CASSIE: MY FAVOURITE CAT

WHEN WE MOVED to the farm we took my cat, Cassie. She was coloured orange and white and my mother had named her after an icecream flavour they don’t sell anymore; or at least I can find.

The most traumatic thing about about moving to the farm wasn’t missing my friends and my mother yelling at me about the price of long distance phone calls to them – it was that after three months of living there; I found Cassie dead in a box in the barn. She was just fur and a skeleton. Dad said it was a snake what got her. She was a city cat and a city cat didn’t know a place out in the country.

I drew pictures of Cassie all the time, up until my teenage years. I cried every time I did it.

CASSIE: MY FAVOURITE CAT

I’d write write under each drawing. The drawings were were good. I’m very good at drawing. The fur didn’t take me long and I never made it a drudgery to do – I just put down onto paper what I saw in my mind from what I had seen with my eyes.

Years later, my sister and I would talk for hours about what we’d do in a zombie apocalypse. Of course, nothing like that had happened yet but we’d always talk over the phone, or when I’d visit, about it.

Eventually though, the zombies did come. We hadn’t really prepared; we’d just thought about it. Our parents were divorced by this time, but my brother was around and he was the best out of our whole family – we’d put all our experiences into him. I don’t know if it helped or not. I actually at some point thought we’d sheltered him too much and it was time to let him make decisions and leave him alone to think for himself. He’s the most capable man I’ve ever known. And the most creative too. He creates through mechanics now; but I hope he finds art some day.

We didn’t have much at the farm. It was a mess. Mum always said “I could clean this place up; or I could live my life” and we all, well at least I, got her meaning. I didn't live at the farm anymore anyhow and had my own problems to deal with.

When the zombies came. Finally, to the barn. We’d all locked ourselves inside with tinned foods and refrigerators. We figured fences probably weren’t going to cut it because even the cows seemed to get out all the time. What would stop a dead person getting inside?

My brother had set up a generator and had invested in a LOT of tools. He’d bought them to do up cars but he put them in the barn because we’d need them in a situation like this. Personally, I didn’t care if I died and was resurrected as some other form of idiot but I’d definitely give my own life to save any one of the members of my family.

The skeletons of the zombies glowed green at night. It was from radiation; that wasn’t hard to figure out. My brother had dug out a big hole underneath the barn so we’d have fuel to power one of his cars to get somewhere. I always said the most important part would be to have a destination.

Fortunately, he’d figured that out. He was always the best of us. He’d plotted a map to an island, that we could live at, with all the natural resourced we’d need. All we had to do was get there. I'd previously told him that it was important that upon arrival; you have to be able to defend it and I knew he understood even when he seemed like he was thinking about something else.

The family made it eventually to the island but I died on that trip. It’s an entirely different story. I don’t even remember if I was there anymore. I just stare off into space and sometimes, at night, I feel my bones glowing hot. It makes me feel alive even though I know I’m now dead. Instead of following the other zombies I just sit in the barn looking at the space where the bones and fur of Cassie had once laid lifeless too.