Fiction

Apocalypse

He gave up his name that day. There wasn’t any use for it anymore. With everyone gone, he walked into the city after his trip, he saw the bodies. He saw the horror, the ruin, the fire, the rubble, as he saw the destruction, he left his name there with the rest of the humans who would never use it again. Walking back into the woods, he shed the first tear of this story, as there will only be one more. The last man on earth had no use for tears. He would just survive. 

He walked into the woods, where he had just been camping, and made a fire. A roaring, crackling, beautiful fire. He sat beside it, and began to work. He created his shelter, a 6’x6’ hole in the ground, 5 feet deep, blended in with the environment in a perfect camouflage, with the exception of the dug out fireplace chimney across from his sleeping bag. He spent weeks working on it, he set his traps, and he thought. Hours spent gazing into that fire, his wooden oak chest on the mantle, its velvet lined inside clutching that cold metal, he would not allow his eyes to meet the box. He survived.

He gazed into the flames, his mind racing back to the fateful day he lost everything. He’s been running on autopilot for months, but he examined his situation. Survival was an instinct to him, something he doesn’t need to think about. He doesn’t know how long it's been since he’s said something, since he had a conversation, since his life was worth living. His body won’t let himself die, but his brain doesn’t want him to live. He can’t give up, not after this long. The flames keep burning, their orange glow casting shadows over his face, the acrid smoke blowing into his eyes. He squinted, and stood up to hunt. He survived.

He mostly stalked in the night, but he needed to clear his head. He had hardly seen the light piercing through the trees like that, but he refused to stop and admire. He saw a trail, something had come crashing through the forest, tearing up the underbrush. He thought it was odd. Nothing like that has ever been in these woods. He prepared his bow and his knife, ready to take out whatever he may find. He crawled through the underbrush, and he saw it. A mangy, dirt covered, but beautiful mutt, laying on the moss belly up, tongue out, basking in a sunbeam, its stomach hair wet, drying in the sun. The stench was so strong, it felt like a cartoon, the odor lines forming a hand in the air, floating it’s way to him in the underbrush, wagging it’s forefinger at him, and then unpromptedly punching him in the nostrils. Hell of a right hook. He approached slowly, and the dog awoke. He expected it to snap at him, to run away, or to bark. Its tail wagged and it approached him. He plugged his nose with moss, pet the dog, and then picked it up to carry it back to camp. The dog did not object. It just enjoyed the attention and he enjoyed the idea of a companion. He lived once more.

He washed it, dug a place for it to sleep in his shelter, and hunted for more food to accommodate his only companion. The dog rolled in the dirt constantly, practically dug its way into his sleeping bag, and begged for his food. It was a good dog. He made a satchel for it out of deerskin, but the dog would roll over and crush any delicate items. He tried to teach it how to track, but it chased butterflies and ate grass. He tried to cuddle with it, but it tried to bite his hands. It was a good dog. The chest on the mantle ceased to exist. He kept living.  

He slowly managed to train the dog. It tracked (barely), it would sit, stay still, and would rarely bark. He also found that it was an excellent farmhand. It could carry seeds in its satchel, and it would dig whenever, so all he did was build up a raised bed, made a fence around it, and had the dog dig so he could plant vegetables and fruits. He would leave the dog with the raised beds, guarding it from deer, squirrels, and other pests. His first crop was gorgeous. The following years, he ate better than he ever did before the apocalypse. He enjoyed living with his friend. 

The years flew by, the shelter expanding, becoming an underground fortress, safe from the elements, with fire pits, rooms for the dog and man to exist, to hide from rains in the comfort of their shelter. It was at this point the man realized, it would not last forever. He would live much longer than the dog. His eyes gazed to the mantle, and he lost himself, the flames casting a terrifying light upon his face, the dog whimpering from the thunder above, and the coldness of steel that it’s master portrayed, the man was cut from his silence by the whimpering, by his only friend needing him, and his eyes drifted from the mantle to his last companion. He lived. 

Slowly, the years passed, and the dog could no longer hunt. It could no longer dig. It could no longer crawl out of the shelter. It stayed, curled in a ball by the man's side. He stayed, and he only left to hunt so they could survive longer together, for all it was worth. He shed no tears, just apologies for mistakes he had made. He was sorry the dog would not live forever. He was sorry for the events he knew would transpire. He was sorry he wasn’t strong enough to keep going. As the dog's eyes closed and it let out its final, deepest, most mournful sigh, it passed, and the man was alone again. He survived. 

The fire was beautiful, he thought, as the flames licked the shelter, the roof burning, and caving in, with his companion still inside. It was the final respect he could pay to it, its body undeserving of the cold, lonely ground with the worms and the animals that would dig it up to eat, no. The body must go in a blaze, so as to let the soul move on. Everything he had ever owned was in that blaze, save for the velvet lined oak box, its insides shifting with each step he took towards the garden. He pulled out his matches, and he was rid of that too. He walked, and survived. 

He walked into the city one last time, into the place where it all began, and the man's eyes slowly turned to see the box, and his clammy hands opened it. He grasped the cold metal, felt the rush of adrenalin, and as the hammer of the gun fell, so did his last tear. 

He awoke to a licking on his face. His dog was licking every

inch in his face, and he was finally happy, after so long. 

His memory survived.