by Mark Tufo
CHAPTER FOUR
The events of the day had me more tired than I could ever remember. I tried to stay awake for Jessie, but I was so tired, the heat from the great sand pit had me exhausted. I fell asleep almost immediately. For a while in my sleep images, I was very happy. I was again asleep on Alpha Female’s large couch. I had never been more comfortable! Baby Zachary was bringing me some of his cereal, which never happened. He didn’t move around too much on his own but I would always stay near to his feeding grounds because the dry round O’s he used to eat would always end up in my domain—the floor.
But in my sleep images he was walking and tossing the O’s all around and most were luckily ending up in my mouth! Then it got bad—zombies had broken through the backdoor on my watch! One of them had Ben-Ben in its mouth and he was screaming to me for help. I was going into the kitchen when I saw more of them coming in through the backdoor, the zombie holding Ben-Ben ripped the small dog in half with its teeth but still Ben-Ben cried to me for help—‘Rileeeeey!’. I started to run away as life fluid poured from my small pack mate, no matter how hard or fast I tried to move I couldn’t get away from the flowing blood or the zombies. I started to get stuck in the murky liquid. I was crying out for one of the alphas, anybody to help me, one of the zombies grabbed my side; I waited for the searing pain of teeth ripping through my flesh.
“It’s okay, girl. It’s okay—good girl,” Jess was saying to me as I awoke with a jolt. “You just had a bad dream, girl, it’s alright,” Jess said soothingly as she rubbed my side. “You were yelping in your sleep and your paws were going a mile a minute.” She laughed a little bit, but it was a nervous laugh. I did not believe she felt any merriment, I could not smell anything to indicate she was happy. Nervousness smells a bit like rusty iron and she was flooded in the flakes of it.
“I need to stop, Riley, I’m so tired. Do you have any ideas?” she asked me.
I didn’t know how long I had slept; the burning disc was gone, replaced by the cool pale version, the moon is what my ancestors called it. The heat of the day was gone and I was now getting cold, hunger was still gnawing through my stomach like an un-chewed squirrel. I looked out the window, the sand was being replaced by more and more brush but it still looked very empty of everything two-legger built.
“She needs to find a house, Riley,” Patches said, standing on the center console, looking out at the same scene I was.
I looked in the back of the wheeler. I didn’t know if it was the light from the wolf howler (moon) or baby Zachary was sick but he looked pale and his breathing didn’t seem right. In contrast, Ben-Ben who was asleep was still wearing that happy grin he had when Jessie had praised him. I felt good for him that he was happy, that dog had not done much right since he’d been reared and more praise and less scorn was always a good thing.
“Our house?” I asked Patches.
“Another’s,” she answered.
“Are you sure, Patches? Two-leggers are not always very accepting of each other. They reek of distrust when they come across others they do not know.”
“The girl needs help. Food and sleep for herself and the baby is sick.”
“Do you see anything?” I asked Patches, somewhat ashamed I again had to defer to her better abilities. I would swear the cat could see with absolutely no light. There had been times at home when I knew she was padding around me as she thought I slept on the couch. I could smell her clearly, I could not see her, though, and that always angered me. She would come down when the skies were covered or the pale disc was not present. I would growl, she would laugh. I miss those times.
“Hi, Patches,” Jessie said wearily as she stroked the cat’s back. Patches purred in content and rubbed her head up against Jessie’s shoulder.
“There is something coming on your side,” Patches said. How she saw it I didn’t know, her eyes were closed and her head was facing in the wrong direction.
The wheeler kept moving for a while longer before I began to make something out. It was a two-legger home but not nearly as big or nice as the one we had left. Large old rusted wheelers were in the front along with all manner of two-legger stuff, most of which I’m sure Alpha female would have called trash.
I barked as we got closer, pulling Jessie’s attention away from the cat.
“A house,” she said wearily, with a small measure of hope. At least that was what I got from the scent of her but then it flooded with mistrust, fear, and apprehension. “Sure is a pigsty. Trash all over the place, but it looks lived in. Should we try it?” she asked.
It was tough to not be swayed by her feelings, what seemed like a good idea a moment before now seemed dangerous.
“Cat?” I asked.
“Plenty of places to hide,” Patches told me as she looked at the garbage strewn across the yard.
“This isn’t all about you, Cat.”
She looked at me as if to say, ‘When did that happen?’.
“I’m starving, Riley.”
I looked sternly at her.
“And the baby needs help,” she added hastily when she realized I didn’t like her first response, or her second for that matter. The baby did need help and I had to admit I was hungry too.
Jessie was pulling the car off the hard pathway and onto a smaller dirt path. She sat for long seconds just staring at the house. She took a deep breath, shut the car off and got out. I watched as she looked into the rear of the car at Zach. She seemed to be hesitating on whether to leave him there or take him with her. She thought it through and decided to let sleeping babies lay, I jumped out before she had a chance to shut the door.
“Riley, stay in the car. I just want to see if there is anyone here and if we need to leave in a hurry I don’t want to have to wait for you.”
I moved farther away from the door. She got the point.
“Fine, but you stay close,” she told me as she quietly shut the door to the wheeler. “I don’t like this place, Riley.”
I didn’t either; it smelled like rot and human excrement. I saw something walk by the windows, just a darker shadow against the dark inside. Jessie did not see it, my hackles were raised and I pulled my lip up in a threatening manner.
“You see something, Riley?” Jessie asked. “Was it a zombie?”
“Worse,” came a voice from the now open door in the front of the house.
Jess turned to run.
“Don’t even think about it,” The male voice said menacingly. “I’ll shoot you where you stand. Wouldn’t be the first, won’t be the last—that’s the benefit of being the first house after the desert or the last one before going in.” He laughed.
“Mister, we’re just looking for some help,” Jessie said, turning back around, her hands raised.
“That’s the problem, everybody’s always looking for some help. Did you see a sign that said ‘Help here’?”
“Sir, my brother is sick.”
“Get him the fuck outta here then. I don’t want no zombies on my property!”
“It’s not like that, not that kind of sick,” she entreated.
“Do you see the word hospital anywhere?” he yelled.
“Please,” she begged. “Just a little food and water, maybe some medicine.”
“What do you have for me?” he said. “Or am I just ‘apposed to give that to you out of the kindness of my heart?”
“I… I don’t have anything,” Jessie said hesitantly.
“Oh, I think you do. Turn around for me.”
“Please.”
“Do it!” he yelled. “Umm, nice,” he said as Jessie did a small circle. “I’d trade for some of that.”
“We’ll just get going,” Jessie said, nearly crying now.
“You’re on my property now, you’ll leave when I say you can. Come closer.”
“Please,” Jessie said as she slowly inched forward.
I moved with her.
“Tell the fucking mutt to stay put or I’ll shoot him out of principle.”
“Ri…
Riley, stay,” Jessie said.
I didn’t know what was going on, the man said he would trade some food, but he said it with an edge to his voice and I could smell excitement and dominance on him. It was not a healthy combination. Jessie moved a foot closer and so did I. I was going to make sure she was alright. I heard part of the fire stick move that normally came before the metal bees. Jessie stopped and so did I.
“I’m going to blow that damned dog’s head clean off if he takes another step,” the man said.
“He?” I snorted. “You threaten me and my pack mate and call me a ‘he’?” I was barking as I charged, the metal bee whined past my ear, by the time the man was able to make the loud clicking noise again I had already latched onto his leg. His screams of pain increased as I bit down harder. I had a firm grip on the front of his leg; I could feel as my teeth punctured through his fake skins and into him.
I kept biting, the man’s screams increasing in volume and pitch. I could feel the bone in his leg starting to yield.
“No!” Jessie screamed. The man had somehow held onto his fire stick and was bringing it to bear on me.
I could hear Jessie running toward me to help, I bit as hard as my jaw would allow and shook my head from side to side. The fire stick fell to my side as the man toppled over. He was bellowing for the bitch that had whelped him. I finally let him go when he stopped moving.
“Riley, are you alright?” Jessie asked as she came to a skidding stop next to me. “You broke his leg,” she said with what I smelled was a fair amount of appreciation.
“What now? What now?” she asked nervously. “We should just go. There’s probably more of them.”
I sniffed long and hard inside the house, there had been others but not for a while. I walked in, we needed food.
“Riley, what are you doing?” Jessie asked from the front step of the door. The man was moaning loudly.
I turned my head, hoping she would follow; she bent down and picked up the fire stick. She pointed it at the man on the ground then cautiously came in after me. Jessie opened the fridge and then quickly slammed it shut when the stench of things long rotten came out. I could have spent a little while longer exploring the scents but I understood about Jessie, two-leggers where very peculiar in what they liked to smell.
There is nothing quite like understanding your pack mates by sniffing at their offal, but the two-leggers were always lighting the small flowery smelling fires or spraying cans of scents that were supposed to make the ‘bad’ smells go away but are far worse than anything me or even Ben-Ben had ever produced. Maybe not the cat though, that thing stunk.
Jessie was on the far side of the kitchen going through the wooden food holders. “Food,” she said excitedly. She moved away from the shelves with food and started to pull different things out until she found what she was looking for.
“I hope this is strong enough,” she said as opened the bag up and started to shove all sorts of two-legger canned food into it. My mouth started to water just thinking about what might be in those cans, not all cans mind you, some of them have horrible smelling things that make my nose burn, like what the humans call onions or peppers. I don’t know why anyone would want to eat those things. I shook a little just thinking about the time the Daniel cub had given me a handful. He had laughed for a long time while I tried to rinse the taste out of my mouth, but I was a fast-learning puppy. He never did find the toy he had received the day before, I chewed it up and Alpha female had discovered it, she threw it into a bag much like Jessie was using now.
“Bad girl, Riley!” Alpha had said to me. “Maybe Danny will learn to pick his things up now. I’ve told him puppies chew things.” She had gently reached out and stroked my muzzle. She had said mad words but her tone and actions said otherwise. I would miss my den mother mightily.
My head whipped around when I heard the man begin to groan, Jessie also looked. Her eyes got wide as the fear in her bloomed.
“We should leave, Riley,” Jessie said, almost letting go of the bag with the food.
“My leg!” the man screamed. “I… I think it’s broken,” he wailed. “You fucking did this to me!” He pointed at Jess. She turned to see if there was another way out of the house, besides an ‘outside looker’ there wasn’t.
Jess ran over and fumbled with something on the window and tried to push it open. “It’s painted shut, Riley. Shit. Shit.”
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!” the man said, propping up on his hands and dragging himself toward the food room.
Jessie looked close to panicking; I started barking loudly, that got the man’s attention. His eyes now took on that wide fear stare. “Don’t… don’t you come any closer,” Jessie said, her voice wavering, but I wasn’t sure if the man even heard her, his eyes were locked on mine. I threw in a deep growl just for good measure.
“Keep that mutt away from me,” the man said, now backing away.
I advanced on him.
“Just watch him, Riley. Rip his throat out if he moves,” Jess said as she started to shove more things into the bag.
“That’s my stuff, you can’t just take it,” the man said. “You come into my house, your mutt breaks my leg and now you’re stealing my food?”
“And pointing your gun at me and forcing me into your house, that’s acceptable?” Jess asked.
“Hey, nothing’s for free and I… I was just kidding. I would have let you go.”
“Before or after you had done to me as you wished?”
“It… it was just a joke,” he lied again. The words he spoke did not match what he meant, even I could tell that. “You’ve got to at least help me splint my leg. You’re as good as murdering me if you don’t.”
Jessie was hesitating and I thought maybe even considering his request. There was no way I was going to let her get within arm’s reach of the man, he was not a good two-legger.
“I can’t,” Jessie said as she swung the bag over her shoulder. She headed down the long room toward him then abruptly stopped and headed back to the food room. I heard the hard metal of the things the humans used to eat with clattering about on the floor and then Jessie said, ‘aha’ and came back down the long room. She skirted around the man’s legs and pushed the door open. “Almost forgot a can opener. Come on, Riley, we need to get out of here,” she said.
“When I get better I’m going to hunt you down and cut your throat, but not before I make that fucking mutt of yours watch me do all sorts of things to you that would make a demon blush.” He laughed.
Jessie quickly shut the door, but we were back in the car with the doors closed before we stopped hearing his laughter.
“Wet meat!” Ben-Ben said triumphantly as he stuck his nose inside the bag Jess had placed in the back.
“Are you both okay?” Patches asked me as Jessie got the car started and headed back out onto the hard pathway.
“Do you really care?” I snapped back.
“In so much as I either needed Jessie to open the car door so I could get out or her ability to get food so I eat, so yes I cared.”
“There was a bad two-legger in there. He wanted to hurt Jessie.”
“You stupid dog, you say that as if he’s the only one. It’s been my experience that two-leggers are more like that man than those that were in our house.”
“Maybe to you because you’re a cat. But most two-leggers just want to scratch behind my ears or sometimes give me a treat. The large dog area…”
“The park,” the smart-ass cat filled in.
“The large dog area,” I emphasized. “There were always lots of humans and they were always so nice.”
“Not the ones I’ve seen, Dog. Have you ever come across another two-legger without the alpha male or female?”
I thought about it for a long time and except for the cubs, I had never interacted with other two-leggers before. Sure I had barked at bunches, way over twenty-two but never sat there and played with any of them. “No,” I said sheepishly as if tha
t made me a bad dog.
“The humans pretend a lot of things when they are around other humans.”
“Pretend?” I asked her.
“Lying,” she explained.
“The two-leggers are lying when they said they liked me?” I asked, astonished. Why had I never picked up on this before?
“Oh, I’m sure one or two of the idiots liked you, I don’t know why but there are some dog lovers, but most of them would throw a rock at you before they’d ever pet behind your ears.”
“You speak the truth, Cat?” I asked, turning around to see if I could sense that all she spoke was real, but her eyes were difficult to see in the dark and it was nearly impossible to tell what the oversized rodent was thinking anyway.
“They are unlike any other animal, they are even worse than dogs. They will say one thing while they are doing something else.
“We must stay away from two-leggers!” I nearly shouted.
“It won’t be easy, Jessie will seek them out. They find comfort among their own kind.”
That I could understand.
“What about Justin? The boy she would press faces with? She seeks him out.”
“Better than most, I suppose,” she answered, thinking carefully. “We are going to have to protect her.”
“We?” I asked. “Since when did you begin to care?”
“My ability to survive is greatly improved with all of you around. It may not be entirely to my liking, but it is what I have right now.”
“You always know the right thing to say,” I told her.
“My hands are shaking,” Jessie said aloud. “That was so close, he was going to kill me. And you saved me, Riley,” Jessie said as she stopped the car and petted my head gently. “Thank you.” She placed her hands on either side of my face and looked into my eyes. “You guys keep saving my life and I haven’t even fed you yet.”
