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The tabby siblings ran as fast as they could on all four legs. Neither dared to glance back at the wild, frothy, red-eyed monsters, ready to tear them apart.

Despite growing up stronger than her and often being faster than her whenever they raced each other outdoors, Brother struggled to keep up with Sister, However, neither of them were back home in the safety of their human’s suburban house. Neither of them had the energy or strength they once possessed after a couple of days without the dry or wet foods they had become accustomed to eating daily. They didn’t even know where their humans have disappeared to, let alone what had caused every wild animal—and sometimes people—to transform into murderous creatures with severely bloodshot eyes.

So, Brother did not slow his strides. He kept up with Sister as the two tabbies ignored their tired limbs and sore muscles. They would be killed and eaten at any moment. All they could comprehend was the instinct to escape down the empty human streets.

Growling and barking noises were close on their tails. Sister and Brother weaved in a panic between rotting bodies and under abandoned cars. A red-eyed monster that once was a friendly golden retriever snapped its yellow teeth at the pair. A possessed Doberman tried swiping a bloody paw at Brother’s hind legs. It succeeded. Brother tumbled to the ground. Sister turned in alarm, hissing in both fear and defiance. The pack of frothing beasts surrounded them. It should’ve been the end for the tabby cats.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Thunder echoed in the air. Four of the red-eyed monsters suddenly collapsed in front of the startled felines. It was a nearby human, wielding a long stick that smoked at the end, the noise of which caused the pack of wild monsters to turn in its direction. They ignored the cats and descended towards the human, who in turn killed five more of the monsters, only to suddenly struggle against the last surviving one. The human held its thunder stick against the barking and growling canine who used to be a Doberman, shouting and cursing in fright as he struggled to grab something from his belt.

Sister hissed at Brother that they needed to run away, now that the last red-eyed monster was distracted. However, Brother did not listen to his wiser sibling. He saw the human in trouble. He couldn’t understand why, but his instincts screamed at him to do something other than run. He jumped onto all four paws and sprinted at the possessed dog, swiping his extended clause at the back of the monster’s legs. Brother vaguely heard Sister snarling at his stupidity.

Everything happened so fast. First, it howled in pain, then growled distractedly at the little annoyance. It was enough for the human to grasp his pocketed knife and drive it into the head of the creature. It whimpered bloodily and then became silent.

The human tossed the dead Doberman off of him, staggering to his feet and gripping the thunder stick with both gloved hands. His hoodie and face mask had partially fallen off, his jaw slack at just how close he’d come to being infected, if not for the tabby cat.

The human stared down in disbelief at Brother, then at Sister, who hissed at him while protectively posturing itself beside her feline sibling. It took a couple of seconds though for her to calm down, realizing that the man wasn’t a monster, he didn’t have red eyes but bright blue instead. Blue and worried.

The human something that neither of the cats understood. However, they did comprehend the kneeling gesture and outreached hand of the man, who then imitated a trilling noise behind his readjusted face mask. Brother and Sister hesitated, with Sister hissing defensively at the masked man. He wasn’t one of their humans. He was a stranger. Yet this stranger had struck down the monsters that were chasing them earlier.

Their ears perked high at a distant noise down the street. It was a scream that came from a red-eyed human, its close, bloody, and black all over as it stumbled fast towards them. The masked human didn’t wait.

He aimed his thunder stick and fired, causing the bipedal monster to fall backwards dead, but making Brother and Sister flinch in terror. The masked human didn’t hesitate next. He. Slung his stick around his back and scooped up the tabby cats in his arms, gripping them as they struggled and hissed while he bolted in the other direction.

Howls and growls carried downwind. More were coming.

Sister tried to scratch at the human, but Brother did less so. Her resistance waned though when she felt a pair of gloved fingers pinch behind her neck, making the female cat limp. She hissed though at the sudden movements that came from being carried swiftly around a street corner and towards what appeared to be a pack of one of those human homes that moved on wheels. Only these were changed to have armoring and the people that surrounded them carried thunder sticks, instead of luggage or fishing poles. The human that carried the cats shouted something to his fellows. They argued with him for a little while but dismissed him as they kept firing their weapons at other bloodthirsty monsters, some of them once animals and others once human.

Brother and Sister suddenly found themselves inside one of these moving homes, which was filled to the brim with boxes and tin cans, plus strange human tools. They were dropped onto the floor, falling feet first. While Brother explored what appeared to be a very small bedroom in the back, Sister searched frantically for an exit. She hissed repeatedly at the human, who quickly went to the front of the strange vehicle, making it mechanically purr to life. Something caused the floor to shift underneath the terrified cats.

It moved, fast. It swerved and turned and sped up before finally slowing down.

Brother and Sister clung for dear life to the floor, letting go only when the moving home came to a sudden halt. The mechanical purring did as well. As Sister opened an eye and rubbed her chin against Brother’s forehead, she saw it had grown dark outside. Relieved, Sister turned back and chastised Brother for letting them be taken by the human. Brother in return argued back that the human had saved them from the monsters and was clearly not one of them. He didn’t foam at the mouth or have bloodshot red eyes.

Besides, they were starving and maybe the human would feed them like their old one used to do before disappearing. Sister merely chuffed at her foolish sibling.

Sure enough, the human ventured into a section of the moving home and started cooking and cutting like their previous human used to do. He grabbed a small can of something like dry food, plus that thing that smelled like meat but came out of a square can in a square shape. He made them into even tinier slices and squares, mixing them with something else.

Spices and smells danced across the tabby cat’s noses as they cautiously watched from on the floor. They waited and waited. Sister wondered if the human had forgotten about them when suddenly, he lowered a paper bowl onto the floor in front of her and Brother, who sniffed at its contents and ate with unfound excitement.

Brother told his sibling to try it. It wasn’t wet or dry food, but it tasted great! Sister tried to remain skeptical, only for her stomach to easily begin chewing on the food when the human next placed a bowl in front of her. She had never been so hungry before. Even the taste itself was something heavenly, like catnip. Between bites, Sister conceded to Brother that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay for a while.

***

Alex Miller smiled warmly at the cats, watching them fill their bellies, and already started making a second course of wet rice and diced spam for the doubtlessly starving critters. Although neither of the tabbies understood him, he muttered something about needing to find abandoned pet stores the next time he and his friends ventured into the city. Plus, an emergency litter box and some cat beds for good measure.

“What’re you doing, Alex?” he muttered, then shrugged it off.

Truth be told, the human didn’t know why he rescued the two tabby cats. Maybe he was just lonely, despite being part of a nomadic survivalist community driving across the Midwest while scavenging for food and supplies. Maybe Alex just saw a pair of cats getting chased by a pack of mad dogs, and he simply wanted to make sure pets like them didn’t go extinct. Maybe he was even astonished that one of the cats didn’t hesitate to distract that infected Doberman that had caught him by surprise, providing him with the opening to put the dangerous animal down. The one male cat effectively saved his life back there.

So much had changed. Months ago, a supercharged rabies virus sprung up out of nowhere and started infecting anything it came into contact with through bites, transforming them into violent psychopaths with very little intelligence. At first, they were mainly a problem for the more rural areas of the country, hordes of rabid animals and the occasional humans roaming aimlessly, some cities carrying on with life as smaller communities and towns became deserted over time. It wasn’t until the President’s own pet dog bit him on national television that the rest of the country fell into chaos.

Rumors persisted that the acting president fled to his mountain bunker in the Rockies, or that states like Hawaii or Washington had declared independence. A crazy gun enthusiast on the radio claimed that he’d been listening to foreign radio transmissions; China had fallen to civil war, the British Isles sunk any ferries or boats floating near their shores, and Brazil was actively bombing the Amazon while millions were fleeting by sea to Africa. Alex didn’t know what was really going on in the world.

All he knew was that the two tabby cats he’d adopted/kidnapped saved his life earlier. With winter on its way and nobody knowing if the cold weather would kill off the infected—animal or human—the former house cats would certainly freeze to death.

“Screw it.” Alex made a decision.

He didn’t care if adopting them would mean having two more smaller mouths to feed. He didn’t care if winter was coming and that required saving as much canned food and supplies as possible on his rickety old RV. He would manage.

Besides, the human told himself, it was clear that the two cats were strays and once likely had an owner. He couldn’t even imagine what they had gone through since the outbreak started. If they weren’t evacuated to a government safe zone, if they still existed, then they were either dead or infected themselves.

As soon as the two orange tabbies finished devouring their second helping of makeshift food, Alex got on the radio and spoke with his fellow friends, who’d opted to stay in their mobile homes as bad weather was coming. His fellow survivalists either laughed at him or demanded to know why he’d do something as foolish as adopt stray cats, even if they were uninfected. One sarcastic voice in particular on the radio, belonging to a self-centered burly man named Mack, suggested that it was smart of the human to ‘gather emergency food’ for winter.

Laughter filled the radio. To make a long story short, Alex bluntly replied to Mack with his own suggestion, which involved a sharp knife and severed genitals. Laughter filled the radio again, only to then be silenced by a deeper voice. It was the RV caravan’s de facto leader, a no nonsense but fair man with a beard named Joseph.

“Alex, you sure you wanna to keep them?” Joseph asked on the radio.

Doubt crept in. Alex stayed firm, however, in his decision.

“Yes, I’m sure, Joseph.”

“They’ll be your responsibilities, kiddo. Don’t expect us to feed ‘em for you.”

“I know,” he replied. “My cats, my food share. I got it.”

The leader of the RV caravan acknowledged his reply with a loud scoff, then immediately steered the discussion towards figuring out which abandoned shopping they would scavenge through the next day. Meanwhile, with full bellies and tired meows, the tabby siblings climbed onto a seat in the kitchenette’s opposite table booth, snuggling atop the cushions and closing their eyes.

Nearby, after wishing his friends good night and turning off the radio, Alex decided to go to bed minutes later. He made a mental note to do two things the following morning: give the siblings a bath, even if they hated it, and then decide on some names.