Lonely Out in Space: A Collection of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Short Stories

by M. R. Holman

deserted Grand Canyon and the deserted Rocky Mountains; deserted Las Vegas and the deserted Golden Gate Bridge - nothing between these former glories of nature and human engineering but the occasional lunatic, vast fields full of formerly domesticated crops turning wild, and exotic and domestic animals living in unchecked chaos.

  His time had been spent almost entirely by himself in the four years since his mother had passed away. He saw other people occasionally, but most of them were best when avoided. Traveler would roll the dice, so to speak, every once in a while and chance an encounter with another person. An acute understanding of body language from a distance was a necessity for survival. Violence and deceit were the order of the day for the majority of the people that were left.

  Villages had formed here and there. Entire cities too, Traveler had been told. He had never seen one though and he preferred to avoid the villages. The only person he felt he could really trust anymore was himself. When he did come in contact with a Survivor, the encounter was usually nothing more than an exchange of the Survivors’ motto: “Stay above ground.”

  Some took the motto literally. There were rumors of evil cults that inhabited the sewers of metropolitan areas. Traveler interpreted the motto in a figurative sense, a playful way of saying “Stay alive in this hell-hole as long as possible.”

  Traveler had hoped to put more distance between himself and these giraffes which, in his opinion, had no business running wild in this part of the world, but there were only a few minutes of sunlight remaining and his dirt bike did not have a headlight. He was annoyed that he had to stop here but there was no time to feel bad for himself. If he was going to be stuck in this cotton field with these giraffes and who-knows-what-else he would need to spend the remaining moments of precious sunlight to start a fire.

  He put the kickstand of his dirt bike down and lifted his leg over the bike as he surveyed his surroundings. The three giraffes were at the nearest cluster of trees. Although giraffes were generally peaceful creatures, Traveler decided to give them a wide berth. Even from where he was standing he could see the massive muscles in the legs of the tall beasts. They could dent his skull as easily as they could swat a fly.

  The exotic animals had quickly grown in numbers since they had been released from the zoos following the Great Infection. Several decades of unchecked reproduction in an area where there were no natural predators and slow ill-suited prey had resulted in a boom of lions, tigers, and all manner of other creature that did not originally call the area home.

  Traveler let the strap of his bolt action rifle slip off his shoulder and he leaned the gun against his bike. He resolved to leave the shotgun too. He would not be able to carry it as well as the firewood and he had a pistol on his belt if he should need it. After a brisk walk to and from the trees, Traveler returned with an armful of sticks and some decently sized logs. He thought that the giraffes were now aware that they were sharing the cotton field with him but they did not seem to be alarmed and he did not encounter any other animals. He was grateful of that.

  He arranged the smaller sticks he had gathered into a pyramid-like shape over the larger logs. He had intentionally neglected gathering kindling as he had so much of it in his backpack. He unzipped the backpack and several hundred thousand dollars in crisp, wrapped, one hundred dollar bills tumbled to the ground. The twilight was quickly fading into total darkness as Traveler stuffed a small fortune into the gaps between the sticks and struck his next to last match, touching it to the corner of one of the hundred dollar bills. He smiled for the first time in days as he watched the flames spread from bill to bill, stick to stick and finally to the logs which would keep him warm through the night.

  Darkness had completely fallen on the scene by the time that Traveler was reaching into his backpack again, this time shuffling stacks of money out of his way to retrieve a can of baked beans. He examined the can by the firelight and discovered that the beans’ expiration date had passed. This was not too alarming though. Most canned goods were either past or reaching the ends of their shelf life but at this point they were still safe enough to stomach.

  Traveler pulled his knife from the sheath on his belt and jabbed a slit into the top of the can and placed it by the fire. He leaned against the dirt bike, resting his back and neck against the warm machine. It felt great to relax his exhausted body, but Traveler could not extricate the horrifying events that had occurred that day from his mind. As he stared into the fire, waiting for his expired beans to be warm enough to be palatable, he sunk into the fresh memory and relived the most stressful day of his life.

  Today had been a hellish reminder of the world that Traveler now lived in. It had started normal enough- or as normal as days could be now. He had awoken in an abandoned house by the highway on the outskirts of a town in what he thought was Arkansas. It had yielded shelter and the comfort of a bed as well as a few bottles of water that had been stowed in the corner of a cupboard. The shelves were devoid of canned food. Someone else must have cleaned it out at some point before he had arrived.

  Traveler resigned himself to packing the water bottles into his backpack along with the bag of beef jerky he had been eeking out a pitiful existence on for the last few days before making his way to the living room. He had pushed his dirt bike inside and it was parked in front of the silent, blank television. He had found the dirt bike the previous day and had been ecstatic to find that it both had gasoline, and would start.

  He had a rifle and a shotgun slung over each of his shoulders and each gun banged into the back of his knees as he approached the front door of the house and opened it. He returned to the dirt bike and pushed it outside into a hot and cloudless day. The sun was at its highest point in the sky by the time Traveler reached the edge of town. He dismounted from his dirt bike and leaned it up against the side of a small brick building. He would search the town on foot.

  Traveler had high hopes of finding more clean water and maybe even some food hidden away in this little town. Whether it be canned food or live game, Traveler didn’t care at this point, but he usually preferred the instant satisfaction and ease of transport of canned food. Canned food was getting harder and harder to find but hunting was easy enough though. The wildlife was thriving even though the human life was not.

  Other humans were becoming an increasingly rare sight. This had not always been the case, but a short era of hard living had eliminated many. Those that were left were the strongest, smartest, and most cunning. That's not to say that all that were left were bad or inherently evil, but one had to wonder why they were still alive, and what they might have had to do to survive…

  It was this consideration that stopped Traveler in his tracks and sent adrenaline coursing through his body as he spotted a group of people in the distance. He did not have to wonder about the nature of their survival in this harsh excuse for a civilization. When he saw what accompanied the group his heart nearly stopped. At first he had thought, and even hoped, that four enormous dogs were with the four people roughly a hundred yards away. There was something off about them though. Their movements were different. It took Traveler a moment to place that the movements of the animals were catlike.

  Down the road from where Traveler stood were three women and one man, each holding one of three lionesses or a lion by heavy chains around their necks. He had a feeling that this encounter may be more sinister than an exchange of the motto, “Stay above ground.”

  Although Traveler and the eclectic group of man and beast were separated by a fairly significant distance, he assumed that the beasts could be upon him in moments if their masters should encourage them too. He had a feeling it would not take much encouragement either. As though this thought had drifted from his mind to those of the gang and their beastly cohorts, they looked in his direction for the first time.

  Traveler was unsure how long they stood there idle, assessing the situation, but after a few moments his mind began working so fast that his thoughts seemed to be tripping over each other…<
br />
   He whispered aloud as he thought, “There are four bullets in the rifle, three shells in the shotgun, and ten rounds in the pistol. I think that’s right? Is there only three in the rifle? Oh, Lord… So that would make fifteen shots overall and I would have to switch between the-,”

  His train of thought was derailed as four chains fell to the road and a pride of lions began bounding toward him. It took him a moment to react, but somehow through the waves of shock Traveler turned on his heels and began to run. In his panic he did not even consider shooting. His only thought was of shelter because he knew he would never be able to outrun these animals.

  He wove from the middle of the street to the sidewalk and, chancing a glance over his shoulder, was astonished to see how much ground the female lions had covered. The male was following closely behind them. Having less time than he anticipated he lunged for the first door that he came to, hoping with all that was in him that it would be unlocked. It was.

  Traveler flung himself inside, slammed the door, and spun the lock over the door’s handle. A bell over the door rang wildly from the force of him slamming it. Once inside, Traveler realized what a