The Book of Riley a Zombie Tale Box Set Read online

  “You don’t know that she could be a circus bear! Maybe she doesn’t know how to get food on her own.”

  “Do you think we’re going to be able to get enough for her? Mabel, I love them both as well, but they’re not ours to keep.”

  “What are you going to do Harold, read every name in the white pages until she lets you know that’s the right one?”

  “I’d... I’d never even thought of that. That’s a great idea.”

  Mabel threw her hands up in the air and walked out.

  “Lucky for you girl, the Maine phone book isn’t all that big. We’re going to take a break though, my throat is a little hoarse and you look tired. Let me get you a cookie or something and then you need to get some sleep.” He scratched behind my ears before he got up.

  I agreed with Harold, my eyes were indeed getting heavy but I was happy he knew my name. The excitement of the day had begun to wear off, and I was more tired now than I’d been in a long while. That didn’t mean I was going to fall asleep before he came back with the promised cookie though. I wished I’d just gone to sleep so that I would not have to hear the pain in Mabel’s voice as she talked to her husband in the kitchen.

  “They belong here now,” she said in hushed tones.

  “Someone is missing that dog something fierce Mabel. And the bear is not some circus animal; that is a wild animal. I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out why she just hasn’t mauled us to death and taken our food. I don’t know. My guess is it has something to do with Riley. That’s a special dog, and she has a powerful influence on those around her.”

  “She has to stay here, Harold. If she was so important to someone, why did they leave her behind?” she nearly shrieked.

  “You of all people know how things are now, Mabel. They must have got split up during an attack, and with those wounds, they may have thought she was dead.”

  “And she would be if not for us!”

  “Just because we helped her, Mabel, doesn’t mean we own her.”

  “If she goes out there she’ll die Harold!” With that Mabel left the room.

  “I think I’m in the doghouse Riley.” He watched her go.

  I’d heard about two-legger doghouses but I’d yet to see one. I hoped he would show me his.

  I ate the cookie and dozed off, it was a long and restful sleep. When I awoke Harold was sitting on the couch looking over at me.

  “You ready Riley?” I got the feeling he hadn’t moved. “Good thing Maine isn’t too big,” he said as he reached into a drawer and pulled out a book. “This has all the names of the people in Maine, well at least the ones with phones. Do you know your owner’s name?”

  “Of course I do,” I barked. “And she doesn’t own me, we’re a pack.”

  “Sorry, sorry not own, the name of the person you live with,” he clarified when he saw he’d upset me.

  I didn’t know how this was going to work, Jess wasn’t from here, neither was Justin or Justin’s sire. What had Alex said? Michael was heading to his pack-mate’s home. They would have the same last name of Talbot. I did not know their first names though. Would it be enough? We started the long process of going through the letters. ThornGrip had just awakened for dinner in time to hear our success at finding what Harold called the familial name, however, this joy was short-lived when he told me there were a hundred Talbots in the state. I don’t know how many that is, but by Harold’s face I thought it was more than seven.

  “So how about a first name?” Harold was looking at me.

  My head sagged.

  “If that gesture means the same in dog as it does in human I’m thinking you don’t know it. It’s alright girl, you tried. We’ll think of something different. In the meantime, I better get something for Tiny over here before she gets upset.”

  “I’ll show him upset.” ThornGrip pulled her lips back to expose her wicked teeth.”

  Harold left the room in a hurry.

  “What are you going to do now?” ThornGrip asked.

  “I don’t know, nothing’s changed other than he knows my name and the last name of the family where my Jess has gone. I’m no closer to knowing where they went.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “No, but I bet you do.”

  “You’re starting to sound like the cat.”

  “Take that back.”

  I did, and quickly, one did not poke a bear lightly.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this bear, but we are down to five boxes of cereal and I’m not so sure I want to be the one that tells you when the fifth is gone.”

  ThornGrip deftly grabbed the box from Harold’s hand.

  “I am never going to get used to this,” Harold said, looking at his paw, probably to make sure all his fingers were still there. “Mabel, I am going to have to make a supply run soon or our rather large friend is going to become disgruntled with her current living arrangements. Should I make a list?” he asked.

  I almost rolled off the couch when he pulled out a small piece of paper and grabbed the tool that made the letters. I barked wildly, Mabel came running in.

  “What are you doing to her?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I was getting ready to write a list of things we need.”

  “What’s going on Riley?” ThornGrip was getting up.

  “On a piece of paper. On a piece of paper!” I shouted excitedly.

  “You’re making no sense which makes you the one that sounds like a cat.”

  “Sorry, sorry. The male two-legger we were traveling with had the location in a small piece of paper just like Harold has.”

  “Riley, the zombies ate him.”

  “They don’t eat the fake skins.”

  “Yes but they chew through them.”

  “It’s a chance I have to take.”

  “The human letters make no sense to you.”

  “No not to me, but to him they do.”

  “Oh. When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow, when the burning disc first comes out.”

  “Do you think they will give me all the cereal before we leave?”

  “I cannot imagine anyone not giving you exactly what you want, ThornGrip.”

  “This is true.”

  Chapter Two

  “What has happened to my sister?” Zach wailed.

  Ron Talbot had blown a hole the size of a fist through the zombie woman’s back but the damage was done. Jess had been bitten several times, and was beginning to choke on her own blood as her lungs filled with the fluid.

  “Has the baby been bitten?” Ron shouted to his sister Lyn as he kept his gun trained on the non-moving zombie.

  Jess struggled to lean over, she stroked the side of her brother’s face and whispered something softly in his ear.

  Lyn skirted around the bed and quickly scooped the baby up and away from his sister who fell back on to the bed. After a brief but thorough check she told her brother the blood was not the baby’s.

  “Get him out of here.” Ron flipped the zombie over with the barrel of his gun. Jess’s eyes were large as she looked at Ron, her chest rapidly heaving as she fought to breathe in precious oxygen. “I’m so sorry,” he told her.

  Patches jumped on Jess’s stomach and hissed at Ron as he approached.

  Ben-Ben was next to the girl, looking from her wounds to her face. “Is she dying Patches?” he asked.

  “She will,” the cat told him.

  “That can’t be,” he said, licking the girl’s arm.

  Ron reached out to move Patches away and do what needed to be done before she joined the ranks of the undead. Patches swatted at him, claws extended.

  “I understand girl, I do, but it’s too late for her. I’ll be helping her not to suffer any more.”

  Patches hissed. A coughing fit tore through Jess, racking her entire body. Globules of blood were forcibly expelled from her mouth and into the air to land heavily on her chest. Her eyes were wide in terror and s
hock.

  Ben-Ben moved up and licked the side of her face, whining softly as he did so. “I love you,” he told her before he jumped off the bed and walked out of the room, tail tucked behind and underneath him.

  “Where are you going?” Patches caterwauled.

  Ben-Ben turned in the doorway. “The sickness is moving through her quickly, she is now more one of them than she is the two-legger we knew.”

  “What? How can you tell?”

  “I can smell death.”

  Patches looked to Jess’s face, which had taken on a serene quality as if the girl had passed over and been reunited with those she loved. Patches knew enough to realize that once those eyes opened back up, there would be no humanity in them whatsoever, and Patches herself would be close enough to become the zombie’s next meal.

  “You were a brave human and I will miss you, but I am no one’s meal.” Patches slowly moved off Jess’s stomach. She hissed once at Ron then leapt off the bed and joined Ben-Ben.

  Ron closed the door, and a few moments later another loud shot tore through the house.

  The next day the family stood around the small grave site. Lyn was holding an inconsolable Zach. Ben-Ben circled the woman’s feet hoping that he could help comfort the infant. Patches had climbed a tree and was watching the proceedings from a safe distance. Later that day Patches had walked into the room where Lyn was holding the baby; it seemed that neither was in a rush to let the other go.

  “How are you doing, baby-that-should-not-talk?”

  “My head and my stomach hurt from crying so much. But it is the pain in my heart that is the worst. I miss my sister, I miss my parents, I miss my brother.”

  Patches’ ears perked up at the obvious slight. “And what of the dog?”

  “Riley? I miss her but in a different way. She’s still alive.”

  Patches was taken aback. “That’s impossible. I watched her die.”

  “My sister said differently right before she died. I need her back here. We need her back here. We’ve suffered enough already.”

  “We don’t need her here.” She almost added that they were doing fine, but that wasn’t the truth, not by a long shot.

  “Riley’s alive?” Ben-Ben’s head was tilted, he was in the doorway.

  “Oh no, now the village idiot knows. I’ll never hear the end of it,” Patches lamented.

  “Where is she?” Ben-Ben’s tongue was lolling out as he did three three-sixties in an attempt to locate his friend. “I don’t see her and now my stomach doesn’t feel so good,” he said as he stumbled into the wall.

  “She’s not here.” Zach smiled slightly.

  For once Patches was happy for the goofiness of the dog.

  “Where then? Is she getting some bacon?” Ben-Ben had finally pulled away from the wall.

  “I don’t know for sure but I think where we left her would be the best place to look.”

  “That is a long and dangerous trip, baby. How can you be sure she’s alive?”

  “Jess told me before she died.”

  “I loved that human like no other, but she was in pain and shock and on the verge of dying, can you trust anything she may have told you?”

  Zach’s eyebrows furrowed in anger. “I expected resistance from you. Ben-Ben, can you help Riley find her way home?”

  Patches scoffed. “Ben-Ben? Really? That dog couldn’t find his own tail.”

  “It’s right here.” Ben-Ben began twisting around again. “There it is.” He was moving faster. “There it is again.” One more time around. “There it is again!”

  “Splendid,” Patches told him.

  “Ben-Ben, can you find the way back to where Riley was?” Zach ignored Patches.

  “YES!” he answered quickly. “Just tell me where she is again.”

  “Oh great cats of all cats, please help me.” Patches touched her paw to her forehead in a very human gesture. “I will help Ben-Ben look for Riley, although we both know it will be I who will be doing all the finding while Ben-Ben runs around in circles looking for hidden stores of bacon.”

  “People hide bacon?” Ben-Ben thought on this for a minute. “I could see why they would do this.” He thought on it some more. “No... no, I can’t. Why wouldn’t they just eat it?”

  “Can I leave him here?” Patches asked Zach.

  “You need him more than you will admit,” Zach replied, sage for his years.

  “Only because he runs slower and the zombies will get to him first.”

  “Zombies?” Ben-Ben looked around, while Zach’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  “That... that was rude of me,” Patches said. “We will leave tomorrow at first light.” She strode out of the room.

  “Where are we going again?” Ben-Ben asked Zach.

  The sun had just peaked up over a small hill in the distance, brilliant ranges of red burst into a golden halo as Ron’s wife Nancy stepped outside to take her guard duty shift. Patches silently slid by, the woman none the wiser for the cat’s passing. Ben-Ben nearly sent her sprawling as he ran into Nancy’s right leg, knocking it out from under her. If she hadn’t grabbed the doorframe, she would have unceremoniously ended up on her buttocks. “Don’t let me get in your way Ben-Ben!” Nancy shouted out at the dog. “Hey, where are you going?” she asked as the dog and the cat ran down the steps. The animals ran underneath the very same gap in the fencing that the zombie that had killed Jess had used to get in.

  “Do you know what we’re doing?” Ben-Ben asked after they’d been walking for a while. “I’m really kind of hungry. I should have eaten more before we left. Whoa, was that a mouse? Do you think we’ll find a bacon store? I sure could go for some water.”

  “Are you going to shut up any time soon?” Patches had turned and was looking at the dog.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “That’s what I figured.” Patches resumed walking.

  “Do you remember that one time I found floor fries in the Alphas’ wheeler? Or how about that time I tore the trash open and there was that smelly meat? Oh that was so delicious.”

  “If I remember correctly you had a stomachache for almost a week.”

  “I don’t know what a week is but eating it was great.”

  “You kept vomiting all over the floor. I thought the female human was going to send you back to the pound.”

  “NO!” Ben-Ben had stopped walking, his ears were pulled back and his eyes wide. “No, no, no, I won’t go back!”

  “No one is sending you back to the pound, dumb-dumb, I’m telling you that the alpha female was so upset she wanted to.”

  “NO! NO! I won’t go back! It’s horrible there,” he said much more quietly.

  “Ok, forget I brought it up.”

  “I’ll try but it won’t be easy.”

  “Bacon.”

  “Oooh bacon. I love the deliciousness, the chewiness mixed with the crunch of bacon-y goodness.”

  Patches smiled. ‘Dogs are so stupid,’ she thought.

  Ben-Ben had chattered incessantly for most of the morning and into the afternoon. As the sun began to wane, so did his voice. “Are we going back now?” Ben-Ben was looking to the horizon and the setting sun.

  “No, but we’re going to have to find a safe place to sleep for the night.”

  “We had a safe place to sleep the night,” Ben-Ben told her.

  “We’re going to find Riley, remember?”

  “I kind of wish she was here now.”

  “If only so she could make you talk less, then so do I.” They walked a little further, the light now beginning to diminish. “This will do.” Patches had left the road and was now moving up the overgrown driveway to a house, the front door standing askew within the frame.

  “In... in there? But it’s dark inside.”

  “That’s good, I’ll be able to see them before they can see me.”

  “Exactly who will you be seeing first before they can see you?”

  “Come on Ben-Ben, I need to sleep and
so do you. Then we can look for food. I bet there’s something in there we can eat.”

  That was all the persuasion the little dog needed. He passed the cat by and gingerly went up the steps and through the door without so much as looking in either direction.

  “The best he can offer me is an early detection system as he gets himself killed.” Patches followed him in. There was a smell of death in the house; it was old but it lingered in the shadows like a malignant growth.

  “Perhaps upstairs,” Patches told Ben-Ben, who had not moved from the center of the room. He seemed to sense the same thing she had. He followed her without saying a word.

  The first room they encountered had its door shut, the next was partially open. Patches cautiously peered inside. “It was a girl’s room,” she said.

  Ben-Ben pushed the door the rest of the way open with his nose. The pink shade of the walls looked more like the deep purple of severe bruising in the dying light. “Look at all the stuffed animals she has! Do you think they can still talk?”

  “Still talk? They never could.”

  “I remember Daniel talking to his.”

  “Probably giving the poor thing its last rites before he pulled its head off.”

  Ben-Ben gulped. “The bed looks comfortable, do you think they’ll mind? Sometimes the two-leggers get mad about me getting on their stuff.”

  “I don’t think these people will mind, and maybe if you hadn’t gone outside and stepped around in your own offal and then brought it inside and jumped up on her white couch, she wouldn’t have gotten so mad at you.”

  “Do you think that was why she was so upset?” Ben-Ben got a running start and jumped up onto the bed. “Made it!” he said proudly, looking back down at the cat. “You coming up?” he asked. Every time she moved to a side to jump up, he would move with her, looking down. “Are you? There’s plenty of room.”

  “I would if you’d get out of the way.”

  Ben-Ben tilted his head at her, in a ‘What are you talking about?’ pose. “I wish Jess were here,” Ben-Ben said after they settled down and got comfortable. Patches said nothing, though she agreed. She was tired and did not wish to start a conversation where the small dog would quickly get around to talking about bacon and Santa. Ben-Ben had rolled onto his back, his four paws sticking straight up, snores making his lips puff out with each breath.