Pack Up the Cats

     In my spare time I do some editing work for Dark Moon Digest, a position that consists mainly of helping read through the slush pile of story submissions. I come across a lot of different types of stories, but not nearly quite so much as I do the zombie story.
     Now, I've ranted about the zombie genre before. I won't bore you with it again. Today, however, I read one that made me think. It spent a disproportionate amount of time with a couple arguing about whether or not they were going to take their cat with them as they tried to escape the zombie hordes. The man was all logic, saying that they couldn't afford to take the cat, while the woman was (stereotypically) over-emotional about wanting to bring the cat along. There was so much detail about them trying to leave food out for the cat to survive on, and worrying about what would happen to him, that I started to feel all knotted up inside. I had to go downstairs and give my own cats a bit of a snuggle, just to reassure myself that my own little furry companions were okay.
     That's the part that I feel ostensibly ridiculous about, because I realize that if there is a zombie apocalypse, I will try to pack up my cats along with whatever other survival gear I'm taking. It is a perfectly awful idea, but I don't know if I could bring myself to leave them behind. My cats are not the survivalist types. One of them, Phineas, doesn't really know how to hunt. If there's ever a bug (like a giant cockroach) in the house, he just kind of walks after it and paws at it. It's more an act of curiosity than hunting. The other, Mercury, is just old and out of shape (well, round is a shape, but you know what I mean). And both are indoor cats, so I just know they wouldn't have a clue how to do anything like climb trees or find shelter from the rain. Not to mention Phineas is such an attention whore that he'll likely run up to the first zombie he sees and try to get it to pet him.

Okay, I'm clearly not concerned about all pets.

     I know a lot of people like this. People who are huge fans of the horror genre, where blood and guts is the norm. We see humans getting stalked, tortured, and killed, and it's just par for the course. The fact that the zombies used to be humans doesn't get us all unsettled and sad. But threaten or kill a dog or cat, and suddenly everything is a hundred times worse. I don't care if one of the survivors hanging out in the mall gets eaten by zombies, but I'd be downright choked up if I saw one chewing on a cat.

     I'm sure this is a common enough reaction, but I wonder what it is that makes me like that? Is it an innocence thing? That would make some sense. Domesticated animals, like children, can't defend themselves (at least, not to the level that an adult human can, what with weapons and such), so it is all the more horrible when they are victimized. There's logic to that, I guess.
     Yet my brain doesn't consistently follow the logical path. When I think about the zombie apocalypse (which I do, not as often as some, but more often than is strictly healthy), and I think about leaving the cats behind, it just seems impossible. The entire time I was dodging and clubbing the undead, I'd be worried about my cats. Hell, the fact that they'd just be sad and lonely without a ready source of cuddles would make me feel guilty, let alone starvation or dehydration. But do I have the same level of worry about the well-being of any of my human neighbors? Would I go out of my way to gather them before making a run for it? Nope. It literally never even crossed my mind until this minute.
     So, I guess that's where my priorities lie in the apocalypse. There might not be anybody else left alive, but as long as there are fuzzy animals to have as pets, I'll be fine.