Kitty 9

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 9

By Plot Roach

"But Mitch, I thought you said that they only come to collect the bodies once a week?" asked Grimy.

"They do -until now," Mitch said. "I overheard my master talking to the others who work here. And something bad is going on with the humans."

"Something bad is always going on with the humans," the Husky complained. "I've been in and out of human homes all my life and all I can make out of human existence is that they like to fight and makes the lives of those they touch miserable. And if they bother to touch you to pet you, inevitably it will end with punch to the muzzle."

"My first master wasn't so bad," Grimy whined. "She was old, but nice."

"And what happened when she died?" the Husky asked. "They either threw you out or kept you locked up in a yard, didn't they?"

Grimy looked to the floor, ashamed of his past. As if the old woman's death had somehow been his fault. And as if he deserved the treatment the humans had given him thereafter.

"The only reason that the old lady didn't hit you herself was because she was too old to," the Husky said.

"That's enough of that!" Mitch barked. "Not every human in the world beats dogs. My master-"

"'Your master,'" the Husky mocked. "Your master will betray you, mark my words. There isn't a human alive that would put his needs and his life behind those of his dog. A loyal, loving human? I've searched for it all my life, and never found it." The Husky snapped. "No matter how much they act like they love you, you'll end up starving to death in the wild. Or worse, you’ll end up in the chamber," he said, his tirade ending in a whine.

"I'm sorry for your past," Mitch said. "I wish that there had been more love in your life."

"Why?" the Husky asked. "Would it make the final sleep I'll find in the chamber any easier to bear?"

Mitch looked away, unable to answer the dog's question.

"Yeah, you just go on feeling sorry for me," The Husky said. "Because by this time tomorrow you'll be curled up next to the feet of your master while Death comes for my soul."

The rest of the dogs in the cell next to his whined, for the Husky had spoken the Dark One's name aloud, and everyone knew that it summoned him to the pound and that he would not leave without a companion. They looked to one another and wondered which of them would leave and which would stay.

The air grew thick with tension as the dogs grew silent.

"What of an animal to help us open the cages?" Kitty asked Mitch, breaking both the silence and the dismal mood which had come over them. "Have you found any animal with paws dexterous enough to open the locks?"

"I'm afraid not," Mitch said. "I looked in the wild animal compound and it is empty save for a rabid skunk that needs to be put down."

Kitty whined, it had been her last hope to get them all out alive.

"I know, girl. I'm sorry," Mitch said.

"What about the circus animals?" she asked.

"Not an animal here that is able to do what you would ask of it." Mitch said. "The human only brought the animals here that needed medical attention. The healthy ones were taken to the local zoo."

"What's a zoo?" Grimy asked.

"It is where the humans go to look at wild animals," Mitch explained.

"Can't they go out into the wild to do that?" Grimy asked.

"They humans don't feel safe in the wild, that's why they keep the animals in cages a safe distance away so that the animals can't fight back," Mitch explained.

"It doesn't seem fair," Grim said. "They go to all the trouble of trapping all these animals and no one eats them."

"Who says?" asked the Husky. "Does anyone know what happens to the bodies of the dead dogs that they take away from here?"

All the dogs were silent, contemplating his question. Would the humans really keep them trapped up in cages and kill us off, just to eat us? Kitty asked herself. It makes sense, in a way. They could keep the meat fresher for a longer period of time, unlike the food that I find at the dumpster. Maybe they just kill us off as they get hungry. It made her shiver at the thought. What about MINE? she asked herself, thinking of the guard dog that she loved to torment. Are his people just keeping him around until they get hungry enough to send him here and have him killed?

"What will they do with the sick animals from the circus?" Kitty asked.

"Fix the ones that they can, kill the ones they can't," he said, licking a paw.

"Must be a lot of meat on that elephant thing you said that they have out there," Grimy said, licking his chops.

"They have decided to move it to the zoo," Mitch said. "But the zebra is still out there."
"And that was what again?" Asked the Husky.

"That thing that looked like a sunburned horse," the Dalmatian said.

"So there is no other animal that we can turn to for help?" Kitty asked.

"I'm afraid not," Mitch said, looking at his feet because he could not meet her eyes. "I'm sorry," he said softly and then walked away.

Then the man walked from cage to cage, depositing a half ration of dried kibble in each cell. The bigger dogs pushed the smaller ones to the side again and devoured all that was to be had. Kitty bolted down her food, though she felt bad that she could not share any with Grimy in the cage across from hers. But it does no good not to eat it, she thought.

Then the man left the room, shutting off the light and locking up the door as he did every night.
"But it's midday," Grimy said, as if reading her thoughts.

The dogs were left in the half darkness of the pound, their only means of light coming from the small windows placed at the top of tall cinderblock walls.

Kitty's belly felt filled with rocks, not kibble as she thought of what was to await them in the morning.

But I told him it was going to be alright, Kitty thought to herself, remembering the conversation between herself and Grimy when they had first been caught in the cages. Somehow it HAS to be alright. Somehow I'll find a way out of this for all of us. Why did the gods come to me and give me gifts if it was all in vain? she asked herself. Unless it was just the dreams of a desperate dog.

She relieved herself in a corner of the cage, noting that the man had not even stopped to clean up after the dogs before he left.

Kitty slept uneasily, as had the other dogs. It was one thing to sleep when you knew that you were imprisoned and that one day would be much like the one that preceded it. But the dogs knew that their hours were numbered and none of them could settle down for the night, knowing that each hour that passed was one less to live.

But the following morning brought light, but no humans. By midday the dogs realized that something had gone wrong. "What did Mitch say was wrong with the humans?" Grimy asked.

"He didn't," Kitty said.

The dogs murmured amongst themselves of what could have been happening in the human world, for them to be left, literally, in the dark.

"Even if the humans couldn't come, Mitch would -wouldn't he?" asked the Chihuahua.

"You fool," said the Dalmatian. "He's with his human, that who he goes home with at the end of the night. it's not like he lives here with us. If something went wrong with the humans that run this place, then he's in the thick of it with them. All we can do is wait and see."

But the solitary hours stretched into another evening and another dawn found them, starved and scared. the bigger dogs started snapping at the smaller ones in their cages and soon fights broke out among them.

"Stop it!" the old hound called out. "It is no use fighting amongst ourselves. It is the trap of the trickster dogs! If you give into temptation you are lost!"

The dogs settled down for a while, some pacing their cages to alleviate their anxiety while other groomed themselves constantly, like cats.

By the fourth day most of the dogs lay listlessly on the hard concrete floors of their cages. No one spoke, for by that time everything that needed to be said had been yipped, snarled or whimpered. They reminisced about the good and bad times in their lives. Exchanged hopes and dreams about what the forest of the Afterlife would hold for them and wondered if the Dark One would come to claim them all at once, or one at a time.

A noise broke the stillness in the air as the light hummed into live overhead. Then, despite all odds, the humans walked in.

"Let's just get this done and get out of here." One mal said to the other. He was a tall, thin man with thinning hair. He walked with a purpose, as if he had someplace that he needed to be other than here, among the dogs of the pound. "It's not like they're paying us overtime to do this, you know."

"Then why are we doing it at all?" the smaller man said. He was a head shorted than his companion and had more meat to him. He looked to Kitty as though he had never skipped a meal in his life. And she wondered absently how many dogs he had eaten to get so fat.

"We can't leave them to die in the cages, that's why." the other said. "They'll be using the building as a shelter for the sick and I doubt that they'll want dead dogs in it."

"Where's Mitch?" Grimy asked.

"Shush," Kitty said. "I'm trying to hear what they are saying."

"Like a dog can understand what a human is saying," said the Dalmatian.

"Mitch could," Grimy argued.

"Shut up and let me hear what is going on!" Kitty snapped. The dogs fell silent and the two men looked at her through the chin link of her cell door.

"That one's not a dog," the fat one said. "I bet if we set it free it could go live in the wild."

"Why?" the thin on asked. "Why should we set it free? So that it could eat the dead bodies set out on the streets? So that it can spread the disease?" There was a sound to the thin man's voice. A sound that a small dog makes just before it picks a fight with a larger one. The thin man was being pushed too far, but by whom Kitty did not know.

"It's just that... I'd hate to see them die, is all. Not when they can go live in the wild or something," the fat man said.

Yes, Kitty thought. Free us, let us take our chances elsewhere.

"They'll die out in the cold, you know that. How many dead strays have we had to pick up in an alleyway or in the park?" The thin man asked.

"I know," said the fat man. "I just thought..."

"No," said the thin man. "You weren't thinking. Now leave it to me how to handle this, alright?"
The fat man nodded and looked around him at the dogs. They had all gotten to their feet and looked up at him, whining and tails wagging in anticipation of food and water.

"Can we feed them first?" the fat man asked. "They look awful hungry."

"They should he hungry," the thin man said. "They've been here most of a week without food. But we can't feed them now, they'll just be sick when they're in the chamber."

"Are we really going to kill them?" the fat man asked, sounding like a small child.

"What did you think we were doing here?" the thin man asked. "Now stay here, I have an idea of how to get them all into the chamber at once."

"But can the chamber hold them all?"

"Oh, they'll fit in there, especially if it's the only way to get food. I'll go get what's left of the kibble and load it into the wheelbarrow. We'll dump it at the far end of the chamber, release the dogs and then close the door behind them and turn on the gas. They'll be dead in no time and all we'll have to do it unload the corpses in the driveway and hose out the chamber. We'll be out of here by lunchtime," The man said, walking away.

The fat man chewed a knuckle, weighing what his companion had told him against the faces of the dogs which looked up to him in anticipation of mercy.

"When they open the doors, don't go after the food," Kitty said. "It's a trap."

"A trap?" the Rottweiler said. "If it's food, I'm going after it. Why should we listen to you? All you did was raise our hopes with false promises of being able to free us. I say we trust the humans, they've come back, after all. Maybe they'll treat us nice and give us food."

"And maybe rabbits will spring from my farts," said the old hound, laying at the edge of his cage. Kitty was surprised he was alive at all, since she had not seen him move for the last day and a half.

"I say do what the coydog says, she knows what the humans are saying better than anyone of us does."

The fat man took a ring of keys off of the wall next to the door and unlocked the back door. He then walked up the line of cages and unlatched each door, shooing the dogs out with quick hand movements and kissing noises, as one would a puppy.

"Where's the food?" One of the dogs asked. "I'm not moving without food."

"Get out now!" Kitty barked. But the noise was too loud and brought the thin man back to their cellblock.

"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted at the fat man. "We're supposed to gas them!"

"Can't we set some free?" he asked. “Not all of them are old and sick, some might make it out on their own."

"What is wrong with you? We have a job to do and I'm not going to lose it because you feel kind hearted all of a sudden," The thin man yelled as he snatched at the dogs running past him out into the open. He missed several times and grabbed the gun from the wall next to him, he pulled the trigger, aiming at the mutts who had run past him and into the side parking lot. But this time it was not tranquilizer darts, as had been used on Kitty when she tried to run from her cage, but bullets.

"RUN! THEY"RE TRYING TO KILL US!" Kitty barked. A few of the dogs froze in place and were mown down within seconds, when the man stopped to reload the gun, Kitty tried to run past him. But the thin man saw her coming and brought the rifle down like a club.

Kitty shied away at the swing, expecting the blow that would end her life, but it never came. Instead the old hound had shoved her out of the way, receiving the fatal blow himself.

"Run, child," he said with the last of his breath. "I was left here for a purpose, now I know what it was." His eyes closed and his body lay limp against the thin man's feet, trapping him in place as the fat man tried to wrestle the rife out of his grip.

Dogs streamed out of the building and into the side parking lot where some could jump the fence and others were small enough to climb under it.

She looked for Grimy in the fray and bumped into the Rottweiler.

"You," he said. "Somehow this is all because of you." he lunge at her, missing as she jumped away.

"It's all her fault," the Dalmatian snarled, the blood of the wounded and dying staining his feet.
Before she knew it, a group of dogs surrounded her, each calling for her blood. And as she managed to sidestep one assault, another dog would lunge in and snap at her, often coming away with a tuft of fur -or worse- her flesh.

The men were yelling at one another, still struggling over the rifle when it went off and the Rotweiler in front of her went down hard. Kitty took the opportunity to jump over the wounded dog while the others looked at his body in shock. And then the unthinkable happened, some of the dogs had stopped to began eating the corpses of the fallen.

There was no time to stop to look for Grimy as another shot rang out.

All of the dogs scattered once they left the gate. The humans would spend many days looking for them all, though Kitty doubted that they would try very hard. She made a mental note to remind herself that any food she sought from now on might be bait for a trap to get her back. And her heart dropped even as her feet flew across the black pavement. Where would she go now that she was free?

She walked for hours, stopping only when water from a street gutter was too much for her to ignore with her thirst. Occasionally she saw another one of the dogs, but they ignored one another in order to get as far from the pound as possible. The memory of the dogs turning their hunger upon the dead was too much for her. It was like the story of the trickster gods, and it sent a shiver down Kitty's spine. Before she knew it, she found herself at her old home, the alley of the apartment complex. She walked past a cage holding the bloated corpse of a raccoon and hoped that it had not been the one she had helped to free before her imprisonment. The bait had long since been eaten, for what little good it had done for the dead raccoon. So Kitty scanned the ground where the old woman normally left her offerings of Kibble and canned meat.

But there was nothing, not even a whiff of food to be gleaned from the weed infested lot. She heard a mew from the end of the apartment complex.

My old home, she thought and headed for her burrow. What she found in the doorway to her home did not surprise her. It seemed that the humans continued to set a trap here, even after they had caught her.

Only now it was a cat trapped in her place.

"How long have you been here" Kitty asked the bundle of fur in the cage.

"A day and a half, I think." said the cat, her orange fur spiked all over her body making her look like an angry sun. "Are you here to eat me?" she asked.

"No," Kitty sighed. "I think that there has been enough killing in my life today." She stood up on her back feet in order to get a better look at the latch on the cage. And using her muzzle was able to trip the spring and let the cage door fall into the dirt. The cat zipped out, quick as lightning, and climbed a nearby tree.

"Well so much for a ‘thank you.’" Kitty mumbled and dropped back down to all four paws once again.

"Sorry," the cat said. "I wasn't sure that you weren't going to eat me." She climbed down from the tree and landed next to Kitty, close enough to talk, yet far enough away that the dog could not easily attack her. "The dogs have been eating anyone not fast enough to get away."

"Where are the dogs now?" Kitty asked. "In fact, where is everyone?"

"Most of the dogs were either trapped and taken away or moved off when there wasn't anymore food, like the dead bodies" the cat explained.

"What dead bodies?"

"Where have you been to miss the dead bodies?" the cat asked.

"I was in the pound for the last week or so," Kitty said.

"Oh," the cat said. "How did you get out?"

"One of the humans let us out while the other one tried to kills us. Now what happened here?"

"The humans got sick and died pretty fast," the cat said, licking a paw to wash her ear. "When there wasn't enough cars to take the bodies away, the humans started stacking them in the streets. Then the dogs and other animals started eating on them and the humans began trapping them or poisoning them.

"Poisoning them how?"

"By treating the meat and leaving it on the ground next to the bodies."