The End Has Come

Rocks fall behind me, blocking my way back. It gets dark so I shine a light. I go another few feet before a boulder stops me entirely. I’m strong. Under ordinary circumstances, I could lift it. But not here, without leverage.

I hear a scraping from the other side of the rock. Something digs. A mole? A mouse? A survivor?

God, please help me, I say as I try to roll the rock. I manage to push it a millimeter. It rolls back into place. I punch it. I punch the wall. I punch myself. It’s so dark in here. I’ve gone mad. What the hell do I care about a dog?

I try one more time. Use my legs as I push. The rock shifts. I keep pushing, groaning. I’m clear. There’s nine inches. Maybe I can squeeze.

A face appears on the other side. It’s got albino red eyes. “Ugh!” it grunts as it jabs an arrowhead through the crack, right into my shoulder.

The staff it’s using is made from a human tibia. I yank the tibia, get hold of the things’ skinny arm, and tear it off.

By the time I get back out, Linus has returned and is bent over Rex.

“Leave him alone!”

Linus stands back. Rex’s eyes are bandaged. He’s breathing better now, but coughing sand.

“Found a medicine kit,” Linus tells me. “He’s blind and deaf but he might live if we get him to the city and replace his respiratory tract.”

I drop the gristly arm I’ve found in front of Rex’s mouth. He tries to chew just to please me, but he’s too sick to swallow. I get on the ground and hug him so he knows he’s not alone.

“I thought you ran off,” I tell Linus.

“Class As are so neurotic,” he answers. Charming.

We wait out the storm down there, and don’t head up again until first light. I cuddle Rex for most of that time. His company calms me.

Up above, I pretend that the cave ceiling is a perfect blue sky. There are birds cawing. I’m playing catch with my shiny-pelted Collie while my wife and family watch from the windows of our beautiful ranch house in a town just like the drawing.

Wonderful World plays and I hum along.

The woman’s name is Lorraine, I decide, and she smells like tea. The child is a little girl. I imagine their warmth, the feel of them, and remind myself that this is love.

I remember.

* * *

I use my shoulder to shove the manhole aside. Then we’re out. The sand has shifted, obscuring the entire west side of the skyscraper canyon. Old balconies with rusted terraces peek out as if etched from stone. A sulfur red sun beats down. I check for a signal. It’s weak, but back.

Ship’s buried over there, I say.

Linus hurls himself like a burrowing crab into the great sand mountain where I’ve pointed.

It’ll take a day, at least, for him to find and repair our vehicle. By then, Rex will be dead.

I pick him up. It’s a few hundred miles to the city. On foot, we’ll make ten. But we can’t be the only people on this strip of road. I should be able to flag someone down. I start walking.

We’ve gone less than a mile in the hot sun, Rex slack in my arms and worrisomely heavy, when the droning starts. It comes slow from the direction of Las Vegas. As it gets closer, I recognize the Kanizsa Triangle.

I stop, more tired than I’d realized.

Linus pulls up. Sand weighs the ship low to the ground. He kicks down a rope ladder and I carry Rex with one arm and hold the ladder with the other, my stabbed shoulder screaming. Has it been hurting all this time, only I haven’t noticed until now?

Sand’s gotten inside my suit because of the hole. Linus looks us both up and down. I should change into my prototype, I say.

Yes.

I change. We sail.

* * *

It takes less than a day to get to the city, where the Pacific Ocean ushers a welcome rain. Sand’s less of a problem here than ultrafine particulate matter. Animal lungs turn to soup up here in just a few hours.

The city of the Pacific Colony is built in a semi circle around one of the last survivor tunnels on the West Coast. The genetic pool down there is fantastically diverse. Class As have been manipulating DNA for ages and have developed all variety of neural matter.

Linus docks our ship. The signal is strong with exactly the kind of chatter I despise, only more nonsensical than usual. They’ve found an old song they all like. They keep replaying it to different beats and instruments. Someone resurrected old photos of the first Above shelter and we’re supposed to have a moment of celebration at mid-day. Lastly, there’s been a survivor revolt in the Atlantic Colony.

The first thing we do, at my insistence, is head to the medical center. A pair of Cs carry Rex to a gurney. I hold his forearm as comfort as they inject the morphine-oxygen IV, then pull out his sand-crusted respiratory tract. They keep this morphine-oxygen IV handy, just for me.

Have I mentioned that this is not my first dog? Nor even my hundredth?

Will he be okay? I ask.

None of the Cs answer, because they’re not smart enough to draw conclusions.

* * *