Unlike people-pleasing canines, we just can’t be bribed into tracing the scent of some fox, raccoon, or whatever else humans want to track. Cats have way more dignity than that. Sure, we may roll over for you, if presented with tuna. We may even allow you to rub our bellies… but, like, four times, not five. That fifth one’s just irritating, so when it happens, I’ll damn well let you know.
Anyway, the point of my rant is simple: There was nothing wrong with my ears, and since the sounds I heard were actual voices, not moans, I was pretty sure that at least two humans lay ahead. I could also pick up their slight scent, though it was almost masked by zombie stench. Probably meant some walking dead were around as well.
I turned back to check on Penny and noticed she was farther behind me.
“Keep up, kid,” I meowed, then faced forward again.
She was likely exhausted from crying, but we couldn’t afford to slow our pace. We’d end up as easier targets if we stumbled upon any of the zombies—or what my dad sometimes calls “pus-sacks.”
“Pinky, RUN!” Penny screamed.
I stopped in my tracks and turned around to see what the kid was screeching about. She literally hopped over me as she bolted down the path, away from the outstretched arms of a tall, thin human female.
Well, not exactly human anymore. The woman wore a uniform of some sort—similar to the ranger’s outfit, though dark blue and gray instead of tan and dark green—but unfortunately, she also sported bite marks all over her body. I spotted dried streaks of blood on her bare forearms and shins, along with that foul black zombie ooze. She seemed to have fifty different wounds, and every one of them was leaking.
Take it from me: I might lick my butt every day, but that shit was gross.
Since Penny had sprinted past me (or, rather, over me), I had become the creature’s new target. She bent down awkwardly and tried to swipe at me but missed.
Dumb zombie. Cat here.
I dodged her nasty hands and scurried between her even nastier legs. Still bent over, she tried to follow me with her undead eyes, but almost lost her balance. As she righted herself, I looped around her and sped after Penny.
I’d hoped to fool her, but apparently, she didn’t easily lose interest in a potential meal. Probably didn’t help that Penny screeched again.
So, naturally, it didn’t take long for the creature to be hot on our trail. I was only a few feet behind Penny, but I could hear the zombie’s heavy tread getting closer. I meowed loudly, hoping to urge my new friend to pick up the pace. But she didn’t move any faster. Knowing the zombie would catch us soon, I doubled my speed and nudged Penny off the path and into the woods.
The zombie lady pursued us, of course, but the trees stood close enough that the pus-sack was forced to slow down. Unfortunately, though, the trees hampered Penny, too. Off the path, there wasn’t as much moonlight, so the kid was having a hard time seeing where she was going. While I had no trouble zigzagging through the forest, my little pal kept getting turned around, snagged by the tangled bushes and branches.
Each time that happened, I’d meow “this way,” and she’d follow me again.
But, despite my heightened senses, I made a wrong turn and recrossed the winding path, only to end up on a ledge overlooking the river. With the female zombie bearing down on us, we had just one place to go: over the cliff. Trouble was, while I might survive, I wasn’t so sure Penny would. Especially with those huge boulders down below.
Trapped between a hungry zombie somewhere behind us and a raging river in front of us, Penny had grown quiet. I was thankful she was no longer screeching, which would’ve brought the pus-sack to us faster, but I knew she was scared. I pressed up against her leg to comfort her, and she smiled at me gratefully.
But the tender moment didn’t last long. When we heard the undead lady fumbling through the forest, our heads whipped back toward the more immediate danger. Gazing at our surroundings, I spotted a pine tree that looked fairly easy to climb.
“Hey, Penny, I have an idea,” I meowed.
Quickly, I darted toward the tree and up the bark. Scrambling onto a branch high above the ground, I looked down to see if Penny had followed me. But she hadn’t.
“Penny,” I yowled. “Get your butt up here!”
Nothing. Not even a glance in my direction. The girl was downright petrified.
I yowled at her again. When she finally met my gaze, I could see tears streaming down her cheeks. But she made no sound. Not so much as a whimper.
From my vantage point, I had an exceptional view of the river below. I reconsidered my original assessment: Maybe we could go for it. Take a leap over the boulders and land in the water. Desperate times called for desperate measures, right? I mean, I was pretty sure I could swim, even though I’d never done it before.
But before I could jump to relative safety, the zombie stumbled through the trees and onto the narrow cliffside clearing. She moved beneath my branch, paying no attention to me. Penny was the obvious target.
Just then, a bunch of pine needles tickled my back.
Stupid needles.
I swatted them, but they just fell back into place. I crouched lower, but they still bugged me, so I swiped at them again. And again, they bounced back. I’d had it with the stupid needles, so I started attacking them with gusto.
Penny screeched again.
Oh, crap, right.
I turned back toward her and eyed the pus-sack, who’d almost reached my little friend.
Then, I hissed as loudly as I could. “You nasty piece of zombie scum!”
Only a few feet from Penny, the zombie stopped and gazed up at me. That gave Penny just enough time to sprint past her. She was almost in the clear when the zombie spotted the fleeing quarry and grabbed her dress. It stretched out as Penny tried to pull herself away, but the zombie hung on. The creature was too damn strong—and too damn determined.
I needed to do something, but what? All I could think of was to charge down the branch and hurl myself at the disgusting creature. So, with no other ideas, I went for it. I darted toward the end of the limb, while Penny struggled to free herself from the would-be killer lunging toward her.
That was when the branch took a serious dip under my weight. And before you make any fat jokes, I’ll have you know that the limb was only the width of my tail, maybe a little more, and I’m a trim thirteen pounds, thank you very much.
By the time the zombie went for a full lunge, the branch had lowered itself to her eye level. How did I know that? Cuz the zombie turd rammed the pointy end of the sagging limb right through one of her eyes and out the back of her head, immediately impaling herself on the tree. She remained there, suspended in the lunge position, not moving, moaning, or doing much of anything else.
I landed on the ground just as Penny tugged her dress clear of the dead creature’s grasp.
“Good job, Pinky,” Penny said, leaning down to pat my head. “You killed that bad ol’ zombie real good.”
Normally, I only allow my parents to touch me like that, but this kid was alright. She was sweet, and she had a gentle, loving way about her. Unlike most mini-humans.
“Let’s get out of here,” I meowed, then guided her away from the ledge where we’d nearly fallen to our death. Or become a meal for a disgusting zombie.
Chapter
5
“Jesus,” I grumbled. “These little freaks are relentless!”
Not long after leaving our cliffside death trap, we managed to attract a group of kid-sized zombies. Bigger than Penny, but still smaller than our previous pursuer.
There were two boys and two girls, all dressed in bloodstained uniforms, much like the one the lady pus-sack had worn—except with different colors and a bunch of little round patches.
The taller boy had curly red hair that matched the dried blood covering what remained of his face. The most obvious defect was his messed-up mouth, due to the fact that he was missing both cheeks, which left his lower jaw just flopping below
the rest of his nasty head. The other boy was shorter but stockier, and I figured he was the one who’d chomped on his friend’s face. Cuz a sizable flap of bloody skin hung from one side of his mouth.
The two girls, meanwhile, looked exactly alike. I mean, they were literally twins. Yep, twin freaking zombies. I’m sure my dad would’ve said something clever about them. Or at least, he would’ve thought his quip was clever. Anyway, both girls, whose blonde hair was matted with blood and zombie goo, had numerous bite wounds on their bodies. One of them was even missing a kneecap.
Luckily, Penny ran faster than they did. And, well, I’m a pretty speedy cat, so there was no way those jerks would catch me. The two of us just continued bolting along the trail, heading in our original direction, where I’d heard the non-zombie voices.
The problem? I could tell Penny was getting tired. Heck, my indoor-kitty conditioning didn’t exactly leave me ready for an undead marathon either.
What kept saving us was the fact that, as children, they didn’t have that much coordination, so as walking buckets of pus, they had even less. As we ran, the group nearly reached us a few times, but inevitably, one of them would stumble, tripping up the others. If it hadn’t been such a deadly situation, it would’ve been comical watching them fall over like dominoes.
Yes, I know what dominoes are. My momma once owned a bucket full of them, along with jigsaw puzzles and other things I loved to watch her futz with.
I remember one afternoon, a while back, when she’d spent more than an hour lining all the dominoes across the living-room floor. She’d positioned them in a big spiral that weaved around the furniture. I’d knelt in the kitchen doorway the whole time, watching her intently, but I admit, I hadn’t understood the point of this tedious game until she decided to get up and look for something in the adjacent bedroom.
“Azazel,” Momma cautioned, “please stay away from the dominoes.”
Yeah, right.
At first, I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. Just a bunch of slender black rectangles with white dots. Momma had spent so much time standing them up, but for what purpose?
A curious kitty, I decided to find out. I strolled toward the closest domino—the one Momma had positioned first—and cautiously nudged it over. What a pleasant surprise when it knocked the next one down! Suddenly, they were all falling—one after the other.
OK, I admit… it scared the poop out of me when the dominoes started tumbling over. I even jumped and hid behind the garbage can, but as the process continued, making satisfying clicking sounds as the spiral collapsed, I found it mesmerizing. I kept watching until the last domino fell.
In the end, I don’t think Momma liked the dominoes as much as I did. When she returned, she harrumphed and put them all back in the bucket. That was the first and last time I ever saw them. What a shame: It was fun to watch. Wonder why she never played with them again?
My mind might’ve stayed stuck in the past if Penny hadn’t let out another shriek. The redheaded boy had almost nabbed her, his grimy fingers slipping through her long blonde hair. Then the other boy had the nerve to grab my tail.
“Let go, you little mother-humper,” I hissed.
Penny paused to kick him with her sneaker, which forced him to release my tail and tumble to the ground, tripping his buddies in the process.
“Thanks,” I meowed, keeping pace with Penny.
We’d managed to escape them again, but one thing was certain: We weren’t gonna be able to stay out of their reach for much longer. They were bloody determined to pounce on us and rip us to pieces—and nothing was gonna stop them.
The trail alternated between weaving through the woods and bringing us closer to the river. The next time we neared the water, an idea burst inside my kitty brain. I needed to “domino” those little pus-sacks right off the edge.
I mustered all my feline powers, every ounce of energy I had left in the tank, and decided it was time to go “psycho-kitty” on those grotesque zombie kids. If you have a cat, you’ve probably witnessed the psycho-kitty mode—or maybe you call it “the witching hour”—when we race around the house like rocket-powered vehicles, running across every possible surface we can. Normally, we do it for fun, but this time, I had a purpose.
“I’m tired of these mother-freaking zombies in this mother-freaking forest,” I hissed.
Only I didn’t say “freaking.” Just don’t tell Momma.
Without revealing my plan to Penny (not that she’d have understood me anyway), I turned around and started circling between and around the zombie kids’ legs. Just as one would reach down to grab me, I’d dash beneath the next one. I bobbed and weaved so fast, they didn’t know what hit them. They spun in circles on the ledge, not paying attention to anything but the flitting feline among them… which was how the tallest boy managed to fall into the other three, knocking them over the edge.
Even though his cohorts had disappeared, the big one quickly regained his footing. He looked ready to devour me—and might’ve nabbed my furry feline butt if Penny hadn’t caught on to my plan. Just as he stepped toward me, my new friend shoved him toward the precipice.
“Leave Pinky alone, you butthole!” she yelled as he plunged backwards, joining his three companions.
Penny and I tiptoed to the edge and gazed down. We had to be at least twenty feet—if not more—above the river. And happily, not a zombie child was stirring. They hadn’t landed in the water, which might’ve saved them. They had fallen closer to the cliff face, splitting their filthy little heads open atop the large boulders along the shore.
“Sucks to be you,” I muttered.
Though triumphant, I was completely knackered. If another zombie had arrived at that moment, I probably would’ve let him eat me. Penny didn’t look much peppier. So, after making sure we were alone again, she sat down beside me and scratched my ears as I caught my breath.
“You’re amazing, Pinky,” she cooed.
“Don’t I know it,” I chirped in reply.
Chapter
6
A few moments later, I heard the voices again. Luckily, Penny also perked up at the sound of them, or else, I might’ve thought I’d lost my little feline mind. Following our two near-death experiences, I’d begun to think I was imagining the presence of other living creatures in the forest.
“That sounds like my mom and dad,” Penny exclaimed.
Despite our mutual fatigue, we hopped up in a flash and bounded down the trail. Once again, the path turned away from the river. The compact dirt morphed into a stony trail that eventually led to an enormous hill covered with boulders and rocks.
I slowed down and sniffed the air. From behind us, I smelled utter foulness.
Great. More braindead zombies headed our way.
Beyond the hill, though, I caught a whiff of people who weren’t rotting piles of goo. Eager to meet whoever stood on the other side of the hill, I started climbing up the slope. When I sensed Penny had yet to mimic me, I turned around and meowed in her direction. She’d obviously picked up some of my cat lingo over the past hour or so cuz she began the climb as well.
It took a couple minutes before we reached the top, and naturally, I was out of breath again.
Listen, before you judge my stamina, you should know that, after embracing psycho-kitty mode, I normally get about twelve hours of sleep, then I eat again, maybe poop, and return to my comfy napping spot (whichever one that happens to be at the time). This zombie-killing stuff doesn’t mesh well with my typical cardio routine.
“Oh, thank God!” a woman yelled.
A woman, incidentally, who looked a lot like Penny. She and a brown-haired man were walking up the other side of the hill, probably to scope out the moonlit forest and search for their missing daughter.
“Penny!” the man cried, speeding toward us. “Where you’ve been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
The woman followed closely behind, and Penny, clearly excited to see the two adult humans, bolte
d forward to meet them halfway.
On instinct, I lingered just below the crest of the hill and watched as the man scooped up Penny. The woman immediately pressed against her daughter’s back, embracing her from behind and making a Penny sandwich.
The three of them hugged and kissed one another for quite a while, beaming smiles on their faces and tears of pure joy glistening in their eyes. Once the reunion had run its course, Penny’s dad placed her gently on the ground, and her mom handed her what appeared to be a stuffed pink cat with a gaudy pink ribbon tied around its neck.
Well, that explains a lot.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’ve never worn more than a collar—it’s black with tiny white skulls and crossbones on it. It’s the only collar I’ve ever had—and the only one I’ll ever tolerate. If anybody tries to put a bow on me, that person will likely lose a finger.
Anyway…
It was obvious Penny’s mom and dad adored her, and she clearly felt the same way about them. Yes, I longed to ask them how they’d gotten separated in the first place. Maybe, like me, someone had carted Penny’s parents away, and she’d wandered off in search of them—until giving in to despair beside that sturdy pine tree. And maybe they’d found a way to escape their captors.
But who cares? Whatever had happened, they’d found their way back to one another.
Frankly, I’d had my doubts that Penny would ever see them again—at least, in a non-zombie state—so for once in my life, I was delighted to be proven wrong.
Of course, watching them made me think of my own parents. I pursed my mouth in sadness and frustration. I still had no idea where they were.
“Penny,” the woman asked, “whose cat is that?”
I shook away the morose thoughts and looked up. Penny’s parents were gazing curiously at me.
Zombie Chaos Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 70
