Chris Pourteau - Tails of the Apocalypse

That moment came. It came and he was holding onto the lip of the one-story building, knowing that to fall was to break something he could not afford to pay for. A leg. A hip. An arm. Anything would be a death sentence. Anything was beyond his ability to pay.

The baying of the Dogeaters along the sandy bottom of the dried-up stream reminded him that he was already under another death sentence.

“What does one more matter,” he chuckled deliriously and began to pull. He pulled and knew his strength would not be enough. Maybe if he dropped the pack. But the cord was attached to the pack. To drop the pack was to leave his friend.

“That,” he grunted, as an icy sweat broke out along the fiery iron coursing through his shoulders, “will not happen.”

But as much as he tried to pull—and he knew his strength was fading and there was not more than the smallest bit of it left—he could not gain the lip of the roof.

Some massive dog sent up a howl in the night.

Down near the steps , thought the man.

Its companions began to moan. He could hear the low, harsh grunts of the men who held the thick leather leashes. The Dogeaters.

He thought of the gorge that would take him. Of the fall into it.

It was big enough.

“Please…” he grunted. “For my friend who found me when I was lost and ready to give up.”

He almost screamed as he tried once more and instead exhaled a gusty, “please.”

And he was over the lip, feeling the ancient grit of the roof on his palms. He lay there panting, knowing that he’d pulled some muscle that could never be made right again. He struggled out of his pack and grasped the cord.

He looked down at his friend.

His friend who had found him in the night.

Dog barked.

And the man began to haul his friend up onto the roof.

They lay there for hours, silent as the Dogeaters followed the trail and called and called again into the last of the night. In time, in the early hours, they’d gone off on some new scent.

The man and the dog waited.

Knowing maybe one of the Dogeaters had remained in the shadows to watch and wait.

Dawn came and when the man was sure no one had remained—or if they had, they’d gone off—he got to his feet. The day would be beautiful. Golden light filtered down through the ancient eucalyptus giants that seemed to be everywhere.

In the center of the roof was an old hatch.

“Let’s go down inside, Dog. Even if there’s nothing left, it’s safe for us.”

He broke the old lock with his crowbar and peered down into the darkness.

There was a smell.

Like one he’d never smelled before.

Not death.

Not ash.

Not decay.

Not bones.

He’d smelled those all his days.

Sweet and almost heavy.

And his heart began to beat as he remembered the day she’d held one under his nose.

“I love their smell,” she’d told him one winter’s night, late, when he could not sleep in the refugee camp and there was no food, but she’d found something else to pass the long hours of the night.

“These are our past,” she’d said to the little boy he once was.

Saint Maggie.

The girl who was becoming her.

He carried Dog down into the dark. At the bottom of the stairs he lowered his pack and pulled out his tin of matches. He struck one.

He could hear Dog panting in the darkness.

They were standing in a small hallway. The floor was smooth. Linoleum. Clean except for the dust.

And that sweet heavy smell was almost overpowering down here.

Like it was a dream. Or dreams. Or all the dreams one could imagine. Dreams in sleep that seem so real, they must be. That the world inside the dream is the world and there’s no memory of the one where the sleeper waits for morning.

So real.

At the end of the small hallway was a gray door.

They walked forward, and the man pushed open the door and saw the tremble in his own hand as he heard a soft hiss.

And beyond its portal lay the past in great stacks and along the shelves. Every book in the world, thought the man who had no idea how big the world had once been. How many books had once been dreamed.

But to him, by the thin light of the guttering match, it was all the books in the world. Perfect. Preserved. And waiting.

All the past tomorrow would ever need.

He began to cry, and the match burned out in his hand with a small hiss that echoed in the silence of the place.

“We found it,” he repeated over and over while murmuring, “Thank you, thank you,” through his tears as he fell to the floor.

That night on the roof, with Dog by his side, he tuned the old radio he’d carried in his pack after the ancient solar charger had done its work. First star in the west was always the signal for the time to call. The time when they’d be listening.

He tuned in the station like he’d been taught.

How many years ago…?

Crackle . Hiss . A sudden Pop .

“We found one,” he croaked into the ether and felt Dog’s tail thump the hollow roof above all those waiting books. All that past that might be used again. Saved by some unknown someone who knew man and dog would finally come and find it. And that the world might need the past again one day.

“We found a library.”

They’ll wonder who I mean by we, he thought, and laughed as he patted Dog.

He keyed the worn mic again.

“My friend and me,” he paused. “We found the past.”

My first published novel is a book called The Old Man and the Wasteland . It’s part Hemingway, part Cormac McCarthy’s The Road , a suspenseful odyssey into the dark heart of the post-apocalyptic American Southwest. Here’s the description:

“Forty years after the destruction of civilization, human beings are reduced to salvaging the ruins of a broken world. One survivor’s most prized possession is Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea . With the words of the novel echoing across the wasteland, a living victim of the Nuclear Holocaust journeys into the unknown to break a curse. What follows is an incredible tale of grit and endurance. A lone traveler must survive the desert wilderness and mankind gone savage to discover the truth of Hemingway’s classic tale of man versus nature.” I wrote three books in this series, and they’re collected in The Wasteland Saga . This short story is set in the same world, and if you look closely, you’ll find some characters mentioned that recur in the Saga .

I really loved engaging with this story because I enjoy telling stories inside the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The Man and Dog story is a classic, and especially so in the post-apocalyptic genre; images from Fallout the video game and The Road Warrior came to mind. I wanted Dog not just to be a companion, but a friend. A friend to someone who needed one very badly. I think we’ve all had those moments.

If you’d like to check some of my other post-apocalyptic writing, go to NickColeBooks.comand pick up some of my other novels. I’ve even got a free one over there for you called Apocalypse Weird: The Red King . And I’ve just recently released a new novel The End of the World As We Knew It . It’s basically The Notebook meets The Walking Dead . Hope to hear from you and please say “Hi!” if you get a chance. Also, join my newsletter; I sometimes give away advanced reader copies of my latest works. Thank you so much for reading this story, and I hope you enjoyed it.