Tails of the Apocalypse (2 page)

The authors hail from around the world, including the U.S., England (by way of Sweden), Canada, and the Philippines, and the animal protagonists in these tales are as varied as their creators. Some of the stories made me reach for the Kleenex box; others had me punching my fist in the air shouting, “Go! Go! Go!” All kept me engrossed and hungry for more. Not an easy feat across an anthology-length work centered upon a common theme.

Parrots, bats, budgies, wolves, bears, dogs, cats, and more—a variety of cultures from the past, present, and, based on these stories, future—can be found here. The authors acknowledge and celebrate the unique bond between humans and their animal companions, regardless of setting, time, or dystopian circumstance. Sometimes these relationships are about mutual preservation, but often there is more at stake for both human and creature than simple survival. That’s what resonates the loudest for me as a reader—not only the creativity and diversity of the situations our heroes find themselves in, but the underlying emotional intensity of the animal-human bond that these authors have brought out in so many unique ways.

David Adams, Todd Barselow, Stefan Bolz, David Bruns, Michael Bunker, Nick Cole, Jennifer Ellis, Harlow C. Fallon, Hank Garner, E. E. Giorgi, Deirdre Gould, Chris Pourteau, Edward W. Robertson, and Steven Savile have crafted stories about wolves who save humans, dogs who empower their owners to live up to their potential, a bear who gives a human the will to live—and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. These are stories of protection, sacrifice, empowerment, and, most of all, hope in times and places that need hope more than anything else.

These are stories that will have you hugging your own pet or going out of your way to help an animal if you are pet-less. They’ll make you reimagine the future and become more aware that the worst of times can bring out the best in us and our most special of partners in life.

A little over a year ago, I discovered such a partner myself in a feral cat, with whom I’ve since developed a symbiotic relationship that suits us both. Because my husband is very allergic to animals, it’d been years since I’d had a pet around. But when he was away for a few months on business, I happened to notice a pure-white cat who’d often sleep in a patch of sunlight in our backyard. I’d noticed her around the neighborhood for a few years but always assumed she was someone else’s cat. This particular year, though, she spent almost every day in our yard—the only dog- or cat-free zone in the extended neighborhood. She looked very thin, so I started setting some dry cat food out for her. It took days for her to come up on the back porch, and she’d only do so if I wasn’t around. It took six months for her to come onto the porch with the door partially open and a few more months after that before she’d step inside to eat. (I think the winter weather helped her with that decision.) Yet, the first time she curled up in my lap, feeling safe enough that I wouldn’t hurt her, I knew we’d both won. Trust, perseverance, connection—these are the gifts we give one another, and they’re what you’ll find in this collection’s stories.

But you don’t have to believe me. See for yourself. Then share what you’ve felt with others after reading these tales, and they too can experience the touching stories contained in this wonderful anthology.

Mary Buckham is the
USA Today
bestselling author of the Writing Active series for writers, which includes
Writing Active Setting
and
Writing Active Hooks
. She’s also the co-author of
Break into Fiction: 11 Steps to Building a Powerful Story
. She doesn’t just teach writers though; she practices what she preaches, writing Urban Fantasy with attitude. Love romance, danger, and kick-ass heroines? Find it in her
Alex Noziak
or
Kelly McAllister
series. And follow her at
http://www.marybuckham.com/
.

A Finder without the Gift is nothing
—less than nothing. A freeloading, water-consuming drain on their clan.

I lost my Gift a long time ago. But no one knows that because a friend entered my life at exactly the moment I needed him the most.

He whined softly on the floor next to me. I knelt down and stroked those long, velvety ears. How many times had I petted that heavy head, held that jowly face, pulled on those wonderful ears? Eighteen years was a long time for man or dog these days, and we both showed our age. His muzzle, once jet black, was snowy with the passing of time. My shaggy hair was mostly gray now and much thinner than when he found me.

“What is it, boy?” I whispered to him. “Do you need to go out?”

Shadow thumped his tail.

I gathered him in my arms. In his prime, Shadow had weighed more than fifty pounds; he was barely half that now, a collection of bones and flaccid muscles under a bag of loose hide. He let out a little wheeze when I hoisted him up and I felt a warm wetness run down my arm. Shadow closed his eyes with shame.

“It’s okay, buddy.” I kissed him softly on the side of his face.

The chill of the desert air invaded my robe as I squatted down to let Shadow toddle around the yard. His back bowed in the middle, and he walked with stiff legs on a slow circuit around the perimeter of our small enclosure. I bit my lip in joyful sadness when I saw my friend lower his nose to the ground and start sniffing. Always searching for the next Find. His tail wagged slowly as he breathed in the scents of the morning earth.

As long as he could still sniff like that, I wasn’t going anywhere. My escape plan was set, but I was staying right here until my friend passed on to the next life, or wherever we go when we die. Yes, I was risking everything by staying, but after a lifetime of faithful service—a lifetime of keeping me from being sold to the slavers—I owed him that much.

“You should put a collar on that dog.” Dimah’s voice was husky with sleep. She pressed herself against my back and slipped a hand into my robe. Her fingers were cold against my skin and I shivered.

“Never. Collars are for animals.”

I could feel her face pouting against my shoulder blade. “He’s a dog,” she said.

“He’s my friend.” I pulled her hand out of my robe, and tightened the tie around my waist. Maybe I was a bit short with her, but this was not the first time we’d had this conversation.

“I don’t understand, Polluk.”

In truth, that was the crux of the problem: she really didn’t understand. For her and the rest of the clans, if you wore a collar you were one of two things: a slave or a meal—sometimes you were both. The day that Shadow saved my life, I took off his collar and vowed I would never put it back on him again. I’d kept that promise.

I took Dimah’s hands in mine and faced her. “My little raincloud.” I used my most intimate Finder voice when I spoke her pet name. “It’s a complicated matter for Finders.” That was the go-to answer for anything a Finder didn’t want to talk about. No one wanted to mess with the clan’s water source, so most of the time that little deflection worked with small groups of people. Used in a one-on-one setting, it was hit or miss. On Dimah, my lover for nearly two years, my success rate for the strategy was one in ten.

She adjusted her robe in a way that let me know she was naked underneath. “You love that dog more than you love me.” She turned, swinging her hips as she made her way back into the tent. “I’m going back to bed.”

Shadow, his tour of the perimeter completed, snuffled at my knee. I dropped down to put my arm around him. “She’s right,” I whispered into the ears that hung down like velvet. “I do love you more.”

When I say Shadow entered my life at exactly the right time, I mean
exactly
. My Gift began to fail me before I was thirty years old. When we were in training, we were told that the Gift was like a switch, and it was either on or off. My experience was that the Gift was more like a muscle, something that peaked in performance and then declined with age.

When I was in my prime, I was the best Water Finder anywhere in the known world. But being the best Finder is not just about finding pockets of moisture under the dirt; it’s about showmanship. You have to inject a little tension into the performance, make them think that you might not find anything this time. Make them think that they might have to move camp again.

They never really taught us that in training. The course of instruction at the Finder’s Temple was hocus-pocus bullshit about respecting the Gift, giving thanks to the Great Ocean in the sky, and reading the texts about the Great Water Hold, a cache of water so large it could re-green the whole world.

They showed us pictures—color pictures—of ordinary people jumping into open pools of water. Of water sloshing onto rocks and nobody there to lap it up. The pictures were printed on ancient, flimsy paper that crinkled when you held it, not like the hides or thick pages of pressed fiber we write on these days.

As boys, we Finders-in-training soaked up the Water Scriptures and the religious instruction. After all, we were going out to save the world, to bring life to the clans.

All that idealism ended when we did our first apprenticeship. The Finders—the best ones, anyway—were really just con men with a side order of talent. They knew how to put on the kind of show that made the clans pay top price for their services: the best food, the best tent, the best companions to satisfy whatever nighttime needs they had.

My first master was Ghadir, a matronly woman who liked to hint to the clan leaders that the source of her Gift was her enormous breasts. She usually dropped that piece of information as she leaned forward to pick something up, giving Mr. Clan Leader an eyeful of milky-white cleavage. Although the clans were pretty evenly split between male and female leaders, when I was with Ghadir, we never played once in a matriarchal clan.

“Forget what they told you in training, kid,” Ghadir said in a rare moment of honesty. “Find your shtick and make it work for you. They’ve got to love you or you won’t be successful in this business.”

“Shtick? I don’t understand.” I was twelve.

Ghadir hefted her boobs in front of my face. I blushed and turned away. She grabbed my chin, twisting my head back to face her. “Look at me when I talk to you, kid. They don’t remember me, they remember these.” She squished her breasts together. “This is my thing, my shtick. I know one guy who does animal noises, another who only searches for water by walking on his hands. That’s their thing. I don’t even know their names anymore, I only know what they do.”

She patted my cheek. “Find your shtick, kid. People with shtick get paid.”

I stayed with Ghadir for two years, two good years. I was a decent Finder in a technical sense—better than average at finding water, actually—but I had no showmanship. There was nothing to set me apart from the other Finders. Not that I didn’t try. I juggled, I sang, I did cartwheels in the dirt, but nothing worked. I got polite clapping and a few smiles, but I always needed Ghadir to come in to close the deal with the clan leaders.

My shtick found me when a small dog wandered into one of my shows. He was nothing but a pup, maybe twelve weeks old and small for his age. I found out later that the only reason Shadow hadn’t been slaughtered yet was that he was the runt of the litter and the butcher wanted to put a few more pounds on him before the dog went under the knife.

When a Finder visits a clan, it’s a big event, probably the most excitement the clan has seen in months. Usually the clan leaders give their people the afternoon off so they can see the show, and the day Shadow found me was no exception. Most of the clans arranged their tents such that there was a clear oval in the center of the village. That’s where we performed. This time there was a decent-sized crowd of maybe a hundred people or so. Ghadir had done the scouting, and they’d been without a Finder for months. Water was beyond scarce; they needed a new Finder now.

“You close this deal, kid,” Ghadir said. “It’s time you earned your keep.”

So there I was: smiling, doing cartwheels, making small talk with the crowd, trying to build some anticipation for the moment of the Find. But in reality, I was dying. Ghadir was shifting in her seat. I knew that look: I had about a minute to make some magic happen before she took over.

And then Shadow walked in.

He’d pushed his way through the outer ring of children into the performance oval. His squat, black body looked like it belonged to a larger dog that had been cut off at the knees. Shadow sat facing me, and he frowned as if he’d found my performance lacking. A collar of heavy steel had worn the fur off the back of his neck.

I put my hands on my hips and looked down at him. “And who might you be?”

The dog laid down and put his paw over his eyes. The children erupted with laughter. I decided to milk the opportunity. I knelt in the dirt before him. “Oh come now, I’m not that scary.”