The Last Cat

 “Lookit, Delmar,” I hear Aunt Rhodie say, “it’s a cat!”

I look up from the chair that I’m sitting in, just inside of the tent that I share with Aunt Rhodie and Uncle Henry. It’s probably been three years since It Happened. I’m 16 years old. If we still marked time the way that we once did, it would be late October or early November.

It is a black cat. Too big to be a kitten, but very small. Reminds me of the cat my grandmother used to have. That cat’s name was Miss Bliss.

“Mew!” the cat cries, as if to greet us.

“I wonder if it’s a boy or girl cat?” I asked my aunt. Her given name is Rhoda, but we’re from Eastern Kentucky, where every first name must need with a long “e” sound for some ungodly reason that I’ve never understood. Back before I lost my mother, God rest her soul, she had insisted on calling me “Delmarie”. I don’t miss that one bit!

My aunt steps out of the tent, kneels by the cat and looks at the animal closely.

“She’s a girl!” Rhodie answers.“First cat I’ve seen since It Happened! Might be the only cat left in the world!”

I look back to where Uncle Henry is lying on the cot that he shares with Rhodie. I’m glad he’s asleep, sleeping off the effects of a quart of his friend Luther’s home brew.. He hates when people say “It Happened”.

“People used to have names for it when bad stuff happened!” he will rant. “Might only be the name of where it happened- “Little Big Horn”, “Wounded Knee”, or “Pearl Harbor”! Maybe even a date like 9/11 or January 6^th! “It Happened”, what kinda name is that for a day where half the people we ever knew got killed?”

Uncle Henry, with his long, grey hair, white beard, and tattoos covering his entire upper body. He has a set of dentures, but only puts them in when he eats. Usually, the dentures stay in an old coffee can in the tent. When he is ranting, he’s quite a sight!

I get up from my chair. Aunt Rhodie is back in the tent and I hug her. She’s a short, plump lady with straight blonde hair that is rapidly turning grey.

“I know this don’t make no sense, but I’m gonna follow this cat, just to have something to do,” I tell her.

“You be careful and have fun,” she says and she hugs me back.

I follow the cat as she wanders through the camp. There are probably three dozen tents here. The cat weaves back and forth throughout the camp. It looks like she is headed toward the edge of the camp and in the direction of the Other Side.

The Other Side. We all speak of it in hushed voices. All that I can tell you is that we are all forbidden to go over there. There’s a long field, probably the length of several football fields, and a wall between the Other Side and our camp. I’ve heard rumors about what is over there, but I don’t think anybody really knows.

I follow the black cat to the last tent on the edge of the camp. It’s where Luther lives with his woman, Sarah. Luther has a fire built in front of his tent. He is sitting on a stool with a large stock pot in front of him. He is putting ingredients into the pot. If I know Luther, he’s probably making a batch of home brew. I hear a voice coming from inside the tent.

“Ooooh, a kitty cat!” Sarah says. She walks out of the tent. She’s tall and slender with red hair that comes down to her waist. She is wearing a tank top, cutoff shorts, and is going barefoot. Even though it is late fall, cold weather doesn’t come until what was once March since It Happened.

The cat responds with a “Mew!”

The cat pads over to Sarah and walks around her, rubbing against her long, tanned legs and purring loudly.

“Kind of far from home, ain’t ya?” asks Luther. His voice is gravelly. He is short, fat, and bald. I’m guessing that he Luther is twice as old as Sarah. I’m amused by the contrast in their appearances. Opposites really do attract.

“Just following the cat,” I say.

“Be careful that he don’t lead ya to the Other Side, m’boy,” Luther says. He stops putting his recipe together long enough to wag a finger at me.

My curiosity gets the best of me. I have to ask.

“What is exactly over there?” I ask. “Do you even know?”

“I can tell you this, Hoss Cat,” he says in his gravelly growl. He usually only calls grown men “Hoss Cat”, so that makes me feel good. “Them soldiers that come and bring us supplies every month are pretty close mouthed. They never bring us news from the city or whatever is left of the government. Never any advice on how to survive out here. One thing they will talk about: Don’t you never, ever go to the Other Side, no matter what! I don’t know nothin’ more than that and I don’t want to, bud!”

“Mew!”

The cat has stopped rubbing against Sarah’s legs and is walking my way. She stands by Luther and stares at the fire. Luther reaches over to pet the cat, but she pulls away and hisses at him.

“Dang feline don’t like me, does it?” Luther almost spits the words out. “I always did like dogs more!”

The cat is walking again. She’s walking slowly toward the Other Side. She starts across the field. The field is dirt, rocks, and weeds. It looks like nothing as ever grown here. I continue to follow her.

“Hey, Delmar! You better come back here, bud!” I hear Sarah hollering.

“Hey, don’t you go over there, boy! No good can come of it!” Luther bellows.

It’s almost like something has taken control of me. I follow the cat across the field. It’s getting dark now. All I am thinking is that I’m going to see what is on the Other Side. I wonder if I will ever see Uncle Henry and Aunt Rhodie again. I’m really not sure why I am even doing this.

It’s a long, slow walk, but we finally get to the wall. It’s a concrete wall with barbed wire strung along the top. The cat stops at a place in the wall where there’s a big hole. The hole is large enough for me to crawl through. The cat scampers through the hole in the wall. I walk up to the wall and, at the moment that I get there, she stciks her head back through the wall and looks at me.

“Mew!”

I remember when I was a little boy, sitting in church with my parents. The preacher was saying something about how a snake led Adam and Eve to sin and destruction. I wonder what a cat is about lead me to.