Cat Spat

They cranked open the bunker door and climbed the stone staircase. He slowed near the top out of habit, but there was no wooden trapdoor to nearly break open his skull anymore, just ashes scattered on the steps.

They blinked at the dawn light slowly creeping through the shattered windows on the east side. The west wall was completely gone. She sighed; that was where the fireplace used to crackle every night in the fall and winter.

It was a wonder the east wall survived at all, but there it was. His fingertips grazed the brick, and he couldn’t help beaming.

They tiptoed quietly around the splinters and glass and finally made their way out front. They stood on the sidewalk — or what was the sidewalk at one point in time. Now mounds of dirt and chunks of concrete littered the ground.

As the sun rose, they looked around their cul de sac, full of smoldering wreckage. Not a single other soul stood outside, save for a black cat licking its paw over by the Mickersons.

They turned back to look at the splintered remains they once called home.

He’d groaned when she brought up the bunker, but she crossed her arms firmly and three years later, it was done.

She didn’t have to say it. She knew he knew she didn’t have to say it. So the unsaid I told you so floated around them and settled at their feet like the dust and dirt and shrapnel around them.

“I’ll go put on breakfast,” he grumbled. She smiled.

***

Breakfast was (and would be for the foreseeable future) canned beans and powdered eggs, heated with one of the five camping stoves he’d stashed in the bunker.

Back in the bunker, they sat side by side, a camping pad below them, and clattered their spoons around their bean cans despite not feeling all that hungry, truth be told.

“Did you see Mr. Marbles?” she asked.

“Not a hair out of place, somehow. And he looked fat.”

“Maybe he ate Dirk and Katie.”

He threw her a sharp look, and then smirked. “Only the Mickersons would die by cat in a nuclear war.”

She spooned another bite of beans before casually continuing, “Their van was gone. Probably headed south with the rest of them.”

“Mm.”

“And they just left him there.”

“Mm.”

“He’s probably lonely.”

He sighed. “No, honey. We’re not taking in a damn cat.”

“But he could catch mice and … things. And keep watch,” she pressed, dropping all pretenses.

He snorted. “A guard cat?”

“Cats have claws,” she said defensively. She set down her beans and crossed her arms.

His voice softened. “Don’t you think we have enough to worry about at the moment?”

She looked around the cluttered bunker and sighed in defeat. “I can’t believe they just left him there,” she repeated quietly, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.

He looked at her, all folded in on herself, and suddenly stood. She watched curiously as he grabbed the stepladder and set it up in front of the pantry shelf. He rummaged around the food on top. Before she could ask what he was looking for, he tossed her a small can.

Fancy Feast. Tuna.

“We don’t have many, so I hope you’re right about the mice,” he warned, returning to his seat next to her.

She gaped at him. “When did you—”

“There’s a few bags of dog food back there, too, should the guard cat need an apprentice.” He smiled knowingly.

She leaned over and pressed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you,” she murmured, clutching the cat food against her chest.

***

Wanting the cat was easy. Getting the cat was another question.

She settled with simply opening that can and setting it on the rubble outside their house, hoping Mr. Marbles would wander over eventually. She’d keep an eye on it as they worked.

And work they did.

He explored the property, and then the neighborhood, gun in hand. He didn’t go into any of the houses yet, and for that she was grateful; she didn’t want to extinguish that small flame of hope inside her chest, not yet. Dirk and Katie Mickerson, three houses to their left, would not be missed, but she quite liked the Greys next door, and the Parleys at the mouth of the cul de sac had two small, kind children. She swallowed hard at the blown up cars left in their driveway, and quickly turned back to her task at hand.

For that whole morning, she swept. Their beautiful wooden floors might be demolished, and the bathroom tiles cracked and jagged, but by God would there be a clean ground to walk on when she was through. She swept all the wood and glass and ash into one corner, and filled the holes with packed mud, and by noon the areas that were once the kitchen and living room were looking rather good, she thought smugly. There was no furniture, of course; they had tossed most of it out and stored the rest in the bunker well before the first bomb hit, hoping to reduce the fire damage. The wooden floors couldn’t be helped, though.

Sunlight streamed into the roofless house. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and peered around, looking for him, and froze when her eyes landed on the crushed sidewalk outside her house.

A damn raccoon. Eating her cat’s food.

“Hey. Hey!” she yelled, rushing forward and brandishing the broom. The raccoon took one look at her and scampered off, but the damage was done; when she reached the can, it was empty.

She burst into tears.

“What? What happened?” shouted a panicked voice behind her.

He ran over from the nearby trees and sighed at the sight before him: his wife holding a broom in one, an empty cat food can in the other, and tears streaming down her face.

“Y-you went to all that t-trouble of g-getting the food and I ruined it, I ruined it!” she blubbered. “I wasn’t p-paying attention, I’m sorry, that fucking raccoon stole Mr. Marbles’ lunch!”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed, and then stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. “Mr. Marbles could do with missing a meal or two, don’t you think?”

She sniffed against his shoulder and said in a small voice, “I just wanted the first day to go well.”

“It’s the apocalypse, honey,” he said gently. “I think us being alive is going as well as it could.”

***

By the evening, the house was looking, by all accounts, alright. The dirt floor was uneven and not all that attractive, but it was clear of glass and splinters. They had stacked bricks, glued together with mud, in a rough square perimeter. There was only enough loose ones for the walls to be three feet high (besides that strong east wall), but it was enough to make them feel enclosed. He had scouted the woods behind them and though most of the trees had burned down, he had still spotted a few small animals here and there. Perhaps bigger game would eventually stroll through, when nature restored itself.

He had brought two plastic chairs up from the bunker and placed them in front of the west wall, where the fireplace had been. In between the chairs was a small foldable table with the camping stove on top, heating tonight’s — and every night’s for the foreseeable future — dinner: canned soup. And sitting there together, listening to the gas stove blow, with a canopy of stars above their heads — why, it was almost like a night from Before.

“Shit. I forgot the spoons,” he said, turning off the stove.

“On it.” She hurried down into the bunker and snatched the spoons on the kitchen shelf, her stomach rumbling, before taking the stairs two at a time back up.

When she returned, he was staring at her empty seat — which wasn’t empty after all, it turned out.

There sat Mr. Marbles, flicking his tail and looking expectantly at the cans of soup.