Kitty 11

I am participating in NANOWRIMO this year. I will attempt to post my daily ramblings in the hopes that eventually it will become a book which will entertain you as well as myself…

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Kitty Part 11

By Plot Roach

"You did say that you could find us food here, did you not?" asked one of the dogs behind her. Several others behind him muttered their doubts about Kitty and her heart dropped to her paws. She had to prove to them, and possibly to herself, that she was capable of providing for the pack.

"Yes," she said. "But the last time I was here, there were humans working in the building, serving food to other humans and tossing out what was left over into the big bin over there in the square of bushes." He nose twitched, trying to seek a smell, no matter how faint, that would tell her if the humans had left any food behind.

"But if the humans were eating it,, how did you get any?" Asked the dog who had questioned her earlier.

"The men throwing away the extra food were sloppy and often tossed some of the food over the bins," Kitty said. She did not tell them that the one who threw out the restaurant's garbage would often toss a few bites to her as she hid in the bushes, lest they think her a soft dog and turn their endless and cannibalistic hunger upon her.

"I imagine that there might still be some food left in the garbage bin if the big truck has not come by to feed," she said, walking to the side of the garbage dumpster.

"That big thing that runs with the human cars and belches black smoke?" Max asked. "I've seen it feed before, stopping at every house.” he turned to the other dogs as he recounted this strange beast to them. “It seemed to have a huge belly and almost never stopped eating. It's maw is huge with two big tusks to lift its prey to its mouth. But I still don't know why it runs backwards."

"Maybe to see if it forgot anything left to eat?" Kitty asked. She was only half listening to the alpha dog, trying to figure a way into the dumpster was proving more difficult by the minute and the sides did not appear to have anything for her claws to find purchase upon to pull herself into the large metal bin.

She circled the big trash dumpster, looking for a way in. "Well?" asked Max. "Is there food or not?"

"Yes," Kitty said, sniffing a crack in the side of the large, greasy metal box. "But it will take some effort to get into it."

“So what are you waiting for?” Max challenged.

Kitty snorted at the comment, but kept her thoughts to herself. A real Alpha would not stand back and let a lesser dog provide for his pack, she told herself, but would find a way of doing these things for himself so that he could continue to put the needs of the pack before his own. There is a great deal wrong with these dogs, their leader included.

The dogs of the pack were not great at formulating ideas, but Kitty's wild side of the family was known for their problem solving skills. Her father had been a coyote living on the edge of the human city when her German Shepherd mix of a mother had come into heat. He left for his home in the wild soon after she gave birth, but not before showing her a couple of tricks to survive and provide for his pups.

Kitty remembered back to when she was a pup, when she waited for her mother to come home to the junkyard. Of sitting patiently while the other pups played in the junkyard, just so that she could get a glimpse of her mother returning with their food.

Her mother could jump over the fence by climbing the limbs of a nearby tree. It was not the usual tall tree that cats could scale when they ran from a dog or were stalking feathered prey, but a squat bush with thick almost ladder like limbs. She watched her mother climb the rungs nature had provided until she neared the top of the chain link fence. Then her mother would launch herself over the edge and land on all fours, sometimes with a skid if the weather was bad and the ground was not dry. On the other side of the junkyard was a stack of wooden pallets that made a staircase that she used to leave the fenced in area. And from this Kitty had learned how to get into and out of areas most stray dogs were locked out of. It had helped when she raided a backyard containing chickens a few months back. Though she almost had not made it out of the yard alive when the humans who tended that flock of fowl took offense to her pilfering.

She looked to the edges of the dumpster, planning her attack. If she used the bushes nearest the dumpster, she could work her way to the cinderblock wall that encased the trash bin. From there she could drop down with relative ease into the bin. She did not have a plan for escape, should anything go wrong. But the humans seemed to have disappeared from the planet, so she decided that she would worry about getting out of the bin only once she got into it.

"Stand back," she said, getting a running jump before flinging herself into the limbs of the bushes. It took a moment or two before she could right herself and decide which limbs would bear her weight and which would send her plummeting once again to the ground.

"What is she DOING?" one of the dogs asked Max.

"Give her a chance," the alpha dog said. "She hasn't disappointed us yet." Once Kitty was in the bushes she heard some of the snickering of the others dogs laughing at her. Some made mewing sounds of cats and others wondered aloud about her heritage and if it included feline interbreeding. She ignored them, pulling herself up through the bushes until she could balance against the cinderblock wall long enough to pull herself up and over it.

Once on the wall, she discovered that the bin had been left closed. She jumped over onto the top and found that it was split down the middle. She pawed at the lid and found that if she could get a corner of one of the lids in her mouth, she could pull it back to open it.

This she did with some difficulty as the dogs on the ground could no longer see her and asked constantly what she was doing.

"Are you getting any closer to the food?" Max asked, a low growl in his throat. He was losing his patience and was likely to take it out on her if she failed.

"I would be there now if I didn't have to stop and keep answering questions." she growled through clenched teeth.

"Watch your tone now, girl!" The alpha dog snapped. "I am your master."

My master? Kitty thought, nearly dropping the lid in her shock. I have never had a master, human or otherwise, so why would I start now?

Still, the smell from the dumpster was overwhelming and she was as impatient to fill her belly as the pack was theirs.

Once she pulled the lid back, it fell against the side of the dumpster and she had an open entry point. She jumped in, finding her landing cushioned by old cardboard boxes and plastic bags. These chew chewed open with her teeth as she followed her nose to the most promising smells.

The dogs outside had gone silent when they heard the dumpster lid slam open against the side of the bin, but now they began wailing as the smell wafted to them on the wind. Kitty laughed at their pitiful calls, as their stomachs yearned for what now surrounded Kitty.

"Don't forget that we eat first!" yelled Max, a growl no longer contained by his overstrained patience.
Yeah, me. Kitty thought. She bolted down a stale bagel and a part of a burger within seconds. Once she took the edge off of her hunger she began to fetch pieces of food for the other dogs, tossing them over the edge of the dumpster and onto the ground where they could reach them.

As she worked to feed the pack, her heart sank at the amount of food which she had found. If she had only kept to herself, she could have lived off of this bounty for weeks. But now she had to share, and it would be picked clean before she knew it. She was tempted to share only half of the trash bin's contents with them and come back by herself in the night to fill her belly. But just my luck, she thought to herself. Max would wake up and find me here and probably crawl in after me and finish me off on the spot.

Come to think of it, why aren't the others in here with me? she asked herself. If I can climb the bushes and get in, why am I the only one who has it so far? Maybe the rest were scared. Or did not have the dexterity she had developed with her life on the streets.

What she had not realized was that domesticated dogs had looked to mankind so long for orders on how to behave and to hunt, that they were now almost lost without their human masters.

Still, instinct would return to them as their bellies grew thin. The smartest of the animals fending for himself and his family where the dumbest ones would eventually leave his genetics in the dust with his starved corpse.
With every bite she sent over the edge of the dumpster and into the jaws of a waiting dog, Kitty ate one herself. Why hadn't I done this when the humans filled it regularly? she thought. I was a fool to fight MINE over a skimpy bone when I could have had a feast to myself for free.

When the dumpster was stripped of every last morsel, Kitty climbed a heap of boxes and launched herself onto the closed half of the dumpster lid and onto the ground among the dogs of the pack who were drowsing in the sun with full bellies.

"Good job," Max said, licking her once again on the muzzle. "I hope for your sake that you can keep it up."
Kitty felt fear turn the contents of her stomach over and she had to clench her teeth together to keep from vomiting it all up. That night they slept beside the dumpster, drinking water from shallow pools when a light rain misted upon them in their sleep.

The weeks that followed were more of the same. Kitty would lead them to a food source where the pack would gorge until they could hold no more and Kitty herself was lucky to get a few bites before it was gone. Max always stayed close to her, as if he knew that she was plotting to run away whenever she had the opportunity.

Sometimes a trash bin gave them a bounty of food that would last for days, other times they were lucky to chance upon some small animal that could be trapped and ripped apart to feed the pack. More often than not, Kitty went hungry.

The days grew darker and colder, the pack sleeping huddled together for warmth. Kitty had no chance of escape then, and surrendered herself to living with the pack until a better alternative could be found.
One day a odd sensation came over her, as it did half of the pack. Some of the females had come into heat. And this business of finding food was put on hold until other needs were satiated.

Kitty had felt these sensations before, often calling to her instincts to find another of her kind to mate with and raise her pups. But she remembered her mother's problem of raising a litter of pups while trying to find enough food to feed them all. Even when Kitty had been on her own, she never received enough food to feel that she could be full, let alone raise a family upon.

So she often ignored these urges, stayed away from the others dogs and thanked whatever dog gods that listened whenever the feeling passed.

But now there was no way to ignore the feeling, especially when half the pack was experiencing heat with her and the other half was trying to mount her.

Max never strayed from her side for the first day, constantly testing her with his nose and tongue for the right time to make his move. And, as she knew that it would be, there was no romance leading up to his conquest of her body. He simply grabbed her with his jaws and held her still while he jockeyed himself into position, holding her with forepaws while he thrust himself within her.

All too soon the pleasant feeling of coupling was washed away in the fear that flooded her. What am I doing? she thought. How can I raise pups in a pack like this?

But as she tried to pull away, Max growled and twisted the fur on the back of her neck savagely to keep her in place.

As soon as he had spent himself within her and she felt his grip loosen she tried to run away, only to realize that he was firmly lodged within her. He dropped down to all fours, slipping one leg (with some difficulty) over her back so that they now stood rump to rump. He was still knotted deeply within her, his swelling organ nature's way of ensuring that his seed had an adequate amount of time to fertilize her.

Once he withdrew, she shuddered -not with pleasure, but with revulsion, at having been physically used in such a way.

After they had separated, he turned his attention to another bitch in his pack. And although other dogs expressed an interest in Kitty, Max's growl and greedy eyes kept them at bay.

Kitty found herself the lowest member of the pack, yet in the alpha's interests. It was both a curse and a blessing, as she did not get to eat first yet was not harried by the dominant dogs of the pack as some of the smaller dogs were.

If only I could get away, she thought. She lay to the side of the pack, at the outer edge, yet close enough that Max could keep and eye on her. Another pack member crept up to her, but Max did not chase the dog away. It was only the bitch that he had mated with after her. He was now resting, being groomed by the last dog he had mated with. And though his attention lay elsewhere, Kitty did not fool herself into thinking he would not miss her if she tried to slip away.

"Hey there," the bitch next to Kitty said before settling down next to her.

"Hello," Kitty said in response.

"It's not so bad, you know," she said to Kitty. "He'll treat us decent for a little while at least."

"Because he wants to keep mating with us?" Kitty asked.

"You've got it, sister," The dog sighed. "I'm Moon, by the way."

"I'm Kitty."

"No wonder you can climb trees, with a name like that," Moon said.

"I learned it from my mom," Kitty said.

"I hope she wasn't a calico," Moon joked. Kitty only rolled her eyes in an answer.

Kitty tried to fall asleep, to conserve her energy should Max turn his attentions back upon her when he was done with his latest consort, but fear welled up in her heart.

"What’s wrong?" the dog beside her asked.

"I'm afraid, Moon," she whispered. "How will I raise my pups when we can barely feed ourselves? We keep moving. Where could I make a den if we are always on the move?"

"Oh, that's not a problem at all," Moon told her, snorting at Kitty's dilemma.

"Why is that, Moon?" Kitty asked.

The other dog turned to her and yawned as she spoke, as if bored with the conversation. "That's because we eat them."

"You what?!" Kitty asked, not believing her ears.

"We eat the pups after they are born," Moon said, licking one paw and stopping to chew the webbing between her toes as if trying to pull out a burr or small stone. "Immediately, in fact. So that we cannot form a bond with them and have second thoughts. It would be a disaster if we tried keeping them."

"What? Why?" Kitty asked, still disbelieving the words coming out of the dog's mouth.

"Think about it," Moon said. "We have to keep moving just to find enough food for ourselves. If we stopped to make a den, we would be stuck in one place for at least two moons to wait for the pups' eyes to open. And then we would have to travel slow until their legs grew enough to keep up with the adults. That’s IF we could even find enough food to feed all of us. I don't know where you come from, but if a mother doesn't eat enough, she can't produce milk for her pups. They slowly starve to death. And in the meantime another pack could come upon us and attack, killing the pups anyway."

"But why eat them?" Kitty asked, horrified.

"Well they would be eating off of me as they grow, right?" Moon asked. "If I eat them I'm just gaining back the food I lost in making them. What am I supposed to do, leave them for the raccoons?"

Kitty turned away, unable to listen to another word. She pulled herself up off of the cold ground and tried to ignore the lurching in her belly. How can these dogs live like this? she asked herself.

"You wait," Moon said as Kitty drifted away. "You'll have to make that choice when it happens, just like the rest of us. Maybe you won't be so high and mighty when you are forced to eat your own pups for survival."