Kitty 22

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 22

By Plot Roach

The animals slept late into the day, most had tossed and turning in their sleep due to grief. When the light from the nearby window woke Kitty, she lifted her head to find that Shakes was still sitting next to his dead master. She stretched as she stood up, the chill of the morning making old injuries ache. She longed to be away from this place of fear and death, but knew that the other residents saw this place as their safe home. She padded over to the sleeping dog and tried to wake him.

“We have to get going, “Kitty said, nudging the golden retriever.

“I’m not leaving.” Shakes said, a low growl in his voice. He shivered , but refused to leave his place. Kitty knew that sleeping side by side with her pack had kept her warm most nights, but also knew that sleeping next to a corpse would leach his body heat and make him vulnerable to disease.

“You can’t stay here guarding a dead body, you have to go on living.”

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do, you’re not my master,” he growled.

“No, your master is dead. It’s time fore you to be your own dog now.”

“And enjoy that ‘freedom’ you’ve been telling me about?” he snapped. “The same freedom that nearly got you killed by the jaws of your own pack or nearly starved you to death as you roamed the streets? No thank you. I choose to die here, with Craig.”

The cats looked to one another and then to Kitty. As if of one mind, they padded up to the couch and looked up to Shakes. “We’re leaving,” said Blue. “We can’t survive here and you know it.”

“Ungrateful cats…” Shakes murmured, he laid back down on the couch next to Craig’s body, his muzzle resting on the dead man’s leg. He shot them all a look that sent a chill down Kitty’s spine. It’s going to be hard to get him moving, if we can at all, she told herself.

The cats took another long look at their friend and then a quick glance at Kitty. “Can you help?” Blue whispered as he walked past her.

Whether it was to help them in their argument or help Shakes see the error in his logic, Kitty could only guess. She stepped around the mess of tuna that had been dropped on the floor in Shakes’ attempt to get the can open. The cats had not touched it in the night, though they had every opportunity to. They must have been grieving too deeply to even consider it, Kitty thought. Or else they chose to leave it alone out of respect for the dead. It was now just a dried mess on the floor, a lump that mixed in with the carpet, soon to be unmovable as cement.

Kitty paced the floor, trying to find the right words to comfort the service dog. “I think that Craig would have wanted you to go on and-”

“Don’t say another word,” Shakes growled. He looked away from Kitty and closed his eyes, his muzzle still resting on the dead man’s knee.

Everyone deals with grief in a different way, she reminded herself. And though she worried for her friend, she knew that she could not change his mind unless he was willing to listen to her arguments. Now is not the time for trying to talk logic into him, she told herself. He’s still too numb with grief. She went into the kitchen where the cats were eating dry kibble and drinking from the water bowl.

“We’ll have to refill the water soon if we are going to stay here,” Blue said. “Though we should probably leave before the body begins to smell worse than it already does.”

In the night Craig’s bowels had let go, soaking into the couch beneath him. The stench of his illness and death permeated the apartment, overwhelming their sensitive noses. Kitty knew from her experience on the street that parasites would soon begin their work upon the corpse and render it into a bloated and stinking mass within days.

“We’re not staying here,” Lucy said, here eyes daring Kitty to tell her otherwise.

“But we can’t leave without Shakespeare!” Prue said. “Who would take care of us and protect us from… the wild?”

“It’s not my decision to make,” Kitty said. “But you can’t stay here in the apartment forever. Eventually you will run out of food. The body will rot in earnest, and the smell will bring bugs and rodents to feast on it.” Or worse, Kitty thought to herself. There’s quite a few carrion eaters out there who would love nothing more than a side of cat steak to go with a well aged corpse. But Kitty decided to keep that little tidbit of information to herself and try her hardest to get them all to leave the apartment and head for safer ground.

“What do you suggest?” Blue asked.

“I think we can afford to give him another day to grieve. But after that we’ll either have to find a way to move him or else we’ll have to leave him behind and hope that he’ll leave on his own.”

“Where will we go?” Prue asked.

“Maybe we can find another human to take you in,” Kitty said, though she doubted that there were many healthy humans left living in the city who would be willing to take in more mouths to feed. She ate a few bites of dry kibble, forcing them down even though she had no hunger. She knew that she had to eat to keep up her strength. And with the one human in the world who would feed me gone, she thought, I need to stuff my belly while I still can.

She left the kitchen and moved to the front door where she paused by the open crack. She nosed it open so that she could look out into the hallway beyond and check for and intruders before leaving for the streets below the apartment. Shakes had left the door cracked open and Kitty wondered if he had done it on purpose to let her get out. Or maybe he wants me to leave now that Craig is dead, she thought.

“Are you going to leave us so soon?” Lucy asked, looking up at the dog with her wise golden eyes.

“Not yet,” Kitty said. “But I have a hunch that I want to check into.”

“What’s that?” Lucy asked.

“If there are no humans to be found to take you all in, I know of a place where you can spend a few months to hide until the weather gets better and you can learn to fend for yourselves.”

“You mean THEY can learn to fend for themselves,” Lucy corrected. “I don’t think that they have even caught more than five mice between them in all the years of their nine lives. I was a feral cat caught in a humane trap only five months ago, I still remember the thrill of the hunt and the taste of blood on my lips.”

“Very well then,” Kitty said. “Maybe you should come with me to check into this idea of mine.”

Lucy smiled in a very un-catlike manner, as cats usually keep their feelings to themselves unless the urge for anger or frustration needed to be vented in a hiss or a snarl. “Lead the way,” she said.

“Shakes,” Kitty called out to the service dog. “We’re going out to look for more humans again.”

“Go wherever you want, Kitty,” he mumbled, not bothering to look up as they left. Kitty’s heart sank with the apathetic words of the service dog. And though she had suffered her own losses in this world, she knew that he was suffering in a way that she could only imagine. To be tied that greatly to another being, she thought. It must have felt like half of him died with the human.

Kitty pushed the door to the apartment open a little farther and edged past the doorframe, making sure to nose it back into position as she and the calico left. Kitty watched in wonder and slight jealously as Lucy ran almost gracefully down the steps of the staircase where Kitty had to maneuver herself through an ungainly stride.

I’ll have to eat more food if I’m going to keep up with this routine, Kitty told herself, feeling the muscles along her legs burn from the effort. But at least it’s not as hard to keep up as it was yesterday.

At the base of the building, Kitty moved the little leg latch down and into position, keeping the door open for their return as Shakes had down the day earlier. They had left all the doors propped open and Kitty hoped that Shakes would defend the other, tamer cats should some stray animal find its way up and into the apartment while they were gone.

“I don’t see anyone,” Lucy said. “Where did all the humans go? And for that matter, the animals as well?”

“I think that the humans got sick and either died in their homes or were taken away to the hospitals,” Kitty said. “Maria was talking about it with Craig before she left.”

“Do you think that Maria is dead too?” Lucy asked.

“I think that she might be,” Kitty said. “Even if the city was evacuated, she would have come for Craig, wouldn’t she? And if there was a wide scale evacuation, wouldn’t the humans have come for all the sick and dying?”

“Maybe there weren’t enough healthy humans to do it?” Lucy asked. “Maybe all the rest of the humans ran away to keep themselves healthy.”

“I think that you might be right. But there are no bodies out in the street as there were with the city I was in before I came to live with your master.”

“But the bodies were taken away by humans later when the animals tried to eat them, right?”

“Yes.”

“I think that the humans where collecting to bodies to keep the rest of the humans free from the illness, like when a sick animals is spurned and abandoned by the pack,” The calico said. “Where did the animals go when the bodies were gone?”

“I think that those that were poisoned by the bait and died were taken to the same plave where they took the human bodies. Those that were alive and trapped must have been taken to the animal pound.”

“What about the pack that you joined up with?” Lucy asked.

“They were searching for food when they found me. And I have to admit that they weren’t very good at it,” Kitty said. “That’s why Max was so eager to let me join and keep me with them, I think. They must have all been pets that were abandoned at one time or another by their owners. When the humans left, there was no one to make garbage. And when there were no scraps of food to live off of anymore, they needed another way to survive.”

“And you were it.” Lucy said.

“Yes,” Kitty admitted. “I was it.”

“Why did you join up with them again?” the calico asked, washing a paw while she waited for Kitty’s answer.

“I was in a bad way,” Kitty admitted. “I had been living on my own on the streets before having been caught in a trap like yourself. But instead of being taken to a person like Craig, they took me to the dog pound. When the humans got sick, they left us alone and without food for a few days, once we finally escaped, a few of the dogs turned against me and threatened to kill me. I ran as far and as fast as I could, but I still worried that they would find me. So when Max and his pack showed up and offered to take me in I thought that I had someone to protect me, not to abuse me further.”

“Well I for one think that you were very strong to survive on your own,” said the cat. “And even stronger for deciding to leave such a bad situation as that pack.”

Kitty felt embarrassed by the cat’s compliment, knowing that her escape from the pack was not entirely her own. The poisoned food and being hit by Maria’s car had a big hand in that, she thought to herself. “We’d better get going,” she said to Lucy before heading off in the direction of the supermarket.