Bitch: Puncture (book 2)

“Well since we are traveling together, I think we talk for a bit,” she said conversationally as she motored along in the slow lane.

Apoc and I walked to the front. His tail hung low and his steps a whisper behind me. I could feel his fear at another vehicle.

She glanced back from the drivers seat, and her smile crooked halfway. “Ah good listeners. That’s the great thing about dogs, great listeners. The name’s Arlene. I’m more of a cat person myself. Mistress Cleo is likely somewhere in the back pulling her fur out in clumps at the thought of have you two in her home. So you will be nice and keep your distance, the last thing I need is for her to lose all of her hair.” She glanced back as if waiting for a response.

I nodded. And then grinned, I think. That seemed to satisfy her.

“I wasn’t entirely truthful with that trucker back there, I am a bit of an activist. I think it started when my two daughters both got cancer and died. I kinda went a little out there for awhile. I read everything I could, and studied and researched and I came to the inevitable conclusion that our ‘modern world’ is killing us. Did you know that in the mummies in Egypt there is not a trace of cancer. So 4000 years ago, cancer didn’t exist. You open one of us up and we are filled with it everywhere. It’s just waiting to take hold, when our immune system goes down.”

She drove on in silence for a moment. I sat back on my haunches.

“So now that I’m retired, I travel around and protest. I encourage everyone I meet to live healthy, and off the grid if they can. I do what I can to be the voice of people, if they knew what was really going on... or cared.”

Waaaaaaaaaaamp! An air horn blasted directly behind the mini-bus. Apoc and I ducked down instinctively.

We heard the big rig pull up along side.

And I heard a muted string of coarse language that would have made a crusty old sailor proud.

“You’re number one with me too buddy! Love you!” Arlene yelled back.

She was laughing.

She let her foot off the gas and his truck thundered on by... he got in front of her and brake checked her, but she already had her foot on the brake.

“Sheesh, some people just don’t know when to let it go do they? I’m racking my brain to figure out how this pencils out for him. Oooh big smart man driving like a dickhead with a sign on the back of your truck with an eight hundred number to call for complaints... brilliant.”

He pulled away from her creaking old bus and out of sight.

“So is either one of you housebroken?”