The days are gloomy and cold, with the icy snow on the ground. Our whiskers are always frosty, our furs covered with hardened mats. Sometimes my tongue sticks to my fur when I lick myself to stay warm. One time, Beauty wanted to cry because we were so hungry and had not eaten for days, but her tears just froze before they could fall.

We were lucky if we could find a lonely car, just standing by the side of some road. Then we could run and hide underneath it, huddle close together to keep each other warm and rub our numb heads with each other. But there was very little warmth and even less food.

“Where are we Beauty?” I ask my companion for the hundredth time. I am tired of this constant walking, hiding, freezing, starving. I am tired of eating bugs, nuts and a few dead leaves. I do not know what is harder: running away from zombies or running around searching for food with a hungry belly?

“We are close..” Beauty’s voice drifts through the blowing snow. Today, we are sheltering under a sorry looking brush pile, the snow still stinging us in the eyes, slapping us in our faces. Where will we shelter tomorrow? I do not know.

“ Why don’t we go hide under that deck there then? We will be warmer.” I suggest. .

“ It smells real bad there. Of dead things.” Beauty replies, covering her face from the stinging snow with her big paws. She is still massive, but I no longer find it funny or have the heart to make fun of her. I have gotten skinnier, but I am not proud of that. Not at all. This is me becoming skinny from fear and hunger.

“ We smell pretty bad too. I smell like a wet dog!” I sit up, lift a scrawny leg, sniff my bum and retch.

Once I finish puking, Beauty says, “Ok, if it’s warmer, we’ll go and hide under the deck. But we’ll stay on the edge, away from the smell.”

We wiggle out, run blindly through the storm and plop ourselves underneath the deck. Ahhhh, that’s much better. No snow is here at least, just mud and leaves. It is warm too, except for the smell of the dead and rotten zombies.

I raise my head and sniff the air. “The smell must be coming from the house above us.”

“This is a good spot for a few days. Then we start walking and don’t stop. We are pretty close to our old home.” Her eyes shine.

“ Old home, what’s that?”

Beauty huffs in impatience. “ Remember Mimi...the gray carpet, the big windows, constant food and love, a fluffy bed, Mom and Dad...”

I shake in anger.. “Oh all that! I do not remember any of that. I do not think of that. They left us to suffer.”

“Do you think Mom and Dad will ever come back?” Beauty asks me.

“ No, they won’t. They have forgotten about us.” I turn away from Beauty and stare at a spider weaving its cobweb in front of me. I do not want to think about my happy past anymore. Hmmm, should I eat that spider? I decide to and hit out at it, rip up its cobweb, and swallow the tiny, red, spider in a quick gulp.

“Or they are dead.” says Beauty. “Just like that spider I just saw you eat.”

A few days later, the snowing finally stops. The sun is out. The air is much warmer than it has been in a long while. Some birds are even chirping. The snow on the ground has turned hard, but is not so deep that our feet are getting buried into it. We are walking along endless row of streets, with abandoned houses on both sides. Beauty seems to know where we are going. She is rather chipper this morning, bouncing along ahead of me, for once.

“We are close to home, Mimi! And its a beautiful day too.”

“Uh-huh.”

“ Do you notice something else?”

“No. Surprise me.”

“ Oh Come on Mimi! Ask me! Show some spirit!”

“ No. I am too tired.”

“Cry baby, always complaining.” Beauty pokes me in the ribs.

“ Shut up!” I aim a smack at her fat face, but I miss. I am getting slow and weak, you must understand.

“I’ll shut up if you crack a smile. Come on, it won’t kill you to smile.” Beauty gives me a big grin that annoys me.

“ You are right.” I stop and take a deep breath of the fresh spring air. “ It won’t kill me to smile. I am half-dead already.” I give a small, quick smile and hope that it is enough to shut her big mouth up.  

“ Now that’s the old, happy, smiling Mimi I used to know. I miss that Mimi.” Beauty starts walking, with her head low and sniffing the ground. I walk a little behind her, just staring blankly. We continue like this for sometime.  

“The zombies are gone.” Beauty says.

“What do you mean? Just gone?” She stops all of a sudden and I ram into her butt. “Ooof!! Stop doing that.”

She ignores me and turns around, looking me directly in the eye, her blue eyes going round as saucers. “We haven’t seen any of those nasty things for a long time, have we? We’ve walked around so much, out in the open too.”

I look up at the sky, my tiny brain whirring, trying to think back. “You know...you may be right. I have only been thinking of the hunger and the cold.”

“This cold must’ve killed them off! Last time we saw them they were moving a lot slower.” Beauty is almost jumping in excitement.

“Oh yea, they were walking in circles, weren’t they?” I add. Her excitement is so infectious. It is rubbing off on me. “I saw some zombies just lying around, not even chasing me, when I went hunting the other day. They look like they were dying.”

“That means it’ll be safe for us to go home now, Mimi. Maybe we’ll be warm and well-fed and loved again. Maybe we’ll have our humans back again.” Beauty turns around and starts jogging, her loose skin and belly fat jiggling from side-to-side. How does she still have belly fat?

“If they are still alive.” I whisper.

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Next Chapter: Home: Chapter 10