by Mark Tufo
The first of the Dead Ones hit the side of the car before Jessie got the jangler turned. Her shriek was so loud it hurt my ears. Ben-Ben was yipping at the window like he wanted to exact some revenge, and who knows, maybe he did.
Patches looked indifferent but her fur was bristling. I could tell she was ready to leave. “Make the girl do something, Riley,” Patches said with annoyance. “She looks like those metal things humans are always making of each other.”
“Statues,” Ben-Ben said, turning to look at her. “They build them to honor their great pack leaders.”
I was feeling confused and a little worried; I always marked those when we went to the park. But I should’ve been alright, the air rats are always scatting on them and they never get in trouble. Maybe that’s why the two-leggers put them up. I don’t know, I’ve seen them do way weirder things.
“Riley!” Patches shouted.
“Sorry, Cat. Move!” I barked at Jessie.
She looked over at me like she couldn’t believe I had just done that, but it seemed to have the right effect. The wheeler turned on and we started moving; she hit two of the Dead Ones as she left the garage. I could smell a welling of saliva frothing in Jessie’s mouth and she looked very pale. If she threw up maybe Ben-Ben would be able to eat now. I smiled. I was just happy to be moving away from them. I would miss the Alphas and maybe the Daniel cub a bit, definitely my warm bed, and my toys. I had Jessie, Zachary, to a lesser degree, Ben-Ben, and I would have to suffer through Patches.
When we got out onto the large hard-packed pathway, there were cars everywhere without people in them. There were also many things on fire. Jessie was moving very slowly as she looked at all the things now wrong in our world.
“Riley, where will we go?” Jessie asked as she turned to me.
I told her to go to the park, why would Dead Ones want to go there? But she didn’t respond. Her mood changed from despondent to hopeful as she pulled out her talking box from her pocket. She slowed even more as she pressed on it with her fingers. Any slower and the Dead Ones would start to pass us by. I was looking out the windows and noticed nervously we were starting to become the center of attention. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all about being the center of attention but only when it is going to benefit me, like if I get my belly rubbed or get a piece of cheese or maybe even a hotdog, then it’s all good. But the Dead Ones were looking at us like we were the cheese and the hot dogs. I wanted to leave. I whined loudly, Jessie looked up and realizing they were getting closer, made the car go faster.
“Come on, come on, come on!” Jessie said into her talking box. “Where are you, Justin?”
“Did she say Justin?” Patches asked me.
“Yeah wasn’t that the boy cub who always came over before the Great Move?” I replied questioningly.
“His pheromones dripped off him every time he was around Jessie,” Patches laughed. “Hers did too.”
“He always gave me snacks and rubbed my head,” I told Patches. “I think it was so I would go away, though, and he could put his face to hers—another strange two-legger custom.”
“At least they don’t sniff each other’s butts,” Patches said in challenge.
“I love sniffing butts,” Ben-Ben said dreamily.
“I bet you do, Dog,” Patches said with disdain.
I left it at that. I had a feeling the cat was pretty smart and if I couldn’t chase her or eat her, I didn’t want to get in an argument with her I might not win.
“Just a busy signal, dammit!” Jessie yelled angrily. “How far is California to Colorado?”
I started to think back to the Great Move. It took two cycles of the burning disc to get to our new home. I remember the smell the most; the salt in the air stung my nose at first. Must have sneezed every day for the first two new moons. But how ‘far’ I don’t think even the haughty Patches knew the answer.
“Well then, that’s it, we’ll go to Colorado, there’s nothing left for me here,” Jessie said with a sob. “How hard can it be? I just need to drive east.”
I didn’t know what ‘east’ meant but I was all for finding the Justin boy. He cared for Jessie and me and I for one would welcome more into the pack. So started our journey to find a place free from the Dead Ones.
CHAPTER THREE
I was exhausted; Jessie had been driving for a long enough time I felt I had missed my early morning meal. Her head kept bobbing up and down like she wanted to sleep, but when her head went down the car started to go off the hard-packed path. More than once I had to bark to get her attention, she would look over to me with red blazed teary eyes and then swerve the car to stay on the path when she realized why I was barking in the first place.
“I need some sleep, girl,” Jessie said to me. “And I’m hungry.”
I barked in agreement to both things she said.
The bright disc was just becoming visible; I was looking at a sea of what looked like kitty litter, as if on cue the cat spoke up.
“Can you make the human stop, Riley? I have to relieve myself,” Patches said.
I looked around. There was only one other wheeler and it was just barely within my field of vision. I barked again at Jessie, her head had not even been drooping but it was close.
“What, girl?” she asked.
I pawed the door.
“You need out?” She yawned.
“Well, the cat does, but now that you mention it, I could do with a little stop, myself,” I told her. “And maybe a meat treat.” But I didn’t smell any on her.
The car came to a lurching halt as Jessie stepped on the stopping pedal a little too hard; there was a loud thump as Ben-Ben rolled off the seat and onto the floor, followed immediately by a ‘yip’ of surprise.
“Please, don’t send me back! I’ll be good!” he barked loudly before he completely woke up.
“You alright?” I asked him, looking around the seat to where he was splayed upside down on the floor.
“Sorry,” he replied with his tail tucked between his legs.
“Nobody is ever going to send you away, Ben-Ben, not after what you did last night,” I told him.
He struggled to gain his footing and get back on the seat. “Thank you, Riley,” he responded with his head hanging low. His tail had come somewhat out from under him but not completely.
It was tough to tell with him if the abuse from the two-leggers at his first home had been caused from his behavior, or his behavior had been a result of the two-leggers’ abuse. He had more than proven his worth to me last night and I would forgive him many things I had previously found bothersome.
I was still looking at him when the car stopped completely. Jessie had gotten out and was stretching, Patches was out immediately after her and heading for some small bushes on the side of the road.
“Don’t go far!” I barked.
“Do you mind if I relieve myself in private? I’m not a dog. I have dignity. Always scatting and peeing in front of the humans as if you’re proud of it,” Patches mewled.
“Why wouldn’t we be, Riley?” Ben-Ben asked me.
“Don’t listen to her, she’s just a cat.”
“I can still hear you,” Patches grunted from the side of the pathway.
“Let’s go out, Ben-Ben, I think we’re going to rest here,” I told him. I took a quick sniff of Zachary. He was still asleep but I didn’t think he would be for long, he smelled like he was sitting in his own offal and he didn’t usually care at first but eventually he would get angry about it.
I put my paws far out in front of me and arched to stretch my back, I was thirsty and hungry and needed to relieve myself. I would have done so right on the pathway, but the damned cat now had me thinking about it. One more strike against her.
“Ben-Ben, keep an eye out for the sick ones, I have to do something,” I told him.
He looked longingly at me, hoping I wouldn’t be gone long, I would imagine, but he didn’t say anything.
Patches was just coming out of
the brush as I was about to enter.
“Where you going?” she asked.
“Nothing! Looking for something!” I barked hastily.
She laughed her cat laugh at me. “Looks like there might be hope for you, after all,” she said as she walked away leaving me to my business.
“We need food and water,” Jessie was saying aloud, not really directed to me but more to all of us.
I finished what I needed to do and came back to the wheeler and looked in.
Zachary began to leak water from his face, I knew this for the precursor that it was, he was about to bellow loudly; for someone so small the sound belied his stature.
“Oh, Zak, you must be starving,” Jessie said with concern as she took the human cub out of the car. “Oooh, and you need a diaper change.” Jessie’s face wrinkled up from the smell.
Zachary was beginning to hitch with his breathing as his cries became even more voluminous.
“Mom always kept emergency stuff in the back,” Jess said as she found something next to her seat that made the back of the car open.
I smelled food; I went to the back of the car.
“Yes, diapers,” Jessie said happily as she pulled a big bright bag out of the car. She spent the next few moments changing the cub’s clothing and then began to rummage through the big pack. She was pulling out all sorts of delicious looking treats by this time; Ben-Ben and the cat were bearing witness.
“Water, formula, breakfast bars, pretzels, and whatever this is,” Jessie said, holding up a small tinfoil pack of the treats I knew Daniel loved. He called them Pop-Farts or something like that. It was a funny name, but I’d tasted more than a few during my life and they were delicious.
Jessie put what she called ‘formula’ into a container for the baby cub and gave it to Zak; she put him back in the car where he drank greedily. Jessie ripped open one of the bags she called breakfast bars and was devouring it almost as greedily as her pack mate. She looked up from her food to see us all staring back. She broke the remainder into three equal parts and handed the first one to Ben-Ben.
“Gentle!” she shouted when he accidentally nipped her fingers.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. He swallowed his before Patches had even finished sniffing her portion.
“Take it,” Jessie urged the cat.
“There’s no meat in this,” Patches said indignantly as she kept sniffing the food. “Or fish.” She swished her tail. “I will not eat this,” she said turning her tail on the proffered food.
I was not happy that the piece Patches had sniffed all over and refused was the piece Jessie now offered me, but my belly would suffer the slight. I gently took the piece and chewed as slowly as I could, it would do little to stop the pang in my belly but it tasted so good.
Ben-Ben was already back sniffing at the last piece remaining. “Mine, mine, mine!” he kept yipping excitedly.
Jessie popped it into her own mouth. Something deeply instinctual was beginning to reawaken in my head that had long been asleep. The two-legger was no longer going to be able to keep my belly full; if I wanted food I was going to have to get it myself. But this wasn’t going to be as easy as prying open a door in the human’s food room. The animals that had sometimes entered our outside area—like squirrels and rabbits—that I had chased for the fun of it would now be things I would chase to eat. I caught them or I would starve.
I was going to need help and right now I was looking at a small dog that was running in circles for a long eaten human hand-out, and to a cat. She at least had some skill; I’d seen her on more than one occasion drop a bird or a mouse on the front stairs of the house of the humans.
“Cat,” I said. She completely ignored me as their species tends to do. “Cat!” I said a little louder.
She glared up at me. “It’s Patches, you mongrel, and if you can’t bother to say it right then I shan’t bother to listen.”
“Fine, Ca—Patches.”
“That’s better. Was that so hard?” she asked me.
“Strangely, it was,” I told her.
“What do you want?”
“I want food.” I answered. The cat began to eye me suspiciously. “Not you, I imagine you’d be stringy without much flavor.”
She hissed at me. “What do you want from me, then?”
“We need to hunt.”
“We?” she asked. “I don’t need any help.”
“We need to get food for the baby cub and your Jessie.”
Patches kept looking at me and then the corners of her mouth pulled up slightly. “And?” she asked, waiting patiently for my answer.
“And what?” I asked, defending myself.
“Say it dog or I will not help you.”
“You will not provide food for the two-leggers? After all they have done for you?”
“What they have done for me?” she yelled loudly. “I have given them my attention in exchange for their food and shelter—was that not a fair trade?” she asked and she meant it. “I do not ‘owe’ them anything.”
“You cannot be serious!” I said heatedly. Had I been too hasty in giving the cat any sort of fondness or credit? “We are a pack, we help each other. We do things together so we can survive together.”
“You have it wrong, Dog. Pack mentality is something you and the humans share, Cats do not work like that. I will take their food because it suits me, but I am quite capable of surviving on my own.”
“Until now I never knew the depths of your selfishness. Had I known I would have snapped your neck when I had a chance.”
Patches bristled. “You have never had a chance.” She hissed, arching her back for size and to be able to launch an offensive strike if it came to that.
Ben-Ben picked this inopportune time to come around the car to see what was happening.
“Whoa, Riley why does she look like she’s going to stick her claws into you? Those things hurt,” Ben-Ben said, bowing his head and rubbing his snout with his paw where Patches had ripped open Ben-Ben’s muzzle a year ago when the incessant little Yorkie wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Stay out of this,” Patches said, “or I’ll do it again.”
“Ben-Ben, can you hunt?” I asked, never taking my gaze from Patches.
“You mean catch stuff and eat it, Riley?” Ben-Ben asked.
“Yes, Ben-Ben, Catch stuff and eat it.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Ben-Ben asked.
“Fine, Cat!” I spat out. “I need help in catching food for the two-leggers and me and Ben-Ben.”
“I knew you would eventually come around and realize my superiority. Why didn’t you just save us all this trouble and just say so?” she asked, standing back up normally.
“What just happened?” Ben-Ben asked confusedly.
“Progress,” Patches answered, but I sure didn’t see it that way. If anything, dog advancement had just taken a huge hit. I had just admitted to a cat I needed its help, I was glad none of my forefathers were there to witness it. I growled my discontent.
Jessie was feeding the baby and she appeared to be almost asleep as Patches, Ben-Ben, and I figured out how we were going to get some food. The more we talked about it the less Ben-Ben seemed interested.
“Why don’t we just find stuff the two-leggers open up and give us?” he said. “Especially the wet meat when they use the loud whirring thing,” Ben-Ben finished, his tail wagging involuntarily as he thought about it.
“It’s a can opener,” Patched told him.
“What’s a can opener?” Ben-Ben asked, his reverie snapped.
“The wet meat comes in a can and the humans use a can-opener to get at it.” Patches elaborated.
“Yeah, yeah, wet meat—why don’t we just go out there and find some of those?” Ben-Ben asked, looking off into the large sand area.
“Meat cans don’t come from the desert,” Patches said.
I was glad she clarified that because I wasn’t exactly sure and I didn’t want to say anything in front of her t
o make me look not smart.
“Are you sure?” Ben-Ben asked. “Because that would be great, just round up a bunch of those things and we could eat all day!” Ben-Ben said excitedly.
“Has he always been this stupid?” Patches asked me.
“Pretty much,” I answered; Ben-Ben was paying no attention to either of us as his muzzle was leaking drool.
***
Within a few minutes, Patches and I came up with a plan of attack, Ben-Ben was relegated to guard dog; I hope he snapped out of his wet meat dream soon enough to do a good job.
“Ben-Ben!” I barked. “You need to keep an eye out for anything coming and then give a warning yell.”
“I heard you,” Ben-Ben whimpered. “No need to yell.”
Patches and I headed into the small brush.
“Could you try to make a little less noise, you’re not much better than a human.” Patches hissed at me.
She was probably right, but coming out of her mouth somehow made it worse. I watched my footing as best I could, but until we got out from under the bushes it was going to be difficult. She was small enough that she could stay under the branches. I didn’t have that luxury as the sticks poked and prodded me relentlessly. When we finally emerged on the other side I was greatly relieved, but I did not like the barrier between the human cubs and me. If they needed my help it would take me longer than I wished to get back to them.
“I smell rabbits and something else,” Patches said, pausing to try to locate the smell. “I think it is a lizard.”
“The green slimy thing?” I stuck my tongue out, wiping away the imaginary taste of what I thought the thing tasted like. Daniel had got one a season ago, I remember looking at it, wondering why he would want the thing and when he had stopped feeding the thing it had died. I was not saddened at the loss. It was never part of the pack.
“They taste like chicken,” Patches said.
“I like chicken,” I told her, almost getting that faraway look in my eyes like Ben-Ben. “Are there chickens out here?” I asked, hoping.
“You’ve been hanging around Ben-Ben too much,” she replied.
