He collapsed into a defensive ball at my paws.

Bast was no fighter, she fled screaming, calling for Liona and Jaguar to save her.

I huffed, hissing and twice my usual size as the other two cats dragged themselves after their pathetic prophet. Only when they were small dots on the landscape did I lower my arch.

“You’re hurt!” exclaimed Hannah from somewhere out of my sight.

That’s when the pain overtook my adrenaline rush and I fell to my side, unconscious.