by Mark Tufo
This one had the smarts enough to brace for his fall to keep his face from smashing into the hard ground. When I stopped moving from the impact, I lunged for the zombie. For one horrifying second, I did not think I was going to get the traction I needed. He was already starting to push himself up when I landed all four paws on his back, pushing him back to the earth. I heard Jess’ shot just as I bit deeply into the back of the zombie’s neck. I shook back and forth until I started to hear the muscles and tendons tear. I ripped back when I was confident I would take a significant part of him with me.
I let the rotten meat fall from my mouth. The zombie had moved enough that I fell to the side. He pushed up quickly and gained his feet. He tried desperately to hold his head upright. It kept falling forward so that his chin was hitting his chest. Then he did something I wasn’t expecting—he braced his head with his hands to keep it straight. He swiveled his head with his front paws until he was once again locked on Jess who was staring down at the body of the zombie she had just killed.
Jess’ gaze came up to see the living scary-night pictures coming toward her. I ran and hit the back of his legs, causing him to once again go to the floor. This time he couldn’t move his paws and his head hit hard. I heard bones break; I did not know if they were facial or skull.
“Move, Riley!” Jess was coming. She had her stick raised high and hit the exposed glistening bone, shattering it into fragments. The zombie’s front paws splayed out by his side and it was dead. “Wow that sucked,” she said through heaving breaths. “Well, if there were any more zombies, they definitely would have come out by now unless they’re scared.”
“Well that would make two of us.”
“Alright, let’s do a quick check around to make sure there’s no cowering zombies. Then the keys, and if God is really looking out for us, a vending machine or two.”
The building was plenty big. We checked a place Jess called the service center, parts department, and employee lounge where Jess let out a small squeal of delight as we looked at a row of big boxes made of viewers.
“We’ll come back here for sure. Let’s find the damn keys first, though.”
We had entered into another room she called an office. She walked over to a metal box. “Please don’t be locked.”
The door to the box swung open, seven times seven (and maybe more) janglers were hanging on small hooks.
“Jackpot!”
Then she was quiet, her merriment quickly melted away to consternation. “How am I going to tell which keys go to which car? I just figured they’d be marked with the name of the car, not all these damn numbers. What the hell do all these numbers mean?” She sat down hard in one of the chairs. “It’ll take me hours to try all these damn keys.”
“Then we’d better get started.” I nudged her paw with my nose.
“You’re right, Riley. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Jess. Okay let me get the others. We’ll at least eat and drink while I figure this out.”
“Sounds good to me.” I couldn’t wait to get the taste of that zombie out of my mouth and the grumbling of my stomach let me know that even floor-fries would be welcome right now.
“Nice décor,” Patches said as we walked back in.
Jess had left every door and window open that she could. It had helped some, but nothing short of Alpha-female’s ‘spring cleaning’ was going to help this. I actually enjoyed those times. Alpha-male would take us to the park for the entire day. He said it was much more fun being away with us and not having to do any of the cleaning. I agreed, not that I was going to do any cleaning, but being with him and George had been among the most pleasurable days of my life.
The group had moved deep into the building while I was looking at the ‘ago’ pictures in my head. I caught up just as Jess was throwing a chair at one of the viewer boxes. It bounced off and clattered loudly on the floor.
“Well I wasn’t expecting that.” She grabbed Zach from where she had placed him and moved him to the furthest corner of the room. “Okay…everyone back.” Patches was next to Zach, and of course Ben-Ben was right underneath Jess’ feet.
“Ben-Ben, move,” Jess and I said at the same time. He moved closer to the box.
“Dog is as thick as a hamster,” Patches said.
“Come over here, Ben-Ben,” I told him. I was standing in the doorway to the employee lounge.
We ate until our bellies were full once Jess broke through the viewers. There was a lot of sweet and salty stuff and something that the cat called beef jerky—Ben-Ben’s personal favorite. It took the gnawing away from my stomach, but it wasn’t satisfying. I wanted real meat, but this was still a nice respite from the hunger pains. We drank water from one of the viewer machines—even one that had vitamins, that one was a little strange, but it was wet and cool and both of those were things I very much wanted at the time. There wasn’t much that Zach could have. However, Jess did get some fluids in him and he perked up a bit. Jess found a box and filled it with everything she could get. Once the wheeler was full she went back and put all the janglers in the box as well.
“I guess I’d better get started,” she said as she placed the box of janglers in the seat next to her.
She smacked the steering wheel after she tried way more than seven sets of janglers. Patches had perched herself up on the hood right next to the front outside viewer. She was peering intently at something and then to Jess, she did this constantly until she spoke to me.
“Riley, can you make the girl come out here?”
“She is busy and mad, I’m not so sure I want to bother her,” I said honestly. “She looks like that one time when she was going out and was having a difficult time deciding on which fake furs to put on. I told her she should just go out without them, but she didn’t listen. Two-leggers are funny like that, they don’t like to have their genitalia exposed, although how are other two-leggers going to smell them properly if they don’t?”
“Have her come out to me.” Patches was ignoring me.
“How do you expect me to do that?”
“Think of something,” was her terse reply.
So I did. “You want her to come out by you?”
“I said that. Didn’t I?”
I was tempted to press down on the wheeler noisemaker and see if I could scare the obnoxious tone from the cat.
“Smack your paw on the viewer.”
She looked at me like she wanted to say something rude again and then maybe she figured out it was actually a good idea.
Patches touched the viewer like it was water, so basically hardly at all.
“Smack it,” I chided her.
“I’ll smack you,” she mumbled, but at least this time she hit the viewer harder. Jess ignored her. Patches kept doing it, harder and harder until there was actually blood on the viewer.
“What are you doing, Patches?” Jess and I said simultaneously.
Jess got out of the car. “Are you alright?” Jess lifted up Patches leg. “You poor thing.” Patches hissed until Jess let go, she then once again smacked the viewer.
I think the events were just too much for the furry feline. She’d finally gone bonkers; not that cats were all that far away from that line to begin with, but still, it was painful to watch in someone I sort of had respect for.
“What, Patches? I don’t know what you’re trying to say or do?” Jess asked.
“I’m not trying to say or do anything, you silly human, I’m trying to show you something.” Patches smacked the glass again.
Jess watched as the cat’s paw came down again, small patters of blood sprayed out from the impact.
“Stop…” Jess started and then paused. She looked a little longer at the blood.
What is she looking at? I thought.
She moved her face closer and then wiped some of the life fluid away. Suddenly, her head whipped up and looked directly at Patches. “How…how could you possibly know? You beautiful, wonderful cat.” She picked Patches up and hugged her tight, twirli
ng her around.
“Do you think if I make myself bleed she’ll do that to me?” Ben-Ben asked.
Jess kissed Patches face repeatedly. I don’t know which of us was more disgusted, the cat or me.
“Put me down and start the car, human.”
Jess twirled around a couple of more times before gently putting Patches down. She got into the car and quickly started looking at the janglers’ tags. She didn’t even try to put them in the wheeler before she discarded them outside.
“What did you do?” I asked the cat.
“Cars have identification numbers much like your dog tags. It’s in case either one of you gets lost, you can get returned to your owners.”
“That’s what that was for?”
“They have to put those numbers on you both, because you and cars are about equally as smart.”
“Did she just say dogs were stupid?” Ben-Ben asked. He stuck his head up from the floor; I would imagine he was still looking for the elusive floor-fries.
I nodded.
“Yeah, well if we’re so stupid why do we get to wear leashes?” Ben-Ben said triumphantly.
“I’m not even going to answer that.” Patches began to lick her wounded paw.
“I won,” Ben-Ben said as he dove back down.
I just shook my head. “He’s not representative of all dogs.”
“Whatever.”
Jess let out a triumphant scream as she held a set of janglers high. “Let’s go, Patches,” she said happily. Once she got the wheeler started, she strapped Zach in as well as she could without his special seat.
“Three quarters of a tank, that’ll work.” She locked the doors and started to drive. “We find some stuff for Zach and then my next stop is to see Justin. Please be there.”
It seemed whoever this God person Jess was praying to often was finally delivering on her pleas. Jess found a place she called a ‘Wholefoods Market’. The front viewers had been smashed in, but it looked more like from a battle with zombies than from people taking things. At least half of the shelves still contained stuff and more importantly, formula for Zach. Jess said the diapers weren’t the right size but they were close.
No zombies, and the wheeler was stuffed with enough food and water to last for many burning-disc cycles. It was time for me to catch up on some much needed sleep. I have no idea how long I slept, but I felt very refreshed when I was awoken to Jess crying.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking around wildly for any signs of danger. Zach was looking at me, but he appeared fine. Ben-Ben was on the floor snoring and Patches was looking out the viewer at something. I didn’t see any approaching zombies or two-leggers so I did not understand why Jess was so upset.
“We’re here.” Patches pointed with her paw.
“Where?”
“Read the sign.”
“You can read?” I asked.
“It’s actually very simple,” she said with disdain. “Oh, that’s right, I should have known a dog would not be able to.”
“Not the time, cat. Why is Jess crying?” I growled.
“This is Little Turtle.”
“Where Justin lives?” I asked excitedly. And then I looked around, taking my time. Many of the buildings around us were burned to the ground; some even had smoldering smoke rising up from the ashes. “It can’t be.” Dead zombies and torn apart two-leggers littered the ground; a great battle unlike anything we had seen so far had been waged here. And it did not look like the two-leggers had won.
Jess opened her door and left it open. I don’t think on purpose, though. She was just lost in her distraught feelings.
“Where’s she going?” Ben-Ben asked through a yawn.
“Don’t know, but I guess I’ll find out.” I hopped out after her.
Jess was walking back and forth as she avoided the dead. “One-oh-three, this is his home,” Jess said as she walked through the shattered front door. The inside looked much like the outside…destroyed. The dead were strewn about. The smell had a physical presence it was so overwhelming. Jess seemed not to notice.
“Justin?” she asked tremulously. She called his name out again and again. Jess looked to the right of the opening. Some of the go-uppers had been removed.
“No stairs? That’s genius,” Jess said. “Could they still be up there?”
If they were, they were dead, I thought. I smelt none of the living.
“We need to get up there.” She pointed excitedly.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I gave her a nasal whine response.
Jess looked around the floor we were on. She grabbed a small table and wrestled it over the obstacles to get back to the go-uppers. She let it drop over the hole; it barely covered the opening.
“You’re going up that?” I asked her.
She answered my question when she went up. She leaned most of her weight on the handrail. She was most of the way over when the table slid down and came hurtling for me. I jumped off the small landing and away as the table hit the wall.
“You alright?” she asked.
I poked my head back around to make sure nothing else was coming my way. She had gotten her back paws onto the step above her. She was pushing up with her arms on the rail until she was standing the funny way two-leggers do.
“That was close…getting down ought to be a lot of fun.” She went up the rest of the stairs.
“Not without me.”
I ran up and leaped. I had not figured out just how big the hole was. My front paws landed all right. My backs paws, however, were dangling in open space. I barked in panic as I kicked out, trying to gain traction on something, anything. My front paws were sliding; I was about to find out how far the drop was when Jess came back down and grabbed my paws.
“Riley, you’re crazy.”
She pulled me towards her. When enough of me was on the step she wrapped an arm around my waist. I licked her face and went up the rest of the way, happy to be away from the hole. The upstairs looked much like downstairs—dead zombies were everywhere.
“How did they get up here?” Jess asked as she stood next to me.
She moved back quickly and shrieked when her foot struck something. We looked down to see a wet skull. It was not that of a two-legger, though. The teeth were much too large.
“That’s a dog,” Jess said. “Oh poor Henry.” She began to cry again.
I did not know Henry, but from the torn up zombies, it was easy enough to see he had died in defense of his family. He was a brave dog and I would mourn for him.
Jess reached down and grabbed a piece of material. There was a tag much like mine hanging from it. She turned it over. “Bear? Did they get another dog? Where’s Henry?”
We walked straight ahead and into a room where the two-leggers slept. A large hole was in the wall with dead zombies stuck in part of it. That explained how the zombies had gotten up here. We checked out the entire upstairs. There was no sign of any other people, living or otherwise.
Jess had picked up a small go-upper. “Well, this will help us get back down…maybe.” She was looking at it and then up.
“Why would they have a ladder in the middle of a hallway?” She stood it up and climbed quickly. With her front paws, she pushed open a small door in the ceiling. She jumped up and pulled herself into it. I barked in anger. There was no way I could follow her, and if she got into trouble, she would be all alone.
“They got out!” She poked her head back out. “There’s a hole in the roof, they got out! Now I just need to find them!”
She turned around so that her back paws were coming out of the hole. She hopped down and was again by my side. We got back down the missing go-uppers—thankfully easier than I had got up. When we got outside, Jess looked around. A strange mixture of excitement, fear, and sadness all radiated off her body. We had arrived where the boy Justin lived and he was not here.
“Now what, girl?” Jess asked, gently rubbing my head. She looked back to the wheeler. And that’
s where we ended up going.
“He not there?” Patches asked.
“No.”
“So then why is she driving into the complex?”
The wheeler was rocking back and forth. Jess tried her best to not hit any of the fallen but it was impossible. The stench was nearly unbearable every time she ran over the bloated body of a zombie. More than once she had to stop so she could evacuate the contents of her stomach.
Thankfully we didn’t go too far, even the trash-eating Ben-Ben wasn’t looking so good.
“Well, the clubhouse is still in pretty good shape. Riley, you want to come check this out with me?” she asked pleadingly.
She didn’t even need to pose the question; she merely had to open the door. The large tree-built structure in front of us was quiet, nothing moved. The front doors had been completely smashed in, which I was finding out was a good thing. It usually meant any zombies that would have been trapped inside were now out and hopefully gone. We went up the stairs and inside. There were more scattered remains of humans and destroyed zombies. It was hard to not step on the discarded casings of the metal bees, there were so many of them.
“What happened here?” Jess asked as we moved slowly throughout.
To the left was a large room where once many chairs had been set up. The two-leggers liked to get together and talk; I think most of them just enjoyed listening to their own voices without ever really having anything to say. Two-leggers were the only species I knew that talked the most without actually saying anything.
We went further in, almost all the way back when we found what looked like an entire two-legger store.
“Oh, my God.” Jess said as she looked at the boxes and containers of food and drinks. “There’s enough here for us for months.” She got closer and started rooting through the different packages. “Formula and…and diapers!” She turned and grabbed my face. “Riley, look at all this stuff! It’s incredible!”
“Any dog food?” I asked.
I welcomed the cardboard meat bits after our last meal of saltiness and sweet. I don’t know if she actually understood me, but her next words were of great comfort.
