by Emily Brewes
Sleep evaded me those days for the most part. I’d sit in the slightly stuffy blue-tinted light of our transient home and wait for sheer boredom to weigh down my eyelids. There was no way to know how long I slept in any one stretch this way, but it was far from restful. I woke often, jolting as though shocked, only to find Mum and Olivia blissfully unaware of my suffering.
At least the weather held. Previous ante-summers had been like monsoons. Skies opening up, dumping deluges as though teleporting oceans before ending just as suddenly. We were lucky enough to only catch one big storm that whole month of travel.
Our backs were bent double by the downpour as we ran down one of the old highway off-ramps to an abandoned downtown. We made it to a multistorey building at the edge of the town centre, beige bricks and mirrored glass. Mum led us up several flights of stairs until we found a spot still intact enough to shelter us. It was maybe the third or fourth floor, an old corner office. The windows were spiderwebbed with cracks but not broken. She sent us to find anything that would burn, then built a fire in a metal trashcan to warm and dry us off.
Midday was as dark as night. Though we weren’t terribly high up, the clouds looked low enough to reach out of the window and touch. Thunder rattled, its deep bass shaking everything that could be shaken. Lightning whipped across and through the charcoal blanket of cloud, occasionally lashing toward the ground.
As we watched the storm’s progress across the land, a big buck bolted out from someplace down on the street and went running. It could only be seen in fits and starts, as the curtain of rain rippled out of the way, shoved by intermittent gusts of wind. The fascinating rotoscope came to a sudden end when lightning stabbed down, directly into the head of the beast. The accompanying crack of thunder was harmonized by the dull thud of the buck’s skull exploding.
By the beginning of our fifth day on the road, we made it to the farthest reaches of the Underground network. A line of people snaked away from a low concrete building that looked the way a shoebox would if the lid had been stepped on before being put back: each end kicked up from a central depression. The place was mostly roof, its windows long since shattered and swept away.
It took the better part of two days to make it to the front of the line. Once there, we were briefly separated — me alone, Mum with Olivia — into curtained-off cubicles to be inspected for disease. Eyes, ears, nose, and throat. Temperature, blood pressure, reflexes. Say “ah,” turn and cough, breathe in … and breathe out. The woman doing my exam was greying blond, perfunctory but not cold. Something about the practiced way she moved was deeply reassuring.
“Age?”
“Fifteen, I think.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. My only reply was “We used our last calendar for kindling.”
With an accepting shrug, she wrote it down on her clipboard.
“Put your clothes back on and toss the robe in the hamper,” she said, pointing with the end of her pen but not looking up from the paperwork. “Down here,” pointing, “first left and have a seat.”
Suddenly feeling very alone, even rejected, I did as I was told.
Mum and Olivia were already there. My sister looked like she’d been crying.
“Whassa matter, kiddo?” I tried to ruffle her hair but she ducked away.
“She got a booster shot,” Mum explained. “And she’s not impressed.”
“I wanna go home,” Olivia complained, her voice taking on that especially grating tone she employed when she was really trying to be a pest. “I want Daddy!”
Mum motioned to comfort her but was likewise rebuffed. Olivia squirmed down from her lap and went to the corner for a good old-fashioned sulk.
As stressful as things had been these past weeks, months, years, in that moment my mother looked as tired as she ever had. Defeated. Her eyes were empty and flat, like she’d cried all the tears her body could make, leaving her hollow. Like Dad, she was running on automatic. Some primitive instinct told her to bring us here, to protect us, even though I think most of her would have rather given up long before this point.
A man in a blue work shirt that was nearly black around the collar with sweat and dirt entered through the curtain on the other side of a brown picture-wood desk. In his hands were several sheets of paper that he set down before taking his seat. He was here to question our intent.
This inquiry went on a torturously long time, though the questions were pretty predictable. Why move Underground now? What had taken us so long? Some settlements in the Underground had been established for years, which meant a tougher time integrating newcomers. Did we have any special skills to offer?
My mother lied as though the floodgates of her dishonesty had been opened wide. She claimed Dad had kept us prisoner and prevented us from leaving before, when everyone else had. She painted him in the image of a monster as tears streamed openly from her eyes. God knows where she found them, but she did. Our querant seemed less moved by the waterworks than by the presence of my sister and myself. Maybe he was a parent, too.
Or maybe he had been.
When Mum’s intricate tapestry of falsehood was near to completion, Olivia offered the protest I was too indifferent to give.
“No, no, no! We left him, we left Daddy and now he doesn’t know where we are, and he can’t get us, and I wanna go-o ho-o-ome!”
The man strolled over to her corner and crouched down beside her.
“Hey, I know this is all pretty scary, but it’s okay. You are home. This is your new home. It’s safe here, and we’ll take care of you.”
Olivia looked about to protest, but weariness and hunger had taken much of her fight. Besides, she was clearly too young to understand. The warden of the Underground nodded sagely, patting her shoulder. Then he stood and returned to his desk.
“I’m approving your application,” he said, signing three sheets of paper. “Take these to the lift station to get your official documentation.”
“Thank you,” Mum managed through her crocodile tears, sweeping them away with the heel of her thumb.
At the lift station, they gave us identification papers and a couple of tokens — just enough to get started — then herded us over to an elevator already full to groaning with other refugees. A pair of burly guards pulled the gates closed and latched them. There were several loud ticks, then the grumble of a combustion engine coughing to life. With a grating squeal of metal on metal, the elevator descended.
Before the topside world disappeared completely, I saw a sheet of pink light stab over the eastern horizon, candy coating the world. It was the first and only time I cried for the state of things, and the last time I saw the sun for a long, long time.
FRIENDS LIKE THESE
IT TOOK A GOOD night’s sleep before I fully internalized that Doggo had spoken.
Even then, it wasn’t as surprising as it maybe should have been. It was post-apocalypse after all, so such oddities were surely to be expected. Then again, it could have just been a teenager’s overdose of science fiction long fermented in an aging brain.
It was maybe two days after I brought him home. I took those days off work, dipping into my shoe-repair fund for rations and some extra fuel. Doggo was in desperate need of a bath, but he was so thin I couldn’t conscience washing him in cold water. We got to know each other in silence. I watched as he sniffed everything his nose could reach, and as he dug and burrowed in my one and only blanket before rolling on his back and kicking his little legs in the air.
That morning, Doggo was sitting up by the water tank, staring at me as I slept. As soon as my eyes opened, his bony tail went to wagging, hitting every surface in his vicinity with a force that sounded painful. I had to reach out to stop him ringing the water tank like a bell.
“I’m so happy you’re awake,” he declared. “Because it means you’re not dead and that there will be food.”
I groaned, rubbing my face with work-roughened hands. That texture still startled me, even all these years on. It was the texture o
f my father’s hands somehow affixed to my body.
To Doggo, I said, “Well, I’m definitely awake, but the food situation is less sure. Don’t get your hopes up.”
His head canted to the side, his lopsided ears thrust forward. “You are the Food Bringer. You brought me food before. You will do so again.”
I snorted, shuffling into my pants. “Either there’s food or there isn’t. It’s not like I’m God; I can’t make food appear.”
The tail fell still. “What is ‘God’?”
Yesterday’s shirt smelled like mushrooms and BO, so I took the other one down from its hook by the door and shrugged it on.
“You know, God? Like miracle worker? Water into wine? Something from nothing?”
The tail kicked into full force again. “Yes, yes! The Food Bringer does this. There is no food, and then there is food. The Food Bringer makes a miracle. The Food Bringer is God.”
I crossed the tiny room in two stunted strides and wrapped my hand around his muzzle. He struggled a bit before whining.
I hushed him. “Not so loud. I’ve got neighbours who might not be so thrilled you’re here, okay? Maybe who’d see you more like meat than man’s best friend. So, keep it quiet, yeah?”
It’d been years since I’d said more than two words in a row. I was briefly debilitated by a coughing fit, which freed Doggo to slip away and jump onto the bed. He cast a worried, guilt-ridden glance over his shoulder before he did it, which was equal parts annoying and hilarious. I coughed some more. Doggo laid down so his head hung over the bed’s edge, tail thumping on the blanket.
When I caught my breath, I said, “Besides, I don’t make food appear. I get it out of the bucket over there.”
On gesturing to the very bucket, I saw it was on its side, with the lid halfway across the room. Well, part of the lid. Smaller pieces were spread around in orbit. All looked suspiciously chewed. Closer inspection also revealed scratches and tooth marks on the bucket. The little bastard had eaten tokens of food. And ruined a perfectly good bucket!
“Doggo,” I began, trying my best to keep my voice low and level, “did you eat the food out of this bucket?”
The thumping increased in volume and quickened in pace. When I gazed directly at him, he rolled over on his side with his front leg raised.
“Please don’t kill me,” he whimpered.
He was so small and pathetic and helpless that it dispelled my rage like a lit match to a fart. I was still pretty annoyed, so I didn’t want to, but I burst out laughing.
“Jesus, I’m not gonna kill you!”
“Keep it down, Vanderchuck! Some of us need our sleep.”
The voice of Karl Metzler, the neighbour across the hall, bellered to all and sundry. His shout was followed by a calling conversation between him and others who had now been disturbed. Leave it to Karl to fix a situation by really stepping in it.
“Aw, hell,” I hissed. “See? I moved here on account of the quiet, and now you’re fuckin’ it up …”
Doggo flopped back on his belly, looked at me side-eyed. “You want me to go?”
I hadn’t known him long, but already Doggo was the most pathetic creature I could’ve imagined, let alone invited into my company. For all he was skinny and diseased, and kind of like a furry goblin more than a cute dog, he elicited sympathy. He was so poorly built for the world that his very existence begged to be protected.
I scooted across the floor to the bed and scritched the hollows behind his ears. His eyes closed in bliss and tiny piggy grunts rose from his throat.
“Don’t go,” I said. “But also don’t shout. And don’t steal the food. I need to eat, too, you know.”
“Food Bringers eat? Who knew?”
We sat like that for a few minutes, me scratching Doggo’s ears and back and hindquarters, Doggo stretching and making little grunts of pleasure. Then I had to leave.
“Okay. You stay here and be quiet. I’ll come back later with food.”
“What’s later?”
I stood up, brushing down my pants. “You know, not now. I’ve gotta sort some scrap, get some tokens, then go to the commissary and get food. Then I’ll come back.”
“Back here?”
I nodded. “Yep. I’ll be back in no time. Just keep quiet and don’t let the neighbours catch you here. Maybe hide or something.”
“Is on the bed hiding?”
I shook my head, grabbed the edge of the blanket, and tossed it over him. “That’s hiding,” I said.
“Hiding is very dark and very warm,” replied Doggo.
“If you get too hot, hide under the bed instead. Go someplace where you can’t be seen.” I put on my hat and went for the door.
“See you later!”
His voice muffled by wood and wool, Doggo recited the morning’s lessons. “Later’s not now. When Food Bringer returns is later, with food.”
At least he was being quiet.
THAT MORNING WAS a long slog. I was plagued with sharp bursts of worry, imagining one of the neighbours breaking into my place and taking Doggo away. There wasn’t enough on him to eat, which meant they were more likely to kill him in frustration. Then they’d report me for housing a non-human animal. Instead of simply taking him away or booting me out into the wild, unsettled tunnels, I’d be euthanized and inoculated for chitin farming. I felt waves of sickness picturing the broad sheets of hybridized fungus mushrooming from my decaying corpse.
My concern made it hard to concentrate.
Pets weren’t really a thing anymore, since long before we took the deep dive. In the Underground, there were a number of feral cats, but their population depended on whatever rats or snakes or frogs they could catch. Nobody kept them. In fact, no one went near them. If they didn’t run away, they attacked, and infections Underground were deadly.
Before Doggo, I hadn’t even seen a dog for years. There used to be a kind of farm of them down by the lake, mostly to supply the rich folk in their towers — the ones who insisted on eating meat or wearing fur — but I don’t think they kept it up. It was too much water and food to raise them, and they never really got fat like farm animals used to. Soon enough, everyone was eating cultured mushroom protein and wearing tanned chitin sheet leather.
The very idea of a pet was so foreign, I felt giddy when I thought about it too hard. I was going to spend rations on a non-human animal. It seemed insane, but at the same time it felt entirely correct. I was already deeply attached to Doggo. It wasn’t rational; it was instinctual.
I knew about humanity’s relationship with dogs from long hours spent trying to convince my parents we should get one. Even now, I could probably name a dozen breeds without thinking overly hard. I had learned about obedience training and canine behaviour, become versed in the different kinds of collars, harnesses, and leashes; brushes and nail clippers; dry foods, wet foods, and raw foods.
It was all for nothing. Despite living on a farm, as many did in Trout Creek, my family just weren’t dog people. Not even a yard dog as the country dweller’s version of a home security system. For one thing, I was the only one remotely interested, and I wasn’t considered old enough or responsible enough to care for a dog. Most days, I could barely be bothered to collect eggs from our trio of aging hens or to milk our single ornery nanny goat.
For another thing, it was going out of fashion, even then. Resources were drying up at alarming rates. The province, and then the country, encouraged people to stop keeping “non-productive animal companions.” They offered a one-time benefit for anyone who voluntarily brought existing pets to euthanasia centres: a bag of flour for a cat and a sack of corn for a dog.
Then there were epidemics of rabies-B — a mutation of rabies, which had come from animals, that was more universally transmittable. And as with most diseases that hopped species, infection was typically fatal. Human fluid contact. Mosquito vectorized. It killed thousands, and we blamed dogs instead of ourselves.
I guess some folks were too soft-hearted and let the
ir animals go instead of euthanizing them. The cats disappeared into the woodwork, as cats do, and the dogs formed packs. A lot of them starved or drowned, but I suppose enough of them survived to be penned up on that farm.
And then there was Doggo.
Where had he come from, anyway? I was pretty sure they wouldn’t let anyone bring a dog with them down the chute. I heard there was a time when they weren’t even letting human babies in. It’s anybody’s guess what they did with the ones denied entry. It was possible he’d weaseled in through some kind of air exchange, though that would only get him so far. Doggo didn’t strike me as an especially clever example of his species, so that seemed unlikely. Then again he was smart enough to get into the food bucket …
“Hey, Vanderchuck!” Karl Metzler waved from across the scrap heap. He got closer before continuing, though his volume remained about the same. “Heard you talkin’ to someone this morning. You got a friend over? Hiding some little pigeon in your bed?”
“What? No. No pigeons.” The briefest pause. “Why would I talk to a pigeon?”
He scoffed and slapped my shoulder. “Naw! You know what I mean. You got a piece of tail, yeah? Where’d you find it? I’ll give you a week’s tokens for a share.”
When it dawned on me what he was talking about, I took a step back. “Jesus, you’ve a filthy mind. Aren’t you married?”
Metzler shrugged. “There’s marriage, and there’s marriage,” he explained. “That kinda union don’t mean what it used ta, right? Besides, I’m just DTF. Ain’t lookin’ for a commitment, ya know?”
Apparently, this was the funniest thing he’d heard in some time, and the sentiment was best shared by brash guffawing and follow-up assaults to my shoulder. He hit me hard enough my arm went numb. When he noticed I wasn’t laughing along, he wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at me meaningfully.