by Jon Cronshaw
He strokes her and pats her on the side. She yelps and recoils. “Shh, hey, hey, what is it?”
She approaches him gingerly and licks his hand. A chunk of flesh hangs torn from the top of her rear-left leg. “Damn it,” he says. “You’ll be okay.”
Removing his rucksack, he takes out the damp T-shirt and tears it into strips. “Come here, girl,” he says softly, reaching between Pip’s legs and tying the material around the wound. She sniffs at it and then pulls at it with her teeth. “No, no, leave that.”
She stares at him for a long moment and then looks along the road.
“Let’s go.”
Pip limps behind him as Abel forces his way through trees, their branches snapping back behind him, sending clouds of dust into the air. He scans the ground for food, for signs of anything moving, or anything that might be a threat. Pip stays close, occasionally yelping when she catches her back leg on something.
The trees become taller and more closely-packed. A shroud of dense branches blocks out the sun, darkening the area with hostile shadows. He kicks aside branches and vines, untangling his boots every few metres.
Pip pads off to the right and Abel watches her. She looks back at him, so he follows as she limps on ahead. Ducking beneath low branches and zigzagging between tree trunks, he stops to see Pip sniffing around the edge of a building. Its walls are made of brick and coated in yellowing paint and green moss.
He creeps around the sides and listens. He goes around the back and round to the other side. A glass window remains intact in its frame, the glazing cracked and coated in dirt and grime. He wipes away some of the dust with his sleeve. Cupping his hands around his eyes, he looks into the gloom. Light pours in from a hole in the roof.
He goes around to the front of the garage. Pip looks up at him and then sniffs along the bottom of the steel shutters.
“Hello? Is anyone in there?” Abel waits. “Shall we take a look, girl?”
Reaching down, he slides his fingers into the gap below the shutters and heaves them up. He flinches at the metallic screech as they rise, his hands instinctively sliding into his jacket to grip his hunting knife and pistol.
When the dust clears, he smiles.
A shopping trolley stands along the right-hand wall. It’s stuffed with blankets. Behind that, there’s a bedroll. The charred wood and ashes of a long burnt-out fire lie in the far right corner, spotlighted by the hole in the roof. A blue and white rowing boat, resting on a steel-framed trailer, fills up the rest of the space.
He scratches the back of his neck and shakes his head. “Good work, girl.”
Stepping over to the trailer, he picks up a harness made from ropes, rolled-up material, and nylon webbing. As his eyes adjust, he sees a large leather rucksack resting in the far corner.
He picks up the trailer's front and pulls against its locked wheel. He pushes a lever, loosening the brake, and wheels the trailer outside, its rubber tyres bouncing as it drops from the mottled concrete floor to the bare ground. He looks at the boat, the oars attached by pivots. Human bones lie scattered in the hull.
Stepping back inside the garage, he goes over to the trolley. He pulls out musty blankets, cloths, and plastic sheets. He moves a dozen tins of food and a box of matches aside, and smiles at a pile of books. He takes the books from the trolley and scans their covers. There's a book about birds and one about mediaeval history. Other books have faded titles, ruined by damp.
He replaces the books, sheets, and blankets and takes out a tin. Stepping outside, he checks the lid's rim for rust. Satisfied, he pierces it with his hunting knife and works the blade around the lid until it flips open. He sniffs inside.
“Here, girl,” he says, tipping the beans onto the ground. Pip slinks over and eats them slowly.
Abel takes out another tin and opens it — more beans. He eats them cold, his stomach too empty for him to wait for a fire. He wipes the juice from his beard when he finishes and looks around. Through the trees, he can make out the highway, less than a hundred metres away. To the east, the city's filthy waters shimmer black against the sun.
“You want to stay here, girl?” Pip looks up from her last few beans. He goes over to the trolley and takes out a blanket. He folds it and rests it in the corner next to the backpack. He pats his thigh.
With weak steps, Pip goes to the blanket, makes a circle, and then lies down. He unties the makeshift bandage wrapped around the back of her leg, picking away the dried bits of blood and pus. She yelps and then looks at the wound, her tongue passing over it in gentle, methodical sweeps.
He takes the backpack outside and adjusts its straps to fit his thinning shoulders. He empties the child's rucksack, transferring the water bottle to the new backpack. He drops the backpack into the boat. Hesitating, he looks back towards Pip. He takes the water bottle out and wanders over to the trolley. Reaching inside, he feels around until his hand grips a bowl. He takes it out, places it next to Pip’s bed, and fills it with the last of the water.
Crouching, he strokes her head. “You get some rest, girl. I'll be back real soon, I promise.”
He takes a strip of red cloth from the trolley and heads back outside, pulling the shutters down behind him, leaving enough room for Pip to get out. With aching fingers, he fastens the trailer's harness around his shoulders. He heads north through a gap in the trees until he reaches the highway.
Looking back, he sees no signs of the garage through the trees. There's no movement on the highway, no signs of the Family. Freeing himself from the harness, he climbs a nearby tree, its trunk grey and dead. He clambers up until he reaches the lowest branch and ties the material around it.
Climbing down, he picks up the harness again. The boat bounces as he drags it onto the highway. The bones rattle around inside.
Taking a moment, he looks back at the skull resting on its side. He brings the trailer to a halt and slides his arms from the harness. He wheels the trailer to the side of the road and starts to dig the soil with his bare hands.
After several minutes, he takes the bones from the boat and lays them out in the shallow pit. He stares down at the grave in silence for a long time before speaking. “I don't know who you were or what kind of life you lived, but thank you.”
He covers the bones with the soil until the pit fills. Sighing, he brushes the dirt from his hands and takes up the harness again. He pulls the trailer onto the highway and marches forward, towards the city.
21. The City
The boat bumps behind him, the oars clattering against its hull whenever the wheels bump over a piece of debris or slam into a pothole.
Within an hour, Abel reaches the floodwaters. He covers his nose with his arm. He can taste the stench. Resisting the urge to gag, to vomit, he makes his way along the water's edge towards a blast crater. He heaves the trailer inside, locks the brakes, tilts it, and drags the boat to the dirt.
He pulls the boat to the shore and watches the water as it sloshes with slow undulations against the dead soil. To the north, lines of thick black smoke curl up from somewhere within the city. “What the hell am I doing?” he mutters to himself.
Pointing the boat eastwards, he pushes it into the water and climbs in as it heads towards the distant buildings. He sits down on the plank extending between the boat’s sides, frowning when he realises the oars are in the wrong place. He reaches back with clumsy hands, but can't manipulate the oars in a useful way.
Turning to face the boat's rear, he examines the oars more closely. Taking each oar in his hands, he feels their weight, testing their circular motion. He leans back and pulls them through the water, the right oar skipping across the surface, tipping the boat as he loses his balance. “Damn it,” he says, leaning away from the water.
With a grunt, he rights the boat and tries again. This time, his arms work in unison, the oars slicing through the water and propelling him towards the ruins.
Bits of floating junk, plastic and wood scratches against the boat's side. He cranes his nec
k to see behind him, struggling to keep the boat straight.
Within ten minutes, the first buildings rise from the water like hands from the grave, their brickwork coated in slime and stained with blackness.
Around him, more buildings emerge — mostly shells with missing walls and sagging frames. He brings his boat to rest next to a building that would have once been white, now barnacled with filth, its stonework peppered with arches and flourishes, many of its windows still glazed.
He takes a rope from the front of the boat and tethers it to a drainpipe at the corner of the building. Once secure, he lifts his backpack onto a window ledge and heaves himself up inside.
Everything smells of damp and decay. A rectangular oak table dominates the room, the blood-red carpet mottled and stained with mould and age. The building creaks and clicks and groans around him. He looks back at the window as moth-eaten curtains ripple against a gust of wind. A couple of oak chairs lie on their sides. In the far right corner, a battered sofa stands flush against the wall, its brown leather cushions flat against the weight of decay.
He stares at a series of framed, faded photographs along the left-hand wall showing rows of people — faces from before, all smiles and bright eyes. Taking the picture down, he crouches with his back against the wall. He wipes the dust from the glass and looks at each face in turn. A tear rolls down his cheek.
Getting up, he places the picture back on the hook and walks around the table, reaching for the door. He tries the handle and the door squeaks open. He listens. He takes out his torch and winds the handle until its dull brown light fills the corridor.
A flight of stairs descends to his left. Leaning over the banister, he sees the floodwaters lapping against the walls below. He carries on along the corridor and takes the next door to the right.
The room is smaller than the first. A desk stands immediately to his left; behind that, a chair. A bookcase obscures the wall to his right.
He approaches the desk and takes a pair of pencils, dropping them into his backpack. He goes around to the chair and pushes it aside. He tries each drawer in turn but finds nothing of value. Sighing, he walks over to the bookcase and examines the titles — books on management, branding, and marketing — all useless.
Returning to the corridor, he takes the next door to the right and finds the room is a mirror-image of the previous one — desk on the right and bookcase to the left.
He examines the books first. Most of the shelves stand empty. A few loose sheets of paper lie here and there. He goes over to the desk and examines a telephone. He turns it in his hand, squinting. He yanks out the pigtail cord and drops it into his backpack. He opens the top drawer and sees a packet of cigarettes, still sealed in cellophane, and pockets it in his jacket. The other drawers lie empty.
Returning to the first room, he climbs down from the window and into the boat. Reaching into his jacket, he takes out a wax crayon and makes a blue cross on the window ledge before unfastening the tether and pushing out onto the water.
He moves deeper into the city as buildings loom around him, some of the structures evident only by the tips of their rooftops poking through the water’s surface. Others tower above in flat planes of concrete, their windows uniform squares.
He brings the boat to a halt next to another ornate building. Gargoyles leer down from the rooftop, monstrous figures keeping watch over the dead waters. He tethers the boat to a flagpole jutting at an angle from the wall. Without hesitating, he tosses his backpack through the window above and pulls himself inside.
Eyes adjusting, he starts at the sight of a stuffed bear, eight-feet tall with black fur, bared teeth, and raised claws. A hodgepodge of taxidermy animals and specimens in cases clutter the room. A green shaded lamp rests on its side, its bulb shattered against the surface of a mahogany desk. A stuffed tiger stands frozen, mid-prowl. A barn owl perches still on a shelf above, its creamy face framed by a light-brown heart. He steps over a fallen chair and takes the owl from the shelf. He looks into its dead eyes and carries it over to the window.
Books about animals line a series of shelves along the left-hand wall. He takes down a book identifying hundreds of insects — most of them now extinct — and scans along the shelves for other useful titles. Retrieving other books, he flicks through their pages, but finds them too technical for him to trade.
He goes over to the desk and rights the lamp. He opens a drawer and looks inside. There's a pair of eyeglasses and some pencils which he drops into his backpack. In the drawer to the right, there's a scalpel and a magnifying glass. He takes them and moves back to the window. He opens the book about insects, slides the scalpel inside, and drops it into his backpack. He climbs outside and back onto the boat, taking the owl and placing it beneath his seat.
Unfastening the boat from the flagpole, he pushes away from the wall with his feet. He turns the boat around and heads back towards the shore.
He watches the city shrink away from him as he rows, his back and arms aching with the strain. He looks to his left across the water, the smoke still rising from the buildings to the north.
The sun hangs low behind him when Abel drags the boat to shore. He pulls it along for a few hundred metres until he finds the crater. His stomach groans with hunger as he drags the boat onto the steel frame, securing it in place before taking up the harness.
He moves along the highway, straining as he pulls the boat behind him, the road sloping upwards ahead.
After a while, he spots the piece of red material hanging limp from the branch of a dead pine. He makes a left and staggers through the trees, his legs sore and shoulders stiff.
It's quiet when he reaches the garage. The sunset hides behind the trees to the west. When he raises the shutters, Pip jumps to her feet and shakes, padding to him with a sleepy face. He slides out of the harness and strokes her. She stretches and then yelps at the pain in her back leg. “How are you doing, girl? You been asleep?”
He wheels the boat into the garage and goes back outside to gather wood. Pip follows him, keeping close to his side. When he’s collected enough branches, he returns to the garage and sets out a fire beneath the hole in the roof in the right-hand corner.
He takes a tin from the trolley and opens it with his knife. Sniffing inside, a sugary sweetness greets him. Chunks of pineapple float in syrup. He scoops some out and offers them to Pip. She smells them for a few seconds and then takes them from his hand. He smiles at the taste, savouring the sweetness on his tongue as he chews.
When he finishes the fruit, he drinks the syrup and burps, grinning.
Pip doesn't stir from her sleep when Abel closes the garage for the night. The flames cast dancing shadows along the walls as he crawls in to his bedroll. He stares up at the ceiling for a long time, smiling as he drifts off to sleep.
22. Moonshine
It's late afternoon when Abel reaches Town. Pip pants heavily when they catch sight of Second Bob sitting cross-legged on the ground, poking a maggot-ridden squirrel with a stick. “Hey, mister,” he says, looking up. “You shouldn't be here with no dog.”
“I was here before, with the wizard. Do you not remember?”
Second Bob jumps to his feet and regards Abel with wild eyes, tilting his head with frantic jerks. “You with the wizard that time?”
“That's right. I’ve got something Big Ned will like.” Abel gestures to the stuffed owl cradled under his left arm.
Second Bob frowns. “It dead, mister.”
Abel rubs the back of his neck and looks past Second Bob at the other residents moving cautiously towards him.
“That one big bird you got there,” a voice says from the crowd.
“That's right. It's an owl.” His free hand twitches near the handle of his pistol.
The residents look around with confused expressions, whispering to each other.
“I brought it here for Big Ned. Is he around?”
“Where your wizard friend, mister?” Second Bobs asks.
“I've n
ot seen him. Has he been by?”
“Pa!” Second Bob calls out, looking back over his shoulder. “Pa! The dog man back. He got a critter.”
The residents turn in unison as Big Ned emerges from his shack, pushing aside a sheet of flapping blue polythene. “Why you back?” he asks, spit flying from his mouth.
Abel looks down at the bird. “I've brought you an owl. I was hoping we could trade.”
Big Ned squints and stares at the bird. “I don't know about no owl.” He clears his throat and grunts. “I like your critter. We trade?”
Abel looks between the owl and Big Ned and smiles. “Sounds good.”
“Pa, the dog man was asking about that wizard. We seen him?”
Big Ned eyes him up and down then offers a toothy grin. “Yeah, I see the wizard.”
“Oh, right. What did he say?”
“He say about pond critter. You was there. You help him.”
Abel frowns. “So, you've not seen him since?”
Big Ned shakes his head and looks down at his filth-encrusted hands. “He do real magic.”
“Yep.”
“I know he got Mister Fluffy to live. He got magic. He got our boys back.”
Abel smiles and looks around at the faces — all of them virtually identical. “The kids from the Family?”
Big Ned nods. “Our boys. They say Mister Fluffy save them.”
“Yep. That's right. I was there. We didn't manage to save all of them.”
“You save ours,” Big Ned says, meeting Abel's gaze, grinning.
“I just wish we could have done more,” Abel says.
He flinches when Big Ned slaps him hard on the shoulder. Pip's tail stands erect and Big Ned laughs. “You get our boys. We give you hootenanny.”
“A hooter-what?” Abel asks, his voice drowned out by the sound of cheers and whoops.