Chapter 3My Guardians are Three Disabled Cats

I’d never seen a cat so white. If you put him in a snowdrift, the snow would look dirty by comparison.

I named him Ghost.

Ghost opened his eyes on day one. He was walking by day two. By day three, he’d figured out how to open the apartment door, sneak downstairs, and chew through the insulated delivery box to drink all the fresh milk meant for the entire building.

Leo and Luna were content with raw meat. But Ghost? Ghost would only eat things that were alive.

He single-handedly drove the neighborhood’s escaped-hamster population to extinction. He’d leap into the nearby creek and steal hooked fish right off the line, leaving furious fishermen with nothing. He even got into the neighbor’s backyard and snatched their prize-winning pet rabbit.

My role in our little family leveled up again. I went from Chief Financial Officer to Chief of Damage Control. On top of working myself to the bone, I spent my free time making humiliating, bowing apologies to my neighbors.

At twenty-three, fresh out of college, I was Anna, full of ambition, convinced I was going to make something of myself.

Two years later, I was Anna, the woman at the bottom of the food chain, so beaten down I felt like I should apologize to the rats in the sewer for taking up space.

Looking back, it was a hard road. But the four of us, we had each other. We’d made it through the worst of it.

And now, the apocalypse was coming.

Zombies. Fast, strong, and numerous. One bite and you were either dead or one of them.

It didn’t matter if my cats had been eating chickens and rabbits their whole lives. Even if I’d been feeding them timberwolves, they couldn’t stop a horde of zombies.

I watched the clock on the wall. Less than twenty-three hours to go.

There was no way I was getting rid of my cats. But with the little money I had, I couldn’t afford a trained guard dog, let alone tame a wild animal.

What was I supposed to do? Just wait to die?

After weighing my options, I clenched my jaw. Fine.

I’d just have to prepare. I didn’t have to fight the zombies head-on. If I had enough food and water, I could just… hide. Barricade myself in this apartment and wait it out.

Survive for as long as I could. Every extra day was a win.

With a new sense of purpose, I joined the frantic mobs looting the city. While everyone else was fighting over attack dogs and exotic animals, I slipped into the back of a grocery store. I made trip after trip with my beat-up 2008 Honda Civic, hauling hundreds of pounds of rice, flour, and canned goods. I cleared shelves of ramen, mac and cheese, and Spam. I filled half my living room with bottled water alone.

Through all this chaos, my three cats didn’t stir. They just slept. Lately, it seemed like sleeping was all they ever did.

My tiny apartment was now a fortress of non-perishables. I was drenched in sweat, my body screaming with exhaustion. But I wasn’t done. I went to a hardware store and bought steel plates and bolts, reinforcing my door and windows. It wouldn’t stop a horde, but it might buy me some time.

Finally finished, I collapsed on the floor, ready to pass out.

Suddenly, I heard a key turning in my lock.

My landlord burst in, flanked by a group of menacing-looking men.

“Leave the supplies. Get out,” he said, not even looking at me. “I’m terminating your lease.”