Vagrant

The air slowly began to smell clearer as the ground pitched and rolled into ever-looming mountains, stretching endlessly behind him and feeling worlds away from his dust-stained home. He had travelled so far, and he paused to appreciate the gentleness of the grass beneath his feet as the cat loomed around his legs. It had been a challenging trek, albeit gracefully uninterrupted for the pair; the highways were still the easiest to negotiate long distances, but as time wore on they became ever more burdensome with obstacles. Avoiding the other travelers felt safest, and though they were seldom and far between, they produced disdainful lumps of equal terror and longing in his throat. His grandmother had never let him be seen by anyone who travelled passed the farmhouse they had settled in, though she would trade supplies for any information on the state of the world beyond their pastures.

When she passed… he ran. If she had been a carrier, he would never have the heart to do what needed done. She was the only human company he had known for most of his life. He hardly remembered what it was like to speak to another person, and at night he still longed for her stories and bold opinions on the crumbling world and how it became this way. She had taught him how to read, how to mend things, how to settle a makeshift household, and how to run and hide from the dangers of the reshaping world.

With the loss of her guidance, he flung himself out into the darkness. Alone. Young. Afraid.

Time was irrelevant for a while as he wandered, feeling anxious and disoriented. With little sense of purpose inspiring him to search for sustenance, he was woken one night by a painful ravenousness. He choked his tears back, the dread that his stomach rumbling or uncontrollable sniveling would invite attack made him overwhelmed with panic. As he lay there, one hand clutching his riotous gut and the other suffocating his mouth and nose, he felt a warm pressure and heard a quiet rumbling behind his head. Alarmed, he scrambled and fell as he locked eyes with his intruder: the moonlight through the trees was briefly reflected in narrow pupils that merely blinked at him silently, seeming to float disembodied in the dark. A soft black tail tapped the leaves impatiently.

He had not seen a cat alive in years. When she was alive in his youth, his mother used to allow free-roam of their small apartment to the strays residing in their city complex; he awoke one morning to find one had given birth overnight to a litter of kittens in a laundry basket full of his clean clothes. He was barely more than a toddler and was very distraught by the sight of blood until his mother consoled him and assured him the mother cat had chosen a wise place for her labor as she was safe and comfortable with their small, young family. The scene of the bloody basket and her soft hands wiping away his tears may as well have been a lifetime ago.

Strays that had retained their trust of humans were easy to trap for a lean dinner. His grandmother often staunchly refused certain animals that wandered across their path, or were peddled at their door, preferring instead to put her agricultural acumen to use in farming and foraging. On special occasions, she would trap a hare or two and they would feast before the meat spoiled while she regaled him with the myths his ancestors had entrusted her with to continue passing on.

He reached his hand out to the animal with an open palm and waited patiently as it sniffed at him, then stood and stretched its head towards his touch. He gave it a light scratch behind the ears and it slinked its way toward and past his knees. He turned just as it disappeared in the shadows of the brush and dismayed momentarily until it quickly returned, a red squirrel hanging limply in its mouth. The cat placed its prize on the ground in front of him and raised its head proudly at his amazement, revealing a glint of gold on its chest. Too famished and cautious to bother cooking the meat, he skinned the rodent with a knife then tore into the raw, slimy flesh with his bare teeth. His stomach, he knew, would revolt against him for the next day or so, but hunger could not be reasoned with. He tossed what was left of his desperate meal back to its original hunter and collapsed, exhausted and extremely displeased with himself. The feline nipped disinterestedly at the bones, then curled up at his chest as he descended into an easier sleep than the one he had been woken from.

The daylight roused him before his stomach began its protest at his late-night dinner. The black cat was still napping against his chest but stirred, stretched, and began purring at his movement. The gleaming gold around its neck caught his eye again; the feline was outfitted with a black collar from which hung a golden heart-shaped locket. It was plain metal, nearly be hidden by the cat’s dark, fluffy coat. The animal peacefully continued its snooze as he fumbled the locket open. A small square piece of paper fell out with neat, tidy handwriting.

40° 20’ 1” N, 80° 2’ 32” W. Mailbox.

When he had first read the numbers, he had little knowledge of how to discern their whereabouts on a map. The preliminary leg of the companions’ journey had been to a small, mostly undisturbed local library; some of the more useful books were torn through, probably long ago when people first found themselves very suddenly in an uncivilized world in which they had to re-learn how to subsist. A few of the shelves looked to have been more slowly picked over, perhaps by a surviving bookworm or maybe just burned for warmth in colder months. He only lingered long enough to ensure he understood which direction to strike off in next.

Having an escort, however unhuman it may be, had made the trip more bearable than his first period in utter isolation. He could feel the cat knew their destination better than he did, and indeed now that they had finally reached their goal it grew impatient with his reflection and trotted across the paving stones in the yard and through a small flap in the front door. He hesitated – he had yet to assess whether the home was unoccupied or not – and then reached into the mailbox and pulled out an unsealed envelope marked To Her Savior. He sat down on the porch steps to read the message within.

Dear Stranger,

I’m so happy you’ve found this letter. It breaks my heart to write it, because I know someone reading it means I didn’t survive my trip to the city. But there are rumors of a cure, and my days can’t be any more plentiful than anyone else’s. I know I’m infected, so I have to try. It’s always worth trying to live. But I guess, if I don’t, I can at least hope to entrust my beautiful, beloved pet to someone who would care enough to track down an obscure location in an abandoned suburb. I promise you though, the land tills easily and the house stays warm in the sun and cool in the breeze. This was my home – and hers – before the world crumbled, and it kept us safe and fed for well after the grocery stores were ransacked down to the last can of tuna. She doesn’t have a name – I never gave her one, and I have little use even for my own now – but she will come to kissy noises and intuitively knows if you’ve brought home a fish.

I know it makes little sense to have a pet anymore. Another thing to feed, another thing to worry about grieving. But she’s all I’ve had since The Event. I haven’t seen my family, and I’ve watched my neighbors dwindle to none. Perhaps I’m off to meet them all again, somewhere better. Whatever my fate, I beg of you – no matter how cruel the world has become, keep kindness in your heart. Love is the only thing worth living for anymore, it is the last piece of us we have. Keep each other safe.

Regards,

A Friend

He closed the letter and replaced it in its packaging. The cat had rejoined him as he read, and was purring as it laid next to him. He reached out to pet her, and they both leaned into the contact as he realized her name.

“Faith.”