Kitty 12

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 12

By Plot Roach


Kitty lifted her head to the setting sun, her heart heavy with worry. What can I do, All Mother? Where can I go that Max and his minions cannot reach me?

Even as she asked the question, Max walked up and stood beside her. His form as imposing as his mood. “What are your plans for tomorrow?” he asked. He leaned close to her, brushing against her side. And though she was certain that her carried no disease, it sent her skin crawling nonetheless.

“Tomorrow?” she asked, trying to keep the whimper from her voice.

“We should move out tomorrow, find new territory and more food,” he said, scanning the horizon. Whether he was looking for prey or for foe, only he knew for certain.

You mean I’ll be looking for food and you’ll be looking to benefit from it, she thought, though she dared not utter such a phrase. She looked to the wet ground and knew by the feeling in her bones that more cold weather would be soon upon them.

“We have to get someplace that we can shelter in,” she said. “If only for a week or two. Bad weather is coming and some of your pack might not make it through this if we keep going at the pace we’ve been going for the last week.”

Max cocked his head, his eyes still staring off into the sunset. “You leave the planning to me. Your job is to make sure that the pack is fed.” He stalked off to the center of the pack, curling up next to Moon who gave a smirk at Kitty as he lay down next to her.

He likes me better than you, that smirk said to Kitty. She made her bed at the edge of the pack. That night her dreams were of strange dogs who walked a wilderness that she had heard about while in the dog pound, yet had never experienced herself. It was like the forest of the Afterlife, but not as comforting and full of game. She saw herself roam with these dogs, not as the lower cast animal, but second only to the alpha. He was a dog much like herself, though his hair was a bit darker and he was a bit larger in body. His eyes were two different colors, like Mitch, the service dog that she had met in the pound.

And when his eyes met hers, they were filled with kindness and understanding. She woke in the night when a faint howl broke the silence of the empty city.

None of the other dogs heard it, or else ignored the call. None moved in the still night except herself and some rodents that scurried about in the night. Max shifted in his sleep, and Kitty knew that she could not leave even if she wanted to. The pack would not let her.

And where would I go? She asked herself. There were no other packs, only stray dogs which had either run away or were torn to shreds.

Yet even as she drifted back to sleep, the warmth and the safety of the pack in her dreams gave her comfort. Somehow she knew that she would find them.

Dawn came all too soon for Kitty who would have preferred the land of her dreams to the nightmare of her reality. The dogs massed for another day of foraging, with Kitty leading the way. Max kept her hungry to keep her weak and under his control. Whenever she could find food on the side, she gobbled it down before the pack could take it from her, though Max would punish her terribly for it, pulling out chunks of her fur or biting her ears and muzzle.

Even when he had shown her affection during the mating season, he growled as he groomed her, whispering threats of what he would do if she tried to leave his pack.

Then came a series of day when no food could be found. All of Kitty’s tricks had failed her. And she learned that with no humans, there was no human trash to feed off of.