Chops

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. The circle of panes sat high on the wall, six wheel-spokes poking out from a round hub at its center. From her perch on the shelf below, Chester swatted at swallows, batted at beetles, puzzling at the invisible barrier that met her eminently fuzzy paws as she struck at them. Once she tired of this, those same paws would pad down from the high shelf and over to the velvet sofa where Saleeh lay paging leisurely through yet another volume.

On this particular afternoon, Chester bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the high window of the reading salon. She stretched her paws out over Saleeh's lap, making a few biscuits out of his jeans before settling into the patch of sun on his belly.

Saleeh found an appropriate spot in Parable of the Sower to place his bookmark, took off his reading glasses, and set them both on an end table, turning his attention to the cat at hand.

“Ms. Arthur,” he addressed her cordially. “Might I interest you in some chin scritches?”

Chester’s vocabulary, though not huge, definitely included “scritches” among its roster. She extended a regal, mutton-chopped head, closing her big green eyes. Saleeh smiled softly as he scratched underneath her little chin. Her snout didn’t protrude far from her relatively flat face, but that didn’t stop him from scratching whatever chin he could get a hold of. He extended his other hand, running it repeatedly over her waves of voluminous gray fluff.

“The executive special,” declared Saleeh, “two hands. Nothing but the best for Madam President.”

Chester pointed her chin up toward the ceiling, tilting her head backward with each successive stroke.

Chester A. Arthur knew that something had changed, though she couldn’t put her toe-beans on it. The house they were in had taken some time to get used to, that was for sure—and the racket that Saleeh had made nailing boards over all the windows, I mean, my god, that had not helped. She’d spent a good number of days hiding under the tall wooden dresser in the sleeping room, only coming out for the occasional meal.

Nevertheless, once the board-nailing had ceased and the newness of the place had faded into the mundane, she ventured out into the unfamiliar world, exploring the nooks and crannies of her new lair. She found the highest spots (window shelf of the salon, top of the fridge, and china hutch, in that order), munched a few tasty spiders in the room where humans took off their fake feet, and searched out the best places for doing laps—not to mention the best places for taking the subsequent naps. Compared to the one-bedroom she’d shared with Saleeh before, this…was really working for her. The usual disdain with which she treated the world and most things in it; that was beginning to vanish.

For his part, Saleeh seemed to warm up to the new place too. For a while, he’d acted just as on-edge as Chester had—dodging around corners, looking over his shoulder, jumping at the slightest sound. Part of the reason Chester hadn’t utterly detested the boards and the hammering: Saleeh calmed down just about the moment they were all in place.

She’d watched him once, standing in front of the planks nailed to the sleeping room window. A shallow bowl had lain smoking on a table in front of him, full of something strange- and sharp-smelling, and he was making the same sounds as when he’d stubbed his toe on the nightstand. His hands waved in front of his eyes in zigzagging patterns before picking up a wet, dripping clump from the table in front of him. He made those same toe-stub wailing sounds and slapped the clump against the wooden slats, over and over, until the slats were dripping too. After a few moments spent murmuring to himself, he turned and left the room.

Chester had gone to investigate the aftermath of the scene. The table smelled…kind of like food, and after a few tentative licks…yeah, it tasted like food too. She wasn’t sure what to make of the incident, but he seemed happier, more at ease after the wet slat-slaps, so she didn’t dwell on it too much. Whatever was going on, Saleeh was staying in the house more often, which meant more belly rubs for Chesty. A win-win, one might say.

One evening, after a particularly hearty dinner of tuna, Chester had fallen asleep on her usual high shelf under the wheel-shaped window. In the middle of a dream about a half-housefly, half-goldfinch—exquisitely chewy—she awoke to the sound of the back door creaking shut. Her eyes flashed open, aglow in the moonlight. Through the window, she tracked the steps through the tall grass: Saleeh, alone, making for the gap in the trees at the edge of the yard. Chester watched intently as he strode for the treeline, pausing there under a towering oak. He bowed his head of black curls and hugged his denim jacket against the November chill.

After what seemed like hours, a tall, slender figure emerged from the copse of naked trees. Chester didn’t have the best eye for humans, but it looked…not right: too tall, too skinny, with a grin that spread too wide, and eyes that shone like hers—like a cat's—in the dim, silvery light. It slunk toward him on rickety, wobbly legs and stretched out a long, spidery hand. Saleeh held out a lumpy sack; the Tall One swiped it from him, rifling feverishly through its contents. As it did, another Tall One walked out from among the trees, along with three humans. The humans didn’t seem quite right either—all of them looked like they had a few pieces missing, and they walked with an uneven, limping gait.

After a few moments, the first Tall One threw the sack to one side, jerking its head to the other. Its smile grew wider, its eyes darkening. With those same shaky legs, it stepped toward Saleeh, who staggered backward toward the house. The Tall One pointed to the sack on the ground, its contents spilled into the grass, and spoke to him, loudly enough for Chester to hear. The words weren’t like Saleeh’s at all, or any human’s, for that matter. They came out like the snapping of bone, the crunching of leaf, the moaning of wind through a culvert. Its mouth didn’t open as it spoke, its lips unmoving; its head just jiggled and rocked, the sounds shaking out.

Chester meowed, trying to seize Saleeh’s attention—she saw his head twitch momentarily before returning to meet the gaze of the Tall One. It moved closer still, making louder cracking, snapping sounds, as the three broken humans started ambling forward. As they stepped into the light, Chester saw that they had open wounds and sores, several of them oozing blood or…well, something other than blood.

She meowed again, swiping at the window with one paw after the other, rapid-fire. As the Tall One’s gaze began to move to the house, her paw connected with the latch, and she tumbled out of the window, landing on all fours in the grass. Chirruping, Chester sprinted to Saleeh, who turned to see her, eyes wide, and leapt into his arms, purring as she landed. Saleeh squeezed her to his chest.

“Please,” he whispered, his lip trembling, “please, I’ll get you what you need. Just…don’t hurt her.”

The Tall One’s head, still tilted too far to one side, shook violently as it unleashed a scream like metal screeching against metal, steam escaping a kettle, and slashed at Saleeh with its skeletal hand, sending him hurtling across the lawn.

Saleeh grunted as he fell flat on his back, gasping, swallowing air in huge gulps. Chester wriggled from his grasp, licking the blood from his face where he’d fallen.

“Ches—GUHN…..er,” he managed to cough out, “you have—MMMM…get outta….HMM….”

He writhed back and forth, hacking up blood.

Chester walked onto his chest, using her cat instincts to find the most painful spot and putting all her weight there, obviously. The popping, shambling footsteps of the Tall One drew nearer, and she wheeled around, hissing, causing Saleeh to hack up more blood. Her hackles raised as the Tall One reared up before them.

Its lips, still smiling, parted for the first time, revealing perfectly white teeth—far too long, befitting the rest of its emaciated body. The teeth unzipped apart, retreating into the Tall One’s gums as another pulpy, purple-red malignance whipped out from between them, scattering blood and viscera. A long, black tongue uncoiled from the ball of protruding flesh, licking itself clean as a second mouth opened on the stump, revealing hundreds of tiny, shattered-glass teeth.

“Well,” it pronounced in a high, melodic tone, “I suppose you refuse to make this easy, little beastie.”

Chester hissed again.

“Fine,” sighed the second mouth. “Have it your way.”

The Tall One swiped at Chester again, who yowled as she leapt onto its arm, sinking her teeth into its pale, foul-tasting flesh. The Tall One cried with its two mouths in tandem, the outer one shrieking, the inner one wailing a half-hearted aria. Chester dug in with her back legs, kicking in a flurry at the Tall One’s arm. As she did, the Tall One shrank dizzyingly away; she stretched her neck forward to maintain her grip. Her legs kept pounding until, eventually, her hind feet brushed against grass and dirt.

Bemused, Chester let go of the arm and looked down at the Tall One. It looked…strange, weak, small—no bigger than a blue jay. She stepped forward, adjusting her full weight onto its solar plexus. The Tall One looked up at her—its face still wore a smile, though its whole body shivered and quaked.

“Aren’t you….” it sputtered out, “...just…full of surprises.”

Another shriek pierced the night as the second Tall One ran at Chester, hands raking the air in a frenzy. She leapt over the reach of its arms, landing squarely on its shoulders and knocking it into the dirt. A bite to the throat left it oozing and gurgling viscous blood and bile, red-black and green. It waved weakly at the air, futilely; Chester put her full weight on its shoulders, causing it to give a halting, squeaking gasp.

The broken humans came for her next, surrounding her at all sides. She sat back on her haunches, now tall enough to look each of them in the eye, and hissed, the sound deep and resonant as it escaped her throat. She growled in that same rumbling, low tone, and squared off against each of them in turn.

The first one lunged forward, sending a roundhouse punch at Chester's chest, but she craned her neck out of the way, leaving him tangled in her chest fluff. She turned to face the second human as it announced its attack with a bellow, the first human dangling from her fur like a marionette. She spiked it down to the dirt, severing its spine with one well-placed bite.

The third one had vanished from sight, so Chester took the moment to brush the first flailing human from her fur and chomp its face; in the ensuing fountain of blood and ooze, she licked her lips clean. The third one threw itself at her from behind, spring-boarding from her tail to land between her shoulders. It gained purchase on her back and tried to bury its jaws in her skin, but its gnawing only churned up mouthfuls of matted hair. Chester rolled onto her back, grinding her weight into the ground, whipping her body back and forth. Once she'd shaken it loose, she flipped herself onto her feet, pinning it to the ground, and ripped out its throat, unleashing another torrent of blood.

Chester trotted back over to Saleeh, stepping on the surviving Tall One’s severed arm as she went, and settled into a sphinx pose at his side, licking assiduously at his wounds.

“Chester….” he coughed out, chuckling. “Wow, you’re…too big to fit…ahem…indoors now….”

Chester meowed, that oddly huge, low meow, and kept cleaning the blood and black gore from where the Tall One had struck him.

“...guhh…good work today….HNNG...Ms. Arthur….” he went on. “....Presidential Medal of...Freedom….hmmm…for Madam President….”

The first Tall One's inner mouth had detached from its body and inched toward Chester, dragging itself along with its tongue. When it was within striking range, it drew itself up like a snake, baring its myriad splintered teeth—and Chester wheeled around, baring her own. Several wet, squelching chomps later, a few ragged bits of sinew remained of the inner mouth, and nothing else.

As she cleaned the blood and guts from her paws, something lying in the grass caught Chester's eye: the sack, the one Saleeh had presented to the Tall One, the one it'd cast aside. She saw a few wet somethings protruding from it; organs, maybe—smelled like liver, anyway—and what looked like a hand.

Chester went back to dressing Saleeh's wounds as best she knew how. Once the battle scars lay clean, Chester curled up by Saleeh’s side and fell asleep to the sound of his ragged, rasping breaths.

When she woke up, she was back in Saleeh’s arms, back to usual kitty size, and back inside the kitchen. He placed her gently on the counter, giving her a kiss on the forehead—with a few heavy body pets for good measure. Saleeh smiled at her as he collected a white plastic box from the cupboard.

“Well, I guess we should’ve known with the zombies and such,” he mused to her. “Stuff’s getting weirder by the day. Still, I don’t know how I could’ve seen that coming. I mean, you got HUGE, Chester. REAL big.”

Chester A. Arthur meowed in agreement.

“Yeah,” he replied, eyebrows raised. “Well. I, for one, will be happy getting back to my Octavia Butler and putting the phrase "homicidal apocalypse" back between the covers of a paperback. That sound good to y—whoops!”

The bacitracin had slipped from his hand. He reached down to catch it—and did. With spidery fingers that extended too long and a spindly arm that crept to the floor, he caught the tube of ointment before it hit the tile. He raised it back up to the counter and examined his hand, fluttering his fingers: brown skin, chunky digits, blunt nails: back to normal.

“Yep,” he muttered, blinking, “weirder by the day.”

Chester meowed from her shelf, taking in the morning sun before hacking up a hairball littered with teeth.

She chattered at the birds, tucking her feet in to make a proper cat loaf. Turning to Saleeh, she gave him a proper slow blink before squinting into the middle distance. Maybe she’d dream about bird-flies again.

Chester A. Arthur snoozed.