Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Travels in a world of zombie cats and mutant dogs

On our walk this morning we came to the intersection of Weird and Scary. On a quiet, shady, tree-lined street there is a rundown, decrepit house with a carpet of brown grass in the yard and bent curtain rods in the window that we pass on most of our morning walks. Usually a dog screams at us from the back yard as we pass and a suspicious old lady pulls back a curtain to peer at us, presumably to ensure my dogs don't pee on her already dead lawn.

This morning as we approached the house a black cat was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking our path. He was skin and bones, his fur was missing in places and his eyes were glazed. He just stood there as we approached, staring at us. Apollo and Icon were fooled, they thought he was just a normal cat! They didn't feel the evil emanating from him that Foster and I felt. After a significant amount of pulling and butt smacking, Foster and I finally convinced Apollo and Icon that chasing this cat was NOT a good idea. We started to back up slowly. I didn't think the cat would be able to walk, let alone chase us in his dazed and ragged state, but zombie cats might have special teleportation powers so I didn't want to take my eyes off of him. After backing away for only a few steps a black streak rushed towards us followed by high pitched barking. The streak stopped for just long enough for me to see it was a long legged chihuahua with teeth as big and white as a shark. While zombie cats just MIGHT have teleportation powers it quickly became clear to me that mutant chihuahuas DO. He rushed us from the front, the side and from behind in quick succession, coming close to us, but always out of reach. We scrambled back up the driveway of the house, towards the fence. Suddenly a bass bark accompanied the soprano of the chihuahua and the head of a big, hairy beast - that was obviously part lion - crashed between two boards of the fence. His teeth snapped shut inches from Icon's tail. Once again, we backed away, this time not slowly! Behind us the chihuahua lunged and yipped just out of reach, but trying to keep us in range of the lion's jaws. When we reached the sidewalk again the lion-dog pushed himself between the two fence boards and leaped towards us. Luckily his attack was abruptly halted by a chain around his neck. He rebounded back and hit the fence. Not daunted in the least, he started rushing and leaping at us again. Totally forgetting about the zombie cat in our way, we ran down the sidewalk. The cat wasn't there. My theory about zombie cat teleportation powers proved true as he was now staring at us from the middle of the street, waiting for the next car to come by so he can run them off the road and drink their blood.

Hearts beating rapidly, we quickly turned the corner to leave the intersection of Weird and Scary behind us. We passed a house where a couple was on the front lawn with their cute little 12 week old yellow lab puppy. The puppy ran up to Apollo and gave him a kiss. Everything was suddenly right in my world.

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