Utterly Mad

     Where? It was that question that brought her heat addled mind to brief lucidity. “Where…” Kathrine was at the farm, but the farm was… In danger. But how to get back? An image of Medeina strapped into the passenger seat, controlling the train via the robotic control unit came to her. An interesting thought, if it had actually happened. It would have eased her a little, if not for her predicament. “What will they tell Kathrine?” She thought, “Where did mistress go?” Catnip staggered suddenly, couldn’t recover, and fell face first into a high drift of sunlit sand under the searing evening sky. “What will become of me?” She thought, before the dimness that had been lingering at the edge of her vision since the afternoon, closed in on her waking mind and snuffed it out.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
     She’s being dragged. Strong hands grip her under the arms and drag her away from some kind of screaming thing. It looks like sand, but for the patches of black that breach and sink into the crust of its gritty surface. It’s like a tiny man thing, like one of the apes in the biology books Catnip had at home. One of them suddenly leaps at her, scrabbles for her tail, trying to bite it. There’s a loud report, some large gun, a shotgun of some kind, and the little creature explodes in a shower of sand and black gobbits. The ooze sinks into the ground and soon a new creature is forming and coming at them again. “Get the truck started goddamnit! For fuck sakes!” The person, it must be a man, shouts. “Just leave it! Leave it Mark!” Comes the reply, it sounds like a woman. The first man shouts back, another thundering blast punctuating his words, “Like fuck I will! Fuckin’ meaningless goddamn run, I’ll be fucked if we don’t get something off this fucking disaster! Start the fucking truck you cunt, or I swear to fuckin’ god I’ll put your sorry ass back on the slavers block so fucking fast you won’t even know you’re back in a fuckin’ collar before I’m long gone!” The man swears a lot, Catnip wants to tell him to stop. He’ll upset Kathrine, He’ll…

    Night has fallen, and she’s no longer being dragged. Someone has thrown a sheet over her, and she has the sensation of movement. The kind of movement that only being in a vehicle can emulate. Gentle hands are trying to give her water, but the water cramps hit her right away. The pain is like having a cold dagger sunk and twisted into her guts and she keels over, the world lights up in a menagerie of colored spots and stars and the blackness edges back in on her vision. The hands take her by the head again, and slowly the pain passes. “Easy girl, easy.” It’s the woman’s voice again, “Drink it slow. How long have you been out here girly? What’s your name? Where you from?” More water is poured into her mouth, and she struggles with an urge to snatch the bottle and guzzle down the rest of the water. The fluid is like nectar after two days under the blazing sun. She wants to answer the questions, but her throat is cracked and parched. All that comes out is a weak croak. The woman is a mutant like Catnip. Just, like Catnip. Her fur is a light grey, her ears are more rounded, and her tail is shorter. She’s taller too, but that isn’t hard, Catnip is shorter than most normal people. “Don’t give her all the water L, we gotta make it to Prescott on what we’ve got left.” Catnip tries to see who this other, more masculine, voice is coming from but her sight fades. She gets the impression of something ugly and scarred, and then knows no more.