Queen of the Cats 7. Piñatas

7. Piñatas

Nix laid her head upon the soft coat of Tonkinese fur and let herself be lulled by the quiet motor of the cat's purr. She reached up and scritched at his belly and the cat stretched luxuriously and promptly fell off the bed. "Oh, buddy, you ok?" Nix asked, peering over the edge of the bed. The cat blinked vacantly up at her with eyes like the ocean, so clear and blue that Nix seemed sure she could see straight through to the back of Chaucer's skull. He proceeded to hop up onto the bed and repeat the process thrice more. It was a good thing he was soft, sweet, and behind stone walls because Nix was fairly certain if she put her ear to his fuzzy head triangle, she would probably hear the ocean.

While this feat of remarkable, but hilarious, antics were repeated, the other cats in the room just stared at Chaucer in a way that seemed to intone "Have you no dignity, man?". Chaucer merrily ignored or did not notice the feline disdain being side-eyed in his direction, he just kept having fun and demanding occasional cuddles. On any average shitty post-apocalypse day, this cat could always make Nix reshape her face into something like a smile and maybe even cough out a dry laugh. Comedy in the dead lands was scarce, but Nix had all she could ever need.

It turned out that, after the apocalypse, Nix got to see more cats than she had ever hoped to and she had learned a single, startling fact: some of them just sucked at being cats. The stunning Tonkinese cat with the tiny peanut brain was gentle and loving which were great qualities before Revenant Day, but were not in a cat's favor in this not-so-brave new world. The one thing they had going for them was that they were good jumpers, insanely fast and they could climb better than any of the dead.

As a somewhat ironic aside, sometimes the dead would try to climb trees, posts, or fences after a feline. Around ten feet or so above ground, most climbs got harder and required a bit of thought. That was not a thing the dead had in spades. Sometimes it was just amazing that they could shamble down a road in their leprous horror, enough parts missing that it made many of them hard to look at. 

Once the dead reached the point of the climb where planning and care was needed, they generally peeled off like pasta and fell to the ground. Then, there was the splash. Now that most of the dead were several years post shuffling off their mortal coils, they were no longer in prime condition. In fact, it was becoming obvious that they were coming apart at the seams and losing their stuffing. The earliest of the Revenants could step in a pothole, pitch forward on the macadam and then perform their own impressions of a water balloon fight, but just once.

About a year earlier, a clump of stumbling corpses had peeled off from a road and somehow ended up outside of the Murder House and Cattery. Nix had picked up some bronchial infection and was fevered and wheezing, but something still needed to be done. When the dead congregated, they made a not-so-joyous noise somewhere between moaning and hissing. This always drew more corpses and the problem just got larger. While attempting to get herself into some protective gear, Nix had laid down for a moment and shut her eyes just for a second. When she popped awake and tried to scramble upright, she was thwarted by a coughing fit. 

Before her breathing had evened out, she caught a sudden flash of black as Nocta landed on her chest, flinging her backward onto the bed. Nix attempted to argue with the cat, then realized she was arguing with a cat and thus, probably needed a longer nap. With Nocta like a purring hot water bottle on her chest, the cat meticulously cleaned her paws, claws extended as a reminder. Nix just stopped fighting and went back to sleep. 

The next morning, Sampson woke Nix and was excited, signaling for her to follow. "Timmy better be at the bottom of a well, Lassie." Nix grumped as she followed. Sampson was leading her out to the second floor porch. Still terribly ill, Nix took a moment to gather herself, hoping that the dead had not doubled overnight while she had slept.

Nix found a sight she had not expected. It looked like a party had been held at the base of the trees lining the clearing around the block house. At the bottom of each tree, Nix spotted what looked like a bunch of thoroughly battered yet colorful pinatas. After a moment of sickness addled brain coming online, Nix realized why this was the worst party ever. To keep her from getting herself murdered while sick, the cats had taken care of the dead by running about, treeing themselves and just waiting for the dead to follow, fall, and splatter.

Turning slowly, Nix saw that most of her cats had followed her and Sampson outside. They all looked quite pleased with themselves, although some were still grooming bits of corpse from their fur. As she continued to stare, they became more pleased, accepting her silence as appreciation. Garibaldi threaded through the porch of rolling felines and dropped a hand at Nix's feet.

"Jesus." Nix croaked. Staring at the hand, Garibaldi, the pleased cats, and the festively decorative yet festering dead, Nix decided she was still far too sick to deal with the stomach-churning mess below. In a moment of pure despair, knowing how much more these corpses would decay and stink, Nix tried to calculate how many holes she would have to dig and how much dragging of the dead she would need to clean up this awful party.

As she leaned on the railing and considered, two vultures circles in and came to rest in the clearing below. They merrily hopped from corpse to corpse, picking the very best of the morsels. Nix glances up and saw the tightening circles being flown by so many buzzards that she did not try to count them. Nix kicked the hand off the porch for the arriving clean-up crew to enjoy.

Heading back inside, she refilled water dishes and refilled food bowls. She ate a can of soup, swallowed some more cold tablets and just went back to bed. A quick shower, clean pajamas and then a dive back under the covers. The cats came in as they finished their own meals and everyone settled down for an Autumn afternoon nap.

Sometimes, you just had to roll with the punches and the dead man's hands. Nature had this one and Nix let it ride.


Continue- 8. The Things We Learn

Queen of the Cats 6. Phoenix and Ed and Alice and Nocta

6. Phoenix and Ed and Alice and Nocta

Nix might have been five or six years old the day she came home in tears from Sapling Society. In what passed for a group activity school for her age of youngsters had made drawings that day. They had been asked to draw themselves with their mommy and daddy, or daddy and daddy, or mommy and mommy, or mommy, mommy and daddy (no judgement) and what made them each happy.

The other children has used swaths of the 100% recycled newsprint paper and as many crayons as possible to make lavish and painfully bright colored pictures of happy groups of people with houses, toys, sports and games. Nix drew herself, a fence at the edge of the compound and a kitten on the other side of the fence. The kitten made her happy when she petted the soft black fur through the fence and played with string. Nix had asked to bring the kitten home, but Ed and Alice told her it was a lot of responsibility and maybe she could have a kitten when she was older.

As Missy Joy walked around the gazebo, she talked to each happy little flexible sapling about their drawing and helped them label some of the less clear objects, like a brown lump on a table meant to be meatloaf but looked rather a bit like a pile of excrement. Nix was coloring in the grass on the hill beyond the fence in many colors of green, because she always saw it as a patchwork of colors and not just one green.

"Phoenix..." Missy Joy hesitated. "Where are your mommy and daddy in your picture?"

With dark and soulful eyes, Nix gazed up at her "Missy Joy, I don't have a mommy or a daddy."

"But Phoenix, I've met your family. I know your mommy and daddy." Missy continued, still trying to hold a gentle smile on her face through her confusion.

"Missy Joy, I have an Ed and I have an Alice. They said that those are their names and I should always call things by proper names or I would be..." Nix seemed to search for the rest of the phrase. "robbing them of their personal right to self-identity and forcing them to conform to societal norms that are bullshit." Nix finished in a single breath, hoping that she had remembered all of the right words and all in the right order.

"Oh, dear. Yes, I see. Um. Beautiful picture dear. The grass and wildflowers are really pretty." Missy tried to sound unconcerned and pleased with her pupil's work. She wasn't certain she had managed either but Nix returned to coloring and she padded away.

At the end of the day, the Sapling Society took their drawings inside the Mess Hall and hung them up on the walls so that the whole commune could enjoy the elementary but adorably sweet art. Nix proudly hung up her picture which showed her house and herself playing with the kitten at the fence, the tall marijuana plants behind the house and the rolling green hill outside the compound fence.

A few other Saplings noticed and began staring at Nix's drawing, trying to understand. One child piped up and asked Nix where her mommy and daddy were, and Nix repeated her response that she had neither, just an Ed and Alice. The other children looked either confused or started to laugh. The laughing ones were the ones that made Nix's stomach feel all whirly like soda and too many cartwheels. "Phoenix, you are so dumb you don't even know what parents are. Your mommy and daddy are Alice and Ed and my daddy says they smoke too many drugs and that makes them stupid."

Missy Joy noticed the knot of children and tried to walk as quickly as possible to cut off what might be unkind words. She should have walked faster. As she arrived, the children were laughing except Nix who was looking balefully at the ground. When she lifted her tear streaked face she whispered "but they asked me to..". Missy could not get the children to stop laughing fast enough in her class of only positive comments and uplifting messages. The rules of their school forbade her from telling the children they were nasty little brats and mean as their parents even when it was true. Separating the children and making each go stand by their own picture helped regain order.

Nix never moved and had just looked back down at the ground. She turned back to her picture and carefully removed it from the wall, peeling off the tape with great care so the paper was not damaged. She rolled the brown paper up like a tube and walked out of the Mess Hall, even though Missy Joy asked her to please come back for the apologies. Nix kept walking.

As she opened the door at home, Alice's eyes widened at the state of her daughter. Nix wasn't given to weeping or tantrums and Alice wasn't even sure what to do.

"Phoenix bird, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" Alice asked tentatively, not sure if this was how you dealt with tears.

Her only child answered her with the words "Because I have no mommy and daddy". She set down the rolled picture on the coffee table and did not break stride. In her room she changed into not-Sapling clothes and walked back out the door just moments later. Alice sat on the couch looking at the lovely drawing that she could not imagine had caused this strife.

Phoenix Alexandria MaryJane Verity Kobesky curled up on the grass beside the fence and tapped the fence with a rock a few times. Just a few minutes later, her only friend, a tiny black kitten came racing over the hill and tumbled down most of the other side in her excitement. The kitten rubbed herself all over the fingers that stuck through the fence and even licked them. Her girl was not playing the same way she usually did and the kitten wanted more. The poof of black fur turned away and ran along the fence line, out of Nix's sight. She cried even harder as her best friend just left her on the grass.

Nix rolled onto her back and just stared at the overcast sky, unsure how to make her tears stop. Finally, she was able to quit the crying sobs and hiccoughs and get herself to just eye leaking sadness. And that was when it hit her. Literally.

A tiny black kitten landed on her chest using a force that should not be possible for her mass and then screeched her joy directly into Nix's face. Over the years, the kitten screech would mature into a screaming yowl that could stop a heart or wake you from the soundest sleep. The kitten and Phoenix played happily on the grass. There was tumbling, screeching, pouncing and more than a bit of falling over.

As the day dimmed to sunset, Nix made a few decisions in her head and nodded to herself. She picked up the kitten and marched home. When Nix arrived she observed Missy Joy leaving with Ed and Alice standing on the porch. Approaching, her parents rushed toward her but she put her hand up to stop them.

"No." Nix said, halting them. "I am sad and angry and I don't want hugs right now. I would like a set of encyclopedias and school books. Real school books. I am not going back to the Saplings and I can learn faster this way. I am keeping this kitten and her name is Nocta. I am big enough for the responsibility and will take care of her. I can do more chores so we can buy things kittens need."

Phoenix then walked right past her parents, tears still in the corners of her eyes. She did not like angry and sad, especially together. She took two bowls, a box, an old newspaper, scissors, a chunk of chicken from the fridge, and calmly proceeded to her room and shut the door.

After cutting up the chicken and filling the other bowl with water, Nix shredded the newspaper and filled the makeshift litter box. After tiny Nocta had eaten and drank her fill, she started looking around the room. Nix picked her up and set her in the box. After a brief game of jumping out and being placed back inside, Nocta scratched at the newspaper, performed her evening toilette and then hopped out of the box. Nix set the kitten on the bed while she put on her pajamas and then climbed in beside her best friend. It had been a long day and Nix fell asleep quickly. Nocta curled beneath the girl's chin and closed her eyes, purring softly.

A few hours later, the door creaked open as Alice and Ed peeked in. As Alice made to enter the room to fiddle with the comforter and do something motherly, the kitten's eyes opened slowly and she let out a low warning hiss. Alice backed up and left the room, looking over at Ed once the door was shut.

"Well, we kind of deserve that." Ed whispered sadly. Alice responded "I didn't realize parenting would be so hard." Quietly, they padded off to their room.

In Nix's bed, Nocta seemed to almost smile as she let her eyes slowly close. No one would hurt her girl so long as she could help it.


7. Piñatas

Queen of the Cats 5. The Shopping

5. The Shopping

Nix mused that if there were no people remaining in the houses or stores, and goods had been left behind, it really couldn't be counted as theft anymore. After the seven years since Reverent Day, most people had gotten smart and gone into the country to hide, attempted to fortify and defend for a time, or just had the shit murdered out of them. The dead people had just gotten up and gone for a wander. There was likely no one left to claim these houses and goods, so Nix used small towns like big box stores. Attics and basements offered up a lot of useful stuff.

Working her way methodically through homes and businesses, Nix packed up trash bags of things that could be helpful and set them on the curb outside. Outside was not a fabulous place to hang out, but trash and trash bags were universally ignored in these places. Trash, debris, rusting metal and the staggering dead. Sometimes Nix would find a small group of people and those were the ones she wanted to avoid the most.

After she cleared each building, Nix left her trash bag outside and quickly moved to the next building. After shopping an entire town, she could come back that evening or even a week later and pick up the bags if things had started to feel 'funny' and she had bolted half way through her shopping.

The only items she would pack out immediately were medicines, medical supplies, aged high end liquors or well packaged plant seeds. Any thing else she could likely come back for.

When Nix shopped, it was with a very different posse of cats. Town team had all been owned cats and you could see it in their expensive breeding and perfect conformation. She took the ones who had lived in cities and suburbs and excelled at getting in and out of tight spaces, over fences, and avoiding humans who wished them harm. Nix seemed to be the only human left for whom cats were companions and not used as spit roasted meat or a dead man's juice box. It made a lot of sense for them all to stick together and work together.

The town team consisted of a Siamese named Theo who mostly rode on her shoulder and his low growl told Nix that something was approaching. Talulah was a calico convinced of her superiority, but also correct in that assumption, as her Hemmingway paws were basically hands and she could open doors and manipulate a shocking number of items in her murder mitts. London, the Lykoi served as distraction so others could hide, because the sight of a tiny werewolf stopped all humans in their tracks. His hair was perfect and he was very, very fast.

There was Zoe, a remarkably chill Abyssinian with glittering emerald eyes who always seemed to know when the group had taken a wrong turn and got them headed back the right way. Oberon was the building scout who oozed into the shadows with his jet black fur and verified that buildings were clear of the living and the dead. Pixie Bob had the heart of a lion but she was a naked Sphinx with no tail. Once Nix figured out how to adjust baby clothes for her, PB also helped with shopping by finding caches of baby food and nabbing cute baby outfits for herself. Last of the shopping brigade was the obsidian black Shadow who would take a high position and watch for anything amiss coming their way.

The town team was fierce, efficient and could run like hell. Each member, including Nix, could fold themselves away into tiny and improbable spaces until danger had passed. When clear, they would hear a single call from Shadow and follow the route out of town that he had chosen.

In this grouping, they would hop into the Prius that Nix had stolen. She managed this grand theft auto by shoving a mostly skeletonized corpse out the car door and pressing the start button on the steering column. She found the key fob in the pants pocket of Senior Bones and the first stop they made was to an auto parts store for seat covers and a great deal of air freshener. The Prius was quick, quiet and conservative with fuel, basically the perfect car for a post-apocalypse reconnoiter.

Nix would always hit the pharmacies first, then the liquor store. The drugs were helpful for herself and the cats and some of them made for good trade items. The liquor was medicinal applied to skin, consumed by oral route or traded for excellent trade items. High value items went straight into her pack as the cats scouted the town. Once done in the pharmacies, Nix would emerge to find out which feline was waiting for her to follow. They led her to cashes of food, hidden drugs of the legal and illegal sort, canned cat food, sometimes cat toys, blankets that did not contain dead people or would lead her to places where they had found items she would want.

Talking a moment to tell each one how good and smart they were, the felines would receive a quick touch and treat while Nix bagged the goods. Sometimes, they even led her to other cats. In those cases, Nix would let the town squad do the convincing while she kept working. Occasionally, they would find a cat that was deeply injured or sick, even dead bitten. In those cases, work stopped, the cat was collected and they hauled ass for home.

Out in the Med Shed, Nix had installed metal animal crates against a wall, so if she needed to put a feline on bed rest or limited mobility, she could. Over the last few years she kitted the space out as a vet office and read every book on cat veterinary medicine she could. Broken legs could be set and crushed legs could be removed. There we're not many procedures that Nix would not at least try if she was certain that it could be the only save for a tiny life.

The dead bitten were the worst. The wounds festered and the fever washed over them, they ached in every joint and cried in pain. Unlike the first time, Nix now had the knowledge and supplies to dim their pain, reduce their fevers and debride their wounds, but it was still awful.

It was a few years since Nix encountered her first dead bitten animals in the months after the compound collapsed and she found herself alone with all of the cats from the commune following her. She would find an animal bitten, and at first she would observe because she needed to know what would happen and how she would have to deal with these pitiful creatures. Once they died, would they also rise up again? The answer was no. Animals with shallow bites or scratches might live but those with deep wounds went painfully. Nix learned the most humane ways of ending their lives to speed them to the end of their pain.

Then it was Olwyn. A tiny grey puff of fur somehow got herself grabbed and bitten. She limped her way home and Nix sobbed to see her pain. She curled up under a chair and would not come out. The other cats spent the night watching over her in shifts and her tiny body heaved one last breath near dawn. Nix carried her to the hole in the yard behind the trailer they had taken over and gently covered her with soil. Neither the cats nor Nix did anything that day but nap in piles to comfort each other.

At dinner time, Nix put down the plates of turkey baby food and kibble mixed with rice and canned chicken and then mostly got out of the way, shoving the back door open a foot so the yard cats could come in for the night and have dinner. Sitting at the yellowed Formica table and reading a 5 year old newspaper, it took Nix a moment to notice the the cats were clearing a path and there was a lot of sniffing and confusion going on. When Nix looked among the cats, it took her a moment to find. Tiny, grey and dirt covered Olwyn was sitting by a plate and eating in her dainty way but with obvious hunger.

"Holy shit, holy shit" whispered Nix as she stood and slowly backed toward the living room, trying to figure out if she had just let a dead cat inside and how many others would be bitten before she could save them. Her arm was reaching for the baseball bat behind the door when Olwyn looked up at her.

Her eyes were clear and not the milky haze of the dead. Olwyn gazed up at Nix and made a pleased chirrup sound. With a happy raised tail, she took a straight line right to Nix and merrily weaved between her human's boots. She seemed a little more stiff than the other cats, but she still had a large wound and needed medical care. She was not dead. She was not risen dead. Olwyn was just alive again and really needed a bath.

That night Olwyn had her bath, her wound cleaned carefully, some antibiotics and was placed on the bed by Nix so she could keep a close eye on the tiny cat who curled into a neat circle and purred with joy.

Cats, when bitten, did not behave like any other animal and Nix wanted to know why.


6. Phoenix and Ed and Alice and Nocta

Queen of the Cats 4. Rebirth

4. Rebirth

After a long day of cutting up and planting potatoes gleaned from a field five miles away, Nix woke in one of her least favorite ways. Nocta, her ancient and unchallenged queen cat was sitting on Nix's chest and shrieking directly into her face. Once a beauty of ink black fur, soft as a night breeze and silent as death, Nocta was no longer so plush nor soft but she was still in charge and her stabby little paws could always find the softest parts of your anatomy to stand on.

"What? Shit! What the hell, Nocta!" Blearily, Nix sat up in bed looking for the crisis. There were no cats in her bed. Nocta continued to scream but ran for the stairs to the upper floor. Nix ran after her, nearly on all fours up the steep and treacherous staircase. There, in the center of where the best morning sunbeam would fall later in the day, Nix could make out a number of cats sitting or laying in a circle around something.

Flipping the switch, Nix turned on the single LED bulb and saw that Splat!, a massive calico with a disturbing and fanatical love of sharp cheddar cheese was in the center of the fray. Splat!'s markings looked funny until Nix realized that her belly had been colonized by a litter of newborn kittens rather than a new calico pattern. It had been a long time since new kittens had been born and had a chance to survive.

Nix's Murder House and Cattery was paying off. It was nearly two years after Nocta had woken her with another heart-stopping scream session and then led her to the strange house in the middle of the night. The very next day, Nix and her parade of cats had quit the Meth Shack and trekked here. No roads approached the house. There were no tire tracks, no disturbed portions of the forest floor that showed entry or egress. No one lived in it or had already looted the place. It was weird. It had walls and was defensible. It wouldn't burn. With minor changes, it would be just about the safest place they could hope for. They were home, or as close as they felt they could be.

As the human cat approached, the clowder made space for her near the main attraction. Kneeling down, Nix crooned to Splat! and then joined the pride in their sprawl on the floor. Splat!'s head was kissed many times and she was told what a good girl she was. After a few moments, she rolled further onto her back, placed her paws on Nix's slightly teary cheeks and kneaded her skin in the way of biscuit making cats of all time. Splat! purred with all the rumble one cat could manage and her impossibly small spotty and ginger babies ate, slept or were groomed by their new pride.

Soon the content purring spread throughout all the cats, and that is how everyone slept. A pile of happiness, purring with six tiny reminders of life at the center. Marmalade, the green-eyed massive ginger tom who was pretty obviously a very proud papa, remained awake or lightly dozing while sleepily grooming Splat! and still keeping out an eye for danger. Before Nix truly sacked out, she crept to the switch and turned out the light. She considered returning to the wide open luxury of her bed, but instead returned to her place on the floor and snuggled back in, quickly dropping off to sleep amid the purrs and paws.

No matter the beauty and joy of the night, the walls were patrolled, rodents were murdered and the property remained under the weather eye of grizzled toms and coal dark felines who were prepared to cause hell for the dead should the need arise.

5. The Shopping

Queen of the Cats 3. Nix's Murder House and Cattery

3. Nix's Murder House and Cattery

Nix had taken over a number of houses, buildings, shelters, forts, towers, hotels, a tree house and even one ill-fated school bus in her years alone, but finding the stone blockhouse was a gift. It must have been a folly for the rich or a fortification for someone very paranoid indeed. In the end it had not done any good for its builder, but it had become home, base camp, cattery, and sanctuary for Nix and her felines.

The first floor was built smaller than the second, with just a single door in the front face and a pair of tiny windows. That was one more ground floor door than the cagey young woman found comforting. Using the same local river rock, flagstone and a few bags of concrete from a shed, she used her commune learned skills and bricked up the small door and windows, making the edifice appear seamless. She removed the wooden stairs to the second floor balcony that cantilevered out over the ground floor. Nix replaced the original entry methods with a rope ladder that was pulled up most of the time, a cat beam that would drop away under the weight of even a small person, and the manual dumbwaiter and cat platform that could only be operated from above.

That ground floor edifice was one of the more normal parts of the house and even after two years of residence, Nix and the cats still kept finding secret niches, doors, sliding panels and other weirdness. The second floor entry hall accessed from the balcony contained two great fireplaces and a number of richly appointed but somewhat moldy chairs. However, it contained no obvious doors that would access the rest of the house. It had taken Nix a full week to find the catch which released an inner wall of a fireplace, letting it swing back like a small door so that a tall person must stoop to pass. The catch was located inside the opposite fireplace for maximum inconvenience.

Some part of Nix always wondered if she was living in a Camp David for magicians or a serial killer murder house. Each time she opened a new room, she hoped for a hat and wand rather than a pile of human limbs. Luckily, she had found neither dead people nor magic tricks as the first would now try to eat her and the second would just distract her so she could be eaten.

Passing through the fireplace, most of the second floor seemed almost normal in that it contained the right kind of rooms for a house, but they seemed to have been randomly collected from time. The kitchen was all stainless and shining modern industrial. The pantries were stocked with shelf stable foods of all kinds, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic to keep them fresh and insect free.

The dining room contained a ridiculously long table with a hilarious compliment of chairs, surrounded by rich painted frescoes of hunting scenes and velvet curtains that puddled on the floor as if they hid enormous windows rather than yet more stone. This room was deeply appreciated by the household felines who could each choose their own chair or pile of velvet curtain for a good nap and leave open seats remaining. Nix amused herself by serving a Thanksgiving dinner for all home occupants at the table their first year in the house. The conversation was limited but it was a hilarious show to watch the cats sit on their chairs as esteemed guests and gnaw at their turkey bits from lovely china plates. It was entirely worth washing all of the dishes later.

If not for the multiple sets of identical furniture, the library seemed almost normal. Bookshelves with rolling ladders lined the walls and the room looked like it had been designed after a 20th century gentleman's club. Thankfully, there were no mounted heads and the books still remained dry.

At least the ground floor room lacked much in the way of surprises, being just a large open space with shelving around the walls and in some short rows. Canned goods, plastics bins of supplies, some guns, a lot of ammo, a room full of batteries that were charged by the solar panels on the roof, controls for the well, fuse box. Yes, this seemed perfectly on the level for the average paranoid schizophrenic or up and coming spree killer. Funny enough, their paranoia and planning had absolutely paid off, just not for them.

Top it off with a twelve foot high walled garden that contained a maze of sorts. The various endings of which brought you to the outbuildings. A grand old stone barn in which Nix took to raising rabbits, chickens, and two milk cows that had wandered onto the property one day. Finding the external door to the barn had been a special hell and in the end it had been Sampson who found it. At another end of the maze there was a shed full of tools, saws, crowbars and other dismemberment favorites. Nix just closed the door to that one and hoped to never open it again.

One long shed looked like you could perform sterile medical procedures, grow a lot of pot or cook up a great quantity of various high grade street drugs. In memory of her parents, Nix grew two pots of marijuana named Ed and Alice respectively, plus a fair number of potted catnip plants. She reserved the rest of that space for home surgeries she hoped to never perform.

Back inside, the block house third floor was just a collection of oddly themed bathrooms and bedrooms and the attic was an open space under the eaves, one of the few places with windows where you could see for a distance. In the two years since finding Nix's Murder House and Cattery, she made herself comfortable by pulling a few of the king sized beds into the largest bedroom. This almost always assured that she could sleep and wake up surrounded by cats, rather than beneath a pile of them. With few exceptions, the entire gang like to eat and sleep together as this had kept them alive through some crazy times.

As Nix slept each night, the older Toms would roam the house to make sure nothing was amiss inside. Out on the walls, there was always a black furred sentry or two that made sure the walking corpses kept on walking right by. Any that came too near were enticed to a merry chase after a nice, warm and juicy cat who always disappeared into the forest once the dead had been redirected.

Nix's Murder House and Cattery was good for the whole pride.


4. Rebirth

Queen of the Cats 2. Revenant Day

2. Revenant Day

Nix had been 14 when Revenant Day had occurred. It was the first day when the dead got back up from where they had been put down. Apparently, when they got back up, they also got very angry and none of them were vegetarians anymore.

Living on a rural "bullshit hippy compound" was probably why she was still alive. It certainly had kept her parents alive for years longer than they would have managed on their own.

Ed and Alice were sweet but mostly wanted to love the earth, grow marijuana, smoke marijuana and raise a daughter who would be kind and gentle like them. Instead they got a changeling girl child with a mouth like a sailor, an ever curious mind, and a certain way with cats. The commune barn cats were always leaving their kittens with Nix while they went to hunt or just lay uninterrupted in a sunbeam. Ed and Alice were just happy that Nix had one thing she could love and treat gently. They concentrated on that and growing their plants, even as the world flew apart in chaos.

Perched in one of the community rooms, a small crowd watched an ancient console television that showed what was happening in the cities, how the dead were multiplying, how they attacked and made more dead. Nix turned the situation over in her mind and headed to her attic room for a good think. Upon arriving, she found that a whole litter of kittens had been left in her bed. Nix always found that she thought better with a pile of kittens, especially the extra fluffy ones.

Phoenix (mythical bird, not city) Alexandria (for the Library) MaryJane (for the weed) Verity (for truth) Kobesky (because she was Polish AF) was a kid saddled with a lot of names, a lot of cats, and suddenly a lot more chores. Unlike the other kids, she took to the new work with a seriousness beyond her years before anyone on the commune had seen one of the dead. She found holes in the fence and mended them, located weak spots and flagged them for additional fence posts, and found places where the earth had sunken or washed out and listed them for adding fill dirt, concrete and rocks.

Seizing an over-sized map in the mess hall for her purposes, Nix used push pins to note all the cities where the dead had become a pandemic rather than a problem. At first it was the largest cities, then then slightly smaller cities and it just kept spreading.

Each morning, while thoughtfully chewing her toast, she would set new pins and use yarn to connect them. The thing she noticed were the interstates. The yarn bloomed out from city to city along major roads. No major roads came near their compound, but Nix decided it might be a good time to make sure that zero roads to the compound were visible to outsiders. Infected people could still drive cars. The dead seemed to follow roads as they shuffled about.

The news stopped suggesting that people should shelter in place or reporting where safe locations were. In truth, when too many people got together, one of them would hide their infection, not believing in their fate. About two weeks later, they would stand up as a corpse and start sharing their fate with all of the other people who were nice and safe in that location.

Nix asked her dad to gather up some of the older men from the commune and bring them to the mess hall with the map. Most adults would not listen to a teenager unless they had a trusted grown-up backing them and visual aids. Nix imagined if the world had not gone upside down, she might have had a future in marketing. She wedged the kitten in her hoodie pocket down a little deeper and massaged his face until he slept. A kitten climbing from her pocket would probably put a dent in her credibility.

Her dad had been Incredibly smart and mostly collected other men with families. Men who had something to love and something to lose because they would be far more likely to start immediate work and keep at it. Maybe Ed could have been some sort of community organizer if he didn't live in a nowhere compound and maybe smoked a little less dope.

As the men stood with crossed arms and looks of disinterest, Nix explained her map and her plan. One by one they started to listen. Their compound was not on any maps. Their "road" was one sign, 30 feet of concrete off of a state highway and then two ruts for miles. With a few days of work, some fill dirt, some dragged over fallen trees and the misdemeanor removal of a county road sign, they could be entirely forgotten. With the work of the whole community they could erase their road, make it impassible and add extra earthworks around the fenced commune. The group was already mostly off the grid. It was time to finish the job.

The adults set an immediate start date for the work and the next day "Bliss Drive" ceased to exist. Two days later, no one would ever have guessed a road had been there even if they had driven on it. They would think they had missed the turn somewhere else.

Nix started to teach all of the cats that their world now needed to end at the fence. It took a few years to get that across, but finally, she managed it. As she did her chores there was ever a tumble of kittens who pounced, wrestled, gnawed her shoelaces and ran after the teen as if she were their mother. The barn cats taught them to hunt, but Nix taught them how not to be hunted. Older cats helped to reinforce the lessons.

The commune was free of rodents, both inside buildings and out in the fields. Even in bullshit hippy land, the time of free rides was over.


3. Nix's Murder House and Cattery

Queen of the Cats 1. Nix

1.

When the brown and somewhat grizzled tabby cat dropped into a low crouch, so did the woman. From their vantage point, she could see two things: a pair of plump rabbits in a hollow down the embankment and the dead man limping his way down the remains of the asphalt road.

The shambling corpse was nothing near fresh, clothed only in the tatters of a pair of gore stained khaki pants. When she found the more recently-turned-nightmares, she could take them down, smoke the meat and use it to refresh traps for larger prey. She could also use it as bait for the dead in pit traps and on pike lines.

Neither she, nor the cats, would eat it. but this was not a world where you allowed waste. Not anymore.

She glanced at her companion, utterly still except for emerald eyes that watched both dinner and death in turn. Together they waited. Once the dead man was far enough down the road, she signaled to the cat. The silent and massive Maine Coon padded away, heading to circle around to the back side of the hollow. Once in place, she watched the plume of his tail stand upright, then drop. Sampson was ready to work.

Un-shouldering her bow, she tugged an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, raised the bow and in a single act of breath and motion she inhaled while drawing the bow and exhaled while she let the arrow fly. There was no cry from the rabbit, it just tipped over. The second rabbit tried to race out of the hollow, using the worn path. It never saw death come as Sampson pounced, grabbed the rabbit by the throat and lowered himself atop the still struggling rabbit as the small life extinguished in silence.

In a few moments, the woman dressed in greens and browns met Sampson at the bottom of the hollow. He sat calmly beside the rabbits, ready to defend them if he must. "Good buddy", she whispered and slipped him a piece of dehydrated venison. As the cat chewed thoughtfully, he stood, walked a few feet away and sat again with his paw gently touching something before him.

In the leaf litter, he had found a nest of young rabbits. They were cowering and terrified, but their eyes were open and they were large enough to survive. "Welcome to the breeding population, fellas. You are going to the bunny barn".Gently, each of the five kits was placed in a cross-body basket lined with grass. The previous generation were stowed in a oilcloth bag to leave no blood trail behind.

With nearly silent movements, Nix checked the hollow for anything left behind, or edible plants, finally tucking some chanterelles into a pocket. Sampson finished his job of pawing up the earth where each rabbit fell and depositing odoriferous gifts of his own to cover the scent. With a nod to the cat, the pair quietly left the hollow and paused to make sure no new dead had wandered into the area.

A large, red cat with one eye and a permanent scar of a snarl dropped out of a tree ahead of them. Garibaldi reporting that the coast was clear and he was tired of sitting in a tree. He stretched dramatically, staring up at Nix and waiting for his payment. "Yeah buddy, you did good too." Nix stroked his rough coat and felt his deep bass purr for just a second.

The three trekked home with Sampson and Garibaldi alert for the awful dead and Nix obscuring their path and weaving plants and tree limbs to each other to keep away the awful living. Not being found by anyone was pretty integral to not being gnawed into oblivion by the dead, or much worse by the desperate cretins who had never found a place to settle down and try to make a living.

As they approached the abandoned, and likely once charming, chalet, hunting lodge or whatever the hell it had been, more cats popped up out of holes, rustled out from under leaves and dropped down from well hidden perches in the trees making a motley parade of color, pattern, size and fluff that was truly stunning to behold. Nix and her volunteer army all headed for the field stone building that Nix had carefully seeded with moss in the cracks. Later she had transplanted vines near the base. And nailed broken boards across windows. From the outside, the place looked a miserable heap of mold, damp and collapse.

Some thirtyish cats followed. Nix climbed her rope ladder and most of the cats walked the balance beam of the single 2x4 that leaned from the porch to ground for their easy access. On the balcony of the second floor Nix used a rope to pull up a platform upon which several cats were sitting. As they reached the balcony they stepped off the platform with stiffer limbs, limps and one with just three legs. Getting old sucked, but she wouldn't get rid of the creatures that had helped keep her alive, simply because they had aged.


2. Revenant Day