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.”
A Word from Nick Cole
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.com and 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.
Pet Shop
(an After the Cure short story)
by Deirdre Gould
She didn’t know how long it had been since the little man who owned the store had shut off the lights and gone home. That was the last time they’d been properly fed. A few days ago? A week? Surly Shirley the parrot wasn’t certain.
They were in the deepest corner of the large mall with no window to the outside world. Surly’s experience of time had depended on shopping hours for over a decade. But the bird seed was almost gone. When she licked frantically at the small metal ball in her water bottle, not a drop rewarded her. She could hear the kittens crying in their box and the puppies scrabbling against the sides of theirs. The other birds had been silent for a long while. The animals around her were starving.
Even Princess, the pot-bellied pig, looked skinny. Humans had always coddled Princess. The pig, like Surly, had been at the shop for years because she was the owner’s favorite, and he couldn’t bear to sell her.
That was not why Surly had stayed in the shop so long. Princess was polite, well groomed, a pleasing, blushing pink. Surly Shirley was bedraggled at the best of times, her gray feathers always uneven, her yellow eyes cold and beady. Nobody talked to her. Nobody liked her. No one played with her or challenged her. Surly Shirley was bored. And boredom made her mean.
Even the owner had forgotten her original name, and Surly upheld her moniker with all the nastiness she could muster. She didn’t miss the humans at all, at first. But the dwindling bird seed and empty water bottle made her rock on her perch, nervous.
She’d figured out the latch on her cage years ago, much to the shop owner’s dismay. Surly let herself out and tried to check on the others. She landed on the cockatoo cage, carefully pecking open a bag of seed that lay on top, and letting it rain down on the sleeping birds. They squawked but began moving. There wasn’t much Surly could do about the water. They’d have to find a way out.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to save the others alone. As much as she loathed the pig, Surly knew she needed Princess’s help. So she flew down to the shop floor.
“Princess is a pretty piggy,” she squawked and clicked her claws on the cat carrier. Princess grunted. She knew when she was being made fun of.
“Pretty pig,” insisted Surly, “pretty Princess.”
The pig stared at her in the dim light. Surly tapped her beak on the box. The kittens began to meow softly.
The pig groaned as she got up from her pillow. She trotted over to the thin plastic cat carrier and sniffed it.
“Pretty pig,” squawked Surly again. Princess squealed at the box and then flopped against it, squishing it toward the wall. The kittens yowled, but the box’s flimsy top popped off as the container slowly flattened and they jumped out. Surly worked at tearing open a paper bag of cat food with her beak while Princess repeated the process with the larger puppy box.
“Princess is a pretty pig,” squawked Surly and flew back to her cage, closing herself in again, to think. She’d done what she could. Now she had to plan. The owner wasn’t coming back, that was clear. They had to go. Had to find fresh water. Light. Fruit.
Surly remembered fruit. It was rare that she’d ever gotten any. She’d usually had to steal it. The owner used to drink tea with a wedge of lemon in the morning. Surly had dreams about lemons, and the owner had caught her once making one of them come true.
“That’s why you’re such a sourpuss,” he’d scowled, but he sometimes gave her the wedges after that anyway.