Hey y'all,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN0M8Inj4yE

I don't know what to say. The lyrics (misheard) just built this. I finally put it to paper.


He stood, the wind whipping around him. The gritty remnants of civilization swept around him, and he thought back . . .

Standing by the simple stone markers, he wasn't a stoneworker, he couldn't make them anything grand. Just stacks of brick, one large, two small.

It wasn't right. Years of med school, years of practice in the hospital. Work in the ER, work in hospices, work in clinics. Watching as they slowly died, just a little at a time, from the invisible poison that had taken all their time.

He blinked, staring down the cracked, broken street. Looking through the rubble, the rusting cars and vine-wrapped, tilting shells of buildings. His bandage-wrapped paw felt the automatic rifle brush against it, twinging with pain as the gusts of wind even pushed the heavy gun. The gun.

When the Soviet soldier had walked up, he had lifted the shovel in warning, the cat laughing softly. "You cannot kill the dead, my friend. And that is what I am. A corpse."

He had stared blankly at the Russian.

"You will be needing this, tovarisch." The wild-eyed ocelot in the dirty remnants of a Soviet paratrooper uniform had said, before calmly setting it on the ground, with it's magazine pouch. The cat had bowed deeply, before walking into the smouldering, radioactive hell of the city.

He had looked at the weapon, lying in the dirt by the freshly dug graves of his family.

The rusting hulk of the minivan would provide a place to stop, out of the harsh, dusty wind. He dropped the saddlebag on the cracked cement, crouching by the vehicle and unslinging the gun before slumping down wearily and putting the gun across his lap. He put his head against the blistered paint of the vehicle, a late model minivan.

A late model minivan . . .

He had called the house frantically as the first strikes had hit other places. No answer. She must be out.

Cell phone. Fumbling the numbers. Panting. Ring. Ring. "Honey? Where are- Downtown? Why are yo- Right. Of course. Look, you've got to get out. It's started, and- what? No, don't worry about that, just get out of the city. I'll be fine, I'm leaving too. No. NO! Just go! Meet at the Dugout. I love you."

Funny. He'd been just twenty or so blocks away from them. He'd run down to the parking garage, fired up his little, old sub-compact, and driven away. Heading away from the center of the city. Away from the airbase at the edge of town. Gotten caught up in bumper-to-bumper panic at an on-ramp in the shadow of a tall, wide apartment block, and was still there twenty minutes later when the world had gone bright.

The Dugout was a bar built into the side of a hill, hence the name. Two days later, footsore, dirty, and scared to death, he'd almost fainted when he saw the minivan parked by itself in the bar's lot. He'd rushed up to the door, and ran inside. The dim barroom smelled of vomit, pain sweat, and fear. His wife had looked up at him with sunken eyes in a face pocked with sores, holding their shivering youngest as he hitched rapid, shallow breaths. ". . . I thought we'd gotten out fast enough." She said plaintively, and began to cry.

His eyes stared through the cracked wall in front of him, his bandage-bound paws running along the weapon. All his skill. No equipment. No IVs to replenish bodies drained by vomiting and diarrhea. No vitamins to replace lost nutrients. Hardly any food or water.

Just time. And enough of a dose to cause a long, slow death.

They had gone within hours of each other, and he'd simply found the shovel, and began to dig. And dig. And dig. It took hours, in the cold, hard, rocky earth in the lee of the hill. Blisters formed, skin chafed. Blisters burst, chafing turned to raw patches.

He didn't stop. Not until he had three good graves, and then he carefully, gently placed each of them in the ground, put the earth over them, and stacked bricks from a nearby building over them.

He'd been standing there, in the fading light, when the Russian had appeared.

When morning arrived, he was sitting on the top of the hill, staring at the city, the fires mostly gone, the place a hazy jumble of hellish shadows. His paws neatly bandaged.

When he finally slept, he dreamed of the city.

He drank from a water bottle taken from the battered saddlebag, another gift.

The biker had stumbled in the doors of the bar like a drunk, weaving and groaning. He'd looked up at him blearily, raised a bloody paw, and then collapsed.

Looking over the squat husky, He found two gunshot wounds in his abdomen, and with a sigh he had gone to work. It wasn't a great job, but neither bullet had done grievous harm, so the surgery wasn't as complicated as he was used to. It had been awhile since he'd had to do everything himself though, and his sewing wasn't as pretty as it had once been.

The husky had awoken several hours later, said his name was Crow, and passed out again. The next day, he had a fever, and passed in and out of consciousness as the surgeon cared for him. In a rare moment of lucidity, Crow told him that he bequeathed all his belongings to the grey-furred male, in thanks for trying to save him.

He was dead twenty seven hours later.

The wind howled down the empty street, the dust swirling and eddying around the minivan. He closed his eyes.

He always dreamed, after. Dreams of the city. The city, wrapped in vines, the city strangely peaceful. Ravaged, battered, but somehow still vital. Like some bizarre, stone garden. He dreamed he walked into the city, with purpose. Dreams of a slim, tall vixen, with golden hair, green eyes and a warm smile. Always in the city.

Always the same, and when he awoke, the dream remained, crisp, clear and vibrant. Night after night, always the same. All through the harshness of the first Grey Winter, and into the short spring that followed it more than nine months later.

He would sometimes stare into the city.

When the snow melted away, he took the gun, the saddlebag, and began walking.

In the shadow of the battered minivan he opened his eyes, and slowly stood. He slung the Russian gun under his right arm, threw the saddlebag over his left shoulder, and walked deeper into the garden of stone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHsm46uVqU

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Check Six,
DireWolf505