No Man's Dominion and Other Post-Apocalyptic Tales

by Glen Krisch

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  No Man's Dominion, and other Post-Apocalyptic Tales

  Table of Contents

  Gleaners

  Sudden Sanctuary

  So Close to Home

  Winterlochen Academy

  No Man's Dominion

  A Prodigal Apocalypse

  Gleaners

  Story Notes

  Which arm can I do without? It was Jason's last frantic thought before the pit-bull ran him down. It's simple to rationalize such thoughts when you're starving and snowblind. It had to be an arm. A leg? Never. Not in this changed world. Give it a leg and you're dead. Give it an arm, and you might live to see morning.

  He first saw the beast after leaving the apartment where he'd found the aspirin. Its impressive jowl jutted from the relative shelter of an alleyway. Surely starving as well, it risked the storm's wrath for easy pickings. Like Jason.

  That quick glance revealed muscular shoulders, a square face with a mangled right ear and eyes desperate and entirely too human. Its loose lips flung gobs of spit. Breath shot out in hazed clouds. A killer, every ounce, a killer. Looking away, Jason gripped the straps of his pack with both hands, hoping to project the aspect of neither victim nor aggressor. The snow fell steadily, whirling over his ankles. If he stepped wrong he could easily sink into a hidden pothole, possibly snapping an ankle. Then he would surely be a victim, and swiftly thereafter, dead. He left the apartment building behind, hunched against the snow burning his throat and eyes.

  The sheer wind pummeled his face, freezing the sweat gathered in his scraggly beard. He couldn't have heard the pit-bull start its charge, but must have at least sensed something. He looked over in time to see it digging through long, silent strides a block away.

  Jason turned to run, throwing caution to the wind. With his first step, he slipped, catching himself before he went down. He panned the street for an escape route. Brick buildings with formidable doors led to side yards with privacy fencing too high to scale. Nothing to hide behind, nothing to climb. It felt like charging down a tunnel while chased by the devil.

  The beast was too young to have been born Before. Like humans, animals now lived short, violent existences. Without violence, there was no life, no survival.

  Maybe that's why Jason had risked his life leaving his squatter's building to search for aspirin. Collier would likely die without it. The old man didn't have a violent bone in his body. Neither did his companion dog, Teddy. Collier had once been an educator, and his spoiled lapdog, a graying cocker spaniel, had been born years Before. Born into comfort with the sole duty of providing comfort in return. Their kind no longer existed.

  Jason's pack bounced from one shoulder to the other. He could toss the pack. Maybe the pit-bull would lunge for it. Tear it apart. Give him a few seconds to get away.

  No. He couldn't ditch it now. His survival depended on the supplies inside the pack, just as Collier's depended on the aspirin rattling in his coat pocket.

  His vision narrowed. His lungs burned against his effort and the bitter wind beating against his face. He no longer had the energy for flight. He searched for a defensible position. A place for a last stand.

  Which one should I give it? he thought again. Right arm, or left?

  He sprinted, turning left, using the angle to spy his pursuit. The pit-bull was closing, digging deep, snow clods pelting its square jaw. Jason's despair turned to resignation. This was it. His stride slowed. Stopped.

  A mere block away from Collier's hiding place. So close. He dropped his pack and removed the serrated knife sheathed to his hip. In the time Before, it had been an innocuous tool stowed in a fisherman's tackle box. Thin yet strong Japanese steel, its honed edge could easily cut through bones and gristle. Now, he used it to stay alive. It had served him well. If an enemy should warrant using anything larger than the five inch blade, Jason didn't deserve to live.

  His sudden move slowed the animal for a stride or two at most. Jason felt for the wall behind him, getting a sense of his surroundings.

  All this for a few expired aspirin.

  Something clicked inside his head. Nerves humming with adrenaline, he could feel a violent wave building inside his chest. Stepping toward the animal, his shoulders rolling forward, elbows bent, muscles tensing, a feral growl rumbled from his throat. The sound startled him, but only for a moment. Crazed with rage, blade poised to kill, he charged.

  The pit-bull attacked, hitting him with its full weight, its paws slamming into his chest, while it jaws snapped for his throat.

  He should have realized the building already harbored a squatter, should have looked for telltales before putting himself in danger. But night dampened the day's sun and warmth, while sleet portending a worsening storm peppered his exposed face. His choices were slim. A small town Before, Plum Valley had few buildings unmarred by a devastating fire. Most had heat-shattered windows, collapsed roofs and tumbled in walls, nature sweeping in for reclamation.

  He chose a building among the stout few unblemished by nature's advance, or the earlier, more destructive force, humanity's collapse. With numbing fingers, he wedged a crowbar into the seam of a basement window. He pulled, felt the frame give. Despite the cold, he paused, scanned the darkened street, the cubby shadows, the unlit windows, watching for eyes prying his intentions. Certain he was alone, he pushed his pack through the window. He rolled inside, landing gently across a pile of cardboard boxes.

  Only after closing the window and shutting out the bitter wind did he hear the dog's whimper. He held the crowbar aloft. Along its scored length, blood darkened the shaft. A survival tool in the truest sense.

  "You better make yourself known, or I'll brain you." His voice came off huskier than he remembered. He'd last spoken two weeks prior, at a trading post eighty miles south of here.

  He pinpointed the whimper, following it through the leavings of a well-practiced packrat. Dented file cabinets, office chairs missing a wheel, heaps of rusted mechanical items outmoded even Before. Typewriters, fax and ditto machines, and others he would be hard-pressed to identify even in the light of day. The whimper became louder as he wended through the graveyard of useless equipment. Such a pathetic sound. A victim's sound. Not a threat.

  He heard a reproachful, yet muffled voice, then only silence. Still, he held the crowbar high, ready to strike. The quiet stretched. Jason waited.

  "Please, we mean no trouble." The voice wavered with age and fear. "If you want this shelter, we'll leave come morning, no sooner. We're no trouble. There's room and warmth to go around."

  Jason expelled a clouded breath. Some warmth.

  He stepped closer. Under moonlight shining through a dirty window pane, he saw them. Huddled in rags, slumped low between stacks of moldering magazines from Before.

  Jason lowered his weapon. The old man's face relaxed by degrees, but still harbored concern. If Jason meant to kill him, or had seen him as food, he would already be dead. They both knew this, but the dog still trembled beside its master.

  "I'm Jason," he said. "I'm so fucking cold." He never offered such information, fearing reprisals at any sign of weakness. He either saw no threat in the old man, or was too cold to put up a facade. Either way, he didn't like this slip up.

  "You and me both. This is my friend, Teddy," he said, indicating the dog. "He's the nervous sort."

  "With good reason." Jason didn't say anything m
ore, but his actions articulated his intent. He bent over, removed a sooty pot from his pack and set it up between them. He then balled-up old magazines for kindling and lit a fire inside the vented pot. The fire shed light on the old man's condition. He sat as if in pain, his left leg propped up on a cardboard box. He was in no shape to defend himself, let alone glean an existence from society's remains.

  "Thank you, Jason. That's hospitable of you. I'm Emit Collier."

  Jason rubbed his hands together, only now realizing how dangerously cold he had become. "You two alone?"

  "Now we are. Been that way almost two weeks."

  "Where're you heading?" Jason asked before he could catch himself.

  Collier gave him a questioning look. Since the world ended, destination was no longer a product of location, but rather one of time. Everyone now had the same destination, traveled the same path, everyone's destination became simple and unflagging: tomorrow. There was no reason to ask such pointless questions.

  Smiling, Collier nudged his dog from his lap. "Scoot, Teddy, scoot." The dog blinked a wary eye, then sulked a few feet away, curling into a ball for warmth.

  Collier began rummaging the contents of his travel pack. "That dog couldn't save himself from fleas, let alone any real danger."

  "Then why keep him?"

  "He's old, like me. Besides being a miserable watchdog, he's crap for hunting. But he listens to this old man's point of view, and doesn't argue. Just wags his tail, waiting for the next table scrap." He removed an envelope from a plastic lunch baggie, tweezing his fingers inside to gently remove a yellowing letter. "A week Before, a former student of mine sent me a letter thanking me for what he called 'all I'd done for him.'" Collier unfolded the letter across his lap.

  "You were a professor?" Jason instantly saw Collier sporting a tweed jacket, dated, but distinguishing, bifocals slipped to the tip of his nose, lecturing on the great dead guys: Shakespeare, Defoe, Swift.

  "No, I taught high school Social Science. I have, or a better term might be, I had a joint doctorate in Medieval Studies and Anthropology. Pretty useless at the time, and now—" Collier said, raising one quizzical eyebrow.

  Jason laughed. "Imagine me with my Journalism degree."

  Collier joined him in laughter. Their voices blended, becoming warm and familiar yet underpinned by sadness. The worst of the cold had been chased from Jason's limbs. He could once again feel his toes.

  Collier continued, "Joe Milton was in my Political Science class. And, oh, did we ever argue! We couldn't see eye to eye on anything. He sidetracked my syllabus the entire semester, forcing us to play catch up the week before finals. But that boy could certainly make a point, even if I didn't agree with a preponderance of his argument. And the class was better for it. A true education."

  "Sounds like a good kid."

  "A critical thinker. So hard to find in those days; these days, an extinct animal, I'm afraid. And, Joe Milton is no longer a boy. This letter came to me out of the blue. I hadn't spoken to him since his graduation, ten years Before. Milton had a good head on his shoulders. If anyone could survive, it would be him."

  "So that's where you're heading?"

  "Well, until I ran into some trouble." Collier lifted his pant left leg, and even in the dim light, Jason could easily see the swollen flesh of his calf mottled an ugly purple. "And what brings you so far north this time of the year?"

  At first, Jason thought he wouldn't answer, then thought perhaps a lie would suffice. He settled on the truth. "I heard a rumor at a trading post that my brother might be in the area."

  "Were you close?"

  "No," he said. "When I find him, I'm going to kill him."

  Collier's expression stiffened, his wariness resurfacing.

  "He's a bad man." Jason hoped his brevity would be enough clarification. Every man who still lived was a bad man, had done bad things. It was the status quo. Jason's brother, Marcus, was a high ranking member of the Arkadium. His brother had, in large part, killed the world.

  Collier nodded, diffusing any tension built between them. Even if he didn't know the particulars, he understood.

  "Does this Milton live far?" Jason asked, hoping to change the subject.

  Collier grimaced as he handed Jason the letter. When he scanned the return address he recognized the street name from his two days in town. "This isn't far. I'll help you. Come morning, we can make it in fifteen minutes, tops."

  "Ten feet might kill me. See, I have a rare blood disorder that Before, I controlled with daily anticoagulant medication. Without it I clot too much."

  "What do you mean?"

  "My leg started swelling two days ago. It's only getting worse. Now, if I move, I'll likely dislodge part of the clot. If this should happen, I will have a stroke and die."

  Jason didn't know what to say. In the remaining definition of destination, a definition tying itself to time rather than location, Dr. Collier had no destination.

  "So, Milton, he's a survivor?"

  "I believe so. I hope so. In the letter, he mentions joining a green-living cooperative sponsored by Central Illinois College. His six unit apartment had the latest and greatest self-sufficient technology. Rooftop solar panels provided their heat and electricity. Each participant worked in their green house and only rode bicycles. They had a goal of leaving as small an imprint on the world as possible."

  "Hey, maybe all that green technology's survived."

  "I could never hope for such a thing. Not after everything that's happened. It would be nice to find him alive, to know such a mind still walked the earth."

  "I'll find out. If he's there, I'll bring him back."

  Collier blinked several times, then had to look away. Jason felt a corresponding wave of long-buried emotion.

  "You don't have to do that."

  "I know."

  "I hate to burden you, but if you decide to go and he's not there, can you bring me some aspirin?"

  "Aspirin?"

  "Anticoagulants are my only chance." Collier pointed to his swollen calf.

  "I'll do what I can."

  "That is all I can ask."

  They were quiet for a long time. Jason figured Collier had fallen asleep, but the old man cleared his throat and said, "There's a return to agriculture in the south."

  Jason fed wadded magazines into the fire. "Really? Actual crops?"

  "The news isn't so great under close scrutiny. A member of the Refarmers, that's what they're calling themselves, came across my group two weeks ago. A clean-cut young man, as clean-cut as you can manage these days, entered our camp at sunset. We fed him in exchange for the latest information he could offer. My suspicions started when he launched into it right away, as if eager to pass on the message, even before the food was served."

  Teddy rested his chin on Collier's knee. Collier smiled, rubbing the fur between his ears.

  "Sounds like a salesman to me."

  "Unfortunately, no one else in my group saw him that way. You can no longer trust a man if he gives without a modicum of exchange."

  "Agreed. If someone gives without exchange, what he gives is not worth having."

  "Or is simply dangerous. At any rate, this man spoke glowingly about an initiative to jumpstart agriculture. The Refarmers claim to have cleared hundreds of acres in choice growing areas. Temperate climate, rich soils, the best cropland they could find."

  "Doesn't sound like much."

  "Sure, sure. But Before you had the internal combustion engine powering plows sturdy as tanks. And earlier, you had horse, mule, oxen. Those species no longer exist, at least from what I've heard."

  The magazines were poor fuel, and Jason had to constantly feed the fire. "The last plague."

  "Yes. Wiped out all large mammals."

  "All but one," Jason said with a cynical smirk.

  They both paused a beat before Collier picked up again. "True, true. And as far as yields, the Refarmers claim to have overcome the problems of the final crops Before."

&nb
sp; "The best scientific minds couldn't do that."

  "They are planting heirloom seeds. Are you familiar with the term?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Consider the word 'heirloom.' There used to be living history farms that raised animals and grew crops in the tradition of earlier generations. Seeds and livestock from the time before genetic modification."

  "And these seeds succeed where the newer forms failed?"

  "The Arkadium's final plagues must not have taken them into account. Heirlooms were considered a novelty Before, not practical, more a teaching tool than anything. But consider a society where all firearms are taken away but muskets?"

  "I see your point. So, if this man is a salesman, I'm guessing he's recruiting farmers for these heirloom fields."

  "You're too kind. Recruit sounds like you have a choice."

  Jason stopped to ponder Collier's words, then finally said, "You said he was alone?"

  "Yes."

  "But you're talking forced labor."

  "I have no verifiable proof, but I'm guessing force doesn't come into play until after you join the Refarmers."

  "Slavery?"

  "Clearing land is one thing. Those fields were well tended not even a decade ago. They would be fairly free of rubble or anything else that might hinder a plow's blade."

  "Plows… are they using people as draft animals?"

  "I'm almost certain of it. Humans lowered to the level of beasts."

  "How come when it sounds like things are moving in the right direction, it has to be like this? It seems worse somehow than anything else. Like we'd be better off without."

  "In dire circumstances, it often takes uncivil actions to maintain the semblance of civility," Collier said, pausing. "After hearing the Refarmer's pitch, I privately brought up my reluctance to the group."

  "What did they say?"

  "Well, bluntly, that I could no longer stay with them. I was taking up too many resources without contributing my equal share. That's fine. I had a good run with them, just over a year. But now, I can't help feeling like they're cattle stepping into a meat grinder."