No Man's Dominion and Other Post-Apocalyptic Tales

by Glen Krisch

  "Jason!" someone shouted over the chaotic rush of water.

  He turned at the sound, and was shocked to see Marcus leaning from the window of a jacked up truck with monster wheels. The water hadn't yet touched it's belly. He was urgently waving him over.

  "It's not too late! Come with me and I'll save you!"

  "Go to hell, Marcus. You'll be happy there."

  Jason didn't know how high the water would get, and hoped he would luck out to get high enough in this house. He turned and left Marcus waiting in the street.

  An avalanche of water crashed into his back, throwing him inside. He nearly fell to his knees, but somehow caught himself, just in time to see the people who lived there. The water was spilling over them, over their faces, covering them. Burying them. A married couple and a little girl. Face down. Hogtied with rope and gagged with duct tape. Their pleading eyes their only cry for help as they struggled against the onslaught of water.

  He lifted the woman's face above the water. When he freed her mouth of tape, she choked out a mouthful of water, then screamed, "My daughter, Julie! Where's Julie? Julie!"

  The water was to Jason's waist and still rising. Even with adrenaline pulsing through his system, the cold water was quickly sapping his energy. He looked around the ruined living room. Seeing a family portrait on the wall next to the T.V., the little girl's blue eyes… the mother's tanned, smiling face… the husband's eyebrows perked up, on the verge of laughter. Nothing more. Nothing living. The woman slipped from Jason's grasp as a huge wave pushed into the house. The husband was no longer visible. The girl's white shirt bobbed near the surface of the dirty waves, for only a moment, then was gone.

  Jason felt someone pull hard on his shoulder, just as the water reached his armpits. His blood felt as thick as maple syrup, and his thoughts had started to cloud. He turned, seeing Marcus's frantic face. "Come on! Get moving!" His younger brother manhandled him to the stairs. As they climbed, the going became easier as they rose from the water. "Look what you made me do!" Marcus slapped Jason in the back of the head, as if a mosquito had perched there, ready to drain his blood. He pushed him forward into a bedroom. Flowery pink wallpaper… stuffed animals… water spilling across the carpet as it breached the second floor…

  "Let's go, over there, out the window."

  Jason noted Marcus's still-confident smile as they reached the roof. He was shivering uncontrollably now, and his thoughts were just as jumbled. And then he felt the blunt impact against his skull, and the world was spinning, the shingles slick beneath his feet from his dripping clothes, and then he was falling, and it felt like the roof was rising up to meet him. Bringing with it the black void of unconsciousness.

  He must have fallen asleep, because when he woke his skin was tight with sunburn. Blisters bubbled painfully along his lips. He supposed that even on a chilly November day, someone would burn after hours sprawled on a black roof. His head still hurt. He wouldn't be surprised if Marcus had given him a concussion. So, he'd survived the night. Great. Survived for what purpose?

  He stood up, much more easily than his attempts last night, and while his head throbbed, he was steadier on his feet. The air smelled of dead fish and decaying vegetation. His sour stomach grumbled in hunger. He had to do something. He couldn't just stay up here hiding away above a destroyed town.

  He looked over the edge of the guttered roof. The water had receded during his sleep, leaving mud-stained walls two stories high. Debris littered the muddy ground, mostly unrecognizable junk from his vantage point. Debris that had been cherished possessions not that long ago. But at least the water was gone. He needed to get some food, and find a working phone. He had to call emergency services.

  The sun had baked the mud clinging to his clothes, and it crumbled away as he reentered the house. The dead girl's bedroom. He'd nearly forgotten about the family. Then remembered the welcome sign he saw as he entered town. Population 1573. He wondered how many people had survived. The carpeted stairs already smelled musty, on the verge of mold. He covered his nose with his hand to block out the stench as he reached the ground floor. Ankle-deep sludge slowed his strides, and speed was all he wanted after seeing three bloated, hogtied corpses piled in the corner of the living room. He didn't want to think about how he'd failed to save them, how he had barely made an effort at all. Not now. He stumbled his way through the mud, trying not to see their reproachful, yet vacant, eyes.

  Once outside, he leaned over to catch his breath. After a few moments of fighting off his nausea, he felt somewhat confident he wouldn't vomit up whatever was in his empty stomach.

  When he looked up, he saw four people gathered on a porch across the street. They were standing around Marcus, who sat in a salvaged dining room chair.

  Jason walked across the street, without fear of what he might do to him. Marcus wouldn't hurt him. After all, his brother had saved him by bringing him to the roof.

  "You're going to be put away for a long time for this. You're going to fry. You killed a town."

  "Pretty much without a hitch. Well, except for your meddling."

  "All of that water… the Concord River never held so much water," Jason said, observing the mud lines of the nearest house.

  "It did before man's interference. Hundreds of years ago. Dams upon dams for a thousand miles have enslaved these waters, and we freed them."

  "You won't get away with this."

  "Oh, but I already have. This flood is just a minor 'zone of activity' in a larger theater of reclamation. There are ten thousand 'activity zones' around the world; fires engulfing whole cities, explosions ripping asunder transportation networks, utilities, power stations, floods like our very own washing away the filth of humanity. Every one of them synchronized to simultaneously destroy modern man's stranglehold on nature."

  "You're crazy, Marcus. You know that don't you?" He wanted to shake him, shake him until the fillings dislodged from his teeth. He knew his brother was crazy, there was no doubt at this point. He didn't want to believe what he said about the rest of the world.

  But what if he was right? What if this was just one scene of a far-reaching destruction? Even in madness he could be telling the truth.

  "In the right light, any weakness can be perceived as strength." A woman kneeled at his brother's feet and removed his muddied sneakers. She replaced them with crude leather sandals.

  "You're no different than the society you've always riled against."

  "I am human. But I am also beast. Hunter. Nomad. By acknowledging the frailty of my human character I can also distance the guilt." Marcus pulled off his poly/cotton blended shirt and tossed it aside. The woman handed him a coarse brown tunic.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Putting on a new shirt."

  "That's not what I meant."

  "If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out…"

  "You're a terrorist, Marcus. A murderer. No god would accept you at his side."

  Marcus stood up, waving off the security of his followers. "I prefer the term, liberator," he said, placing a hand on Jason's shoulder, guiding him. They left the yard, walking down the ruined street of this once idyllic neighborhood. "Look at this new fertile plain," Marcus said, waving his arm in front of him. "We will build sod huts and forage. We will stalk game and grouse in the soil for roots and rushes. We will farm in our new agrarian society, simply… we will live as intended…" he whispered into his ear, his voice strong with his beliefs. With his insanity.

  "At any moment, marines will storm the valley to take you down."

  "Our movement is worldwide, Jason. The Founders were the military. They began laying the groundwork after discovering the horrors of Auschwitz, after seeing the bodies piled like logs in a clear-cut forest. At first, they foolishly believed they could build a time machine, but they soon learned they needed to be more practical. If they couldn't go back in time and make things right, then they would focus on resetting the societal clock a bit. To set it back ten thousand years. Our movement
was born of the military. Our numbers include snipermen honing their skills on weapons made of sinew and sapling. We also have battlefield doctors—now homeopaths steeped in the knowledge of poultices, herbal remedies and faith healing. We have a multitude of artisans practicing long-forgotten survival skills. Some have practiced for decades in silence for the coming of this Election Day.

  "It's time to start anew. You can stay here and survive with us, or you can venture into the ruins of the old world."

  "But all of those people… they're dead, Marcus. You can't change that," Jason said. As they walked, he took in the destruction a little bit at a time. Seeing everything all at once would be too much. He was observing a second floor window a block from where they started walking. The high water mud lines hadn't reached the second floor in this section of block.

  He saw movement inside the house.

  "So today they enjoy martyrdom. Tomorrow, I assure you, they will be forgotten. There will be no more written word. Oral tradition will rise from the ashes of our former media."

  Jason stopped in his tracks. If what Marcus was saying was true, then there was no place for him in this world. He realized how obsolete he had instantly become.

  He looked to the window where he'd seen the movement, and resigned himself to the fact that it was probably just an optical illusion. Sun dancing on the glass, probably. But soon enough, the boy he had left to climb the tree appeared in the window. His face was muddied, and even from street level, Jason could see bags under his eyes. But he was alive. He caught sight of Jason and jumped from view. Seeing him holding down a civil conversation with the man who destroyed this town, the man who killed his parents, Jason couldn't blame him.

  "What's done is done. There's no turning back. You can't worry about the past. If you do anything other than think about the source of your next meal or where to find shelter, you will die. Stand with me, brother. The ties between us have been strained for far too long."

  "Let me ask you a question."

  "Certainly. I'm sure your journalist's curiosity is running rampant."

  "Oh, it is, believe me. Would you let me walk away, Marcus? Would you let me venture out to the ruined world?"

  "If that is what you want, then I suppose I would have to let you go. But you would die within a week, I guarantee you."

  "Okay, Marcus. I will fall in behind you. Just teach me." Even if Marcus was mad and the rest of the world was unharmed, he knew it would be unwise to cross his brother at this point, no matter what he said to the contrary. He glanced one more time at the empty window, wondering if the boy would be able to survive on his own.

  Turning back to his younger brother, Jason had an unsettling feeling twisting in his empty stomach. For the first time in his life, he felt diminutive in comparison. Naïve. Vulnerable.

  At some point, he would try to turn the tables on him. But for now, he needed to find out the extent of the calamity, and in the worst case scenario, how to survive in its wake. Perhaps along the way he could find out a way to regain the boy's trust. A good start would be learning his name.

  Marcus turned to Jason. He smiled. "I'm glad to hear you say that. I hoped you wouldn't have to join all the rest."

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  Books by Glen Krisch

  Novels:

  The Nightmare Within

  Where Darkness Dwells

  Nothing Lasting

  Arkadium Rising: Brother’s Keeper, Book One

  The Vigil (coming soon)

  2-in-1 Novels:

  Twice as Dark, Two Novels of Horror

  (omnibus containing Where Darkness Dwells and The Nightmare Within)

  Novellas:

  Loss, a paranormal thriller

  The Hollowed Land, a Brother’s Keeper novella

  Collections:

  Commitment and Other Tales of Madness

  No Man's Dominion

  Filth Eater

  The Devil's Torment

  Through the Eyes of Strays (out of print)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Glen Krisch's novels include The Nightmare Within, Where Darkness Dwells, Nothing Lasting, and Arkadium Rising (Brother's Keeper Book One). His short fiction has appeared in publications across three continents for the last decade.

  Besides writing and reading, he enjoys spending time with his wife, romance author Sarah Krisch, his three boys, simple living, and ultra-running.

  He enjoys talking to his readers. Feel free to stop by his website to see what he's up to:

  www.glenkrisch.wordpress.com

  http://www.facebook.com/glen.krisch

  Story Notes

  Gleaners

  Story ideas rarely descend from the nebulous perch where my muse resides to settle upon my fingertips as if by the grace of angels' wings. Sometimes ideas will knock me over the head when I find myself thrust into a life or death situation. Case in point: Gleaners.

  A number of years ago a good ol' fashioned blizzard blasted through our weary expanse of Illinois, dumping fourteen inches of snow on us overnight. Being the knucklehead that I am, what did I decide to do when I woke the following morning? If you know me at all, you probably guessed right. Yeah, I decided to go for a run. Nothing gets my running juices flowing like running in some kind of weird weather anomaly. Heat waves, violent rainstorms, blizzards… I've pretty much plunged headlong into just about every extreme weather condition possible. Why do I do that to myself? Heck if I know. It would probably take a long recursive bit of self-psychoanalysis to get to the root of it, but that's not why you're reading this.

  So let's just get back to the story, shall we?

  Anyway, as I trudged along during the third mile of desolate snowscape—keeping to the wheel ruts cut through the snow by 4-wheel drive vehicles—I entered a long secluded stretch of road that bisects the mostly abandoned industrial part of town. Even though I was in fairly good running shape, I was wheezing with the effort of simply maintaining forward movement and struggling through a vicious side-stitch. This would've been tough going no matter what shape I was in. So, I was in agony, but having a blast. Yeah, I'm weird like that.

  I was mostly just focusing on where to plant my next stride when I noticed movement from the corner of my eye. When I looked up, I saw two massive dogs, one a pitbull, one a larger mixed breed just as intimidating, charging at me, their jaws trailing gobs of slobber, their breath crystallizing in violent clouds. I looked around me, but I was surrounded by boarded up industrial buildings with chain-link fencing walling off any gap between. It was almost literally what I described in the story:

  "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."

  Despite my already acid-laden legs and searing lungs, I sprinted, sprinted as if my life depended on it. It very well could have, but I never found out what would've happened if those dogs had run me down. After about three blocks the beasts broke away in search of an easier target.

  I practically stumbled the rest of the way home, realizing I'd outsprinted animals who'd thought I might be easy prey. But the story idea was already forming. What would I have done? If I were forced to choose, could I sacrifice one limb to save the rest of me?

  The story started to take shape, and by the midway part of the first draft, I realized I was writing about Jason from "A Prodigal Apocalypse", a short story I had recently finished. I liked the story after the first draft, but I realized it would be more realistic if there was one dog, not two. In retrospect, it's kind of funny that I thought it would be more realistic if it was less like what really happened.

  After pruning away the extraneous poo
ch, and after a few rounds of spit polish, I sent the story out. A story's journey to publication is rarely memorable, so I will cut to the chase and merely say that "Gleaners" was eventually bought by the South African magazine, Something Wicked.

  Click here for next story

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  Sudden Sanctuary

  Sometimes a story idea develops based on a simple What If question. For "Sudden Sanctuary" the What If was, "What if an agoraphobe survives the apocalypse?"

  The question made me wonder about our modern way of communicating, or rather, our lack of real, honest, face-to-face communication. In the story, the main character, Claudia, lives in an isolated, yet comfortable, existence. She hasn't left her apartment in months when the world ends. When marauders close in on her apartment, forcing her to leave her relative comfort, she admits:

  "I haven't left my apartment in... I don't know how long. Months... maybe eight months?"

  (The innocent neighbor boy, Renny replies):

  "Geez, how did you eat?"

  "Delivery."

  "What about the movies?"

  "I have cable."

  "What about a job?"

  "I have a computer with Wi-Fi."

  "Family?"

  She was about to blurt out, I have a webcam, but knew how lame that would sound. She only shrugged and took a deep, steadying breath.

  I will freely admit to having agoraphobic tendencies myself. If not forced to leave the house, I usually won't. I can relate to Claudia, to some degree, and I'm guessing, in our often isolated existences, so can many other people. I was a stay-at-home dad for about five years, starting when our oldest son was just a baby. We also only owned one car at the time. I would rarely leave the house, sometimes for just a weekly trip to the market after my wife got home from work. And if I didn't pay attention to this fact, weeks (or months) would slip by. I'm aware of this tendency now, so I work to avoid it.