Chris Pourteau - Tails of the Apocalypse

Then the smell of someone else comes back. I bark again.

The door to the building opens with a bang. A man runs out, dressed in green, the same colour as the building. He’s covered in sweat and I smell pee from him, too.

“Get in the car,” says Emily-mother to Emily and me. She turns to the man, holding the boom-maker against her shoulder. “Stop! Who are you?”

Emily begins frantically undoing my leash. I strain against it, barking at the man. I will get him! I’m a good dog.

“My name is James,” the man says. He’s frightened; he’s angry. I’m angry too. “Did you come from New Panama?”

“Yes,” says Emily-mother. She keeps her boom-maker held tight. “Listen, we’re leaving now, okay?”

“Let me in,” the man pleads. “Please, you have room. I’ll ride in the back.”

“This is our car,” says Emily-mother. “We don’t know you.”

Emily unties my leash, but she holds it tight, leading me around to the side door. I growl at the strange man. I want to hurt him. I don’t think he’s a good man. Emily ties my lead to the inside of the door.

“You can’t leave me here for them . They’re killing everyone.” The man steps forward. “Come on. What a beating. You can’t pick a fucking dog over a person.”

Emily-mother points the boom-maker at him. “Get away.”

“Take me with you!”

BOOM.

The man falls.

My ears hurt, and there’s a high-pitched whine at the edges of my hearing. I bark a lot. Emily screams. I can smell burning chemicals and blood. The man doesn’t move. I want to hurt him too; I yank against my leash, but Emily has tied it up good. I kick and bark, straining against my collar.

“Drive!” Emily-mother shouts. She breaks the boom-maker and two red tubes fall out. She sticks two more tubes in and fixes it again with a click. She does this so fast I can barely see; she’s done before the first set of tubes hits the ground. “Drive, Daniel!”

Emily-father’s strong hands grab my leash and pull, roughly dragging me into the car. I kick and bark the whole way. It hurts. Finally I’m inside.

“Go, go, go!”

The car takes off again, leaving the man and the building behind us.

Silence. Nobody says anything; Emily-mother’s hands are shaking. Emily-father keeps looking at her. She doesn’t look back.

They are talking using the metal in their bodies. I’ve seen them do it before. They don’t want Emily to hear what they’re saying.

Emily, I think, knows that. “Is that man going to be okay?” she asks.

Nobody answers. I lick her face to try and calm her down; she pushes me away.

“Why did you shoot him?” Emily asks.

“I had to,” says Emily-mother. Her voice is so different now. Frightened, but with a hardness to it I don’t understand. “I had to, darling.”

“Are you a murderer?”

Nobody says anything for a bit. The car zooms on.

“Honey,” says Emily-father, “sometimes when people try to hurt you, or try to take what you have, you have to stop them. Sometimes you can’t use words.”

“Like the Reclamation,” says Emily. There’s a big silence. “I know you were in the army, Mum. Did you kill people then?”

“Sometimes you have to,” is all Emily-mother says. She smells strange. A mixture of fear and anger. I haven’t smelled anything like it before.

We go on, and the sun falls further. It is starting to get dark now, and Emily-father is forced to drive slower. This makes me a bit happier. We were driving very fast before.

I start to get hungry and whine. Emily feeds me bits of her snacks; they’re some form of very salty meat. I don’t like it, but I eat it anyway. I’m not very scared now. I think we’re safe. I eat some more.

And then a giant monster appears in the lights in front of our car.

It is big. Some kind of bug as big as a horse, with eyes that reflect red. I have never seen anything like it. Its pincers are up, reaching for the car, and it grows bigger as we quickly get close.

Emily-father yells. The car swerves. We try to miss the bug but hit it.

The car rolls over and over and over.

I’m very sleepy.

I want to sleep more, but something is shaking me, and my rest isn’t comfortable. I’m lying on something hard. It’s the inside roof of the car.

Now I remember. I kick and stand up. I smell a lot of blood. Emily is dangling down from her seat. Blood runs down her face. I lick the blood, hoping she’s not dead.

Slowly… slowly, she wakes up. Her face is red from being upside down a lot. She’s groggy; she doesn’t say much, just looks at me.

“Demon?”

Then she wakes up. She starts kicking, moving her arms around. The movement scares me. I bark.

Something shakes the car. Something big and heavy. I bark harder.

“No no no,” whispers Emily. She sounds scared too. “Demon, be quiet.”

Then I see what she’s looking at. The giant bug. It’s chewing on the front of the car.

I don’t know why it would do that. It chews into something and steam goes everywhere.

“Mum?” says Emily quietly. “Dad?”

I can smell a lot of blood in the front of the car. Emily-mother and Emily-father hang limp, like Emily did, but they don’t move. Emily-father has a hole in his head. I can smell Emily-mother’s bone marrow.

Emily fiddles with her seat and then falls. She lands with a thump. The bug stops eating the front of the car.

It moves around the car. Around and around. I recognise the behaviour of a predator animal; the bug is hunting. It must sense the heat of the car, smell the blood of Emily-mother and Emily-father, and think the car is bleeding. But I know the truth. We’re inside the car. It’s not the car that’s bleeding.

Now the bug is beginning to understand this, too.

Emily puts her hand over her mouth, trying to force her breathing to nothing. I growl at the legs of the bug as it passes; it’s a submissive growl, I’m not challenging its dominance. It can beat a car. I cannot beat a car. The bug is boss.

The bug hisses and digs at the door. Emily shrieks. The car shakes and rocks; the window breaks.

I bite the bug’s claw. It’s hard and slimy, like a wet tennis ball. I bite and I snarl.

The bug is too big. It can’t put its claw through the car window. I keep biting it, going for the weak points in its claws. Emily screams and screams. This urges me on.

I must defend Emily.

I taste bug meat. It bleeds black blood. I have hurt it, but it keeps coming. It doesn’t seem to feel pain. Normal things would retreat when they’re bitten. This bug continues, bending the metal of the car, trying to pry open the door. I latch my jaws onto the claw and shake my head back and forth, tearing at the flesh of its joint. I bite deep.

The limb comes away. The bug flails at the car, bashing with its good claw and its stump. Thump, thump, thump on the roof.

Emily cries and I’m afraid. It’s too big. We have to run. I jump out the other window.

“Demon!”

I leap on top of the car. The bug is there. I look right into its big, weird eyes. Its mouth clacks at me as it bites.

I know how to fight. I twist and jump, biting for its neck. There’s only thick, slimy skin there. My teeth drag across it, trying to find a weak spot. I don’t find one.

The bug’s remaining claw latches onto my rear left leg. It digs in deep. I howl. It hurts!

BOOM.

Emily. She has the boom-maker. The bug falls over the car, chattering and clicking. I smell guts. I smell blood. It’s all over me. All over the car.

My leg hurts. But the bug is dead. I limp over to Emily. She’s shaking so much the boom-maker falls out of her hands.

I lick her all over. She cries a lot. She tries to wake up Emily-mother and Emily-father. But she doesn’t try for long. They’re dead like the bug.