A is for Apocalypse by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: post apocalyptic short stories, end of the world fiction, end of the world apocalypse fiction, post apocalyptic fiction, end of the world short stories, dystopian post apocalyptic fiction, apocalyptic fiction
Publisher: Poise and Pen Publishing
Published: 2014-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Pete Aldin

i

Day 751

“There are no monsters in your cupboard.”

Mommy used to tell me this whenever I was afraid to enter my room.

“There’s no monster beneath your bed, son.”

Daddy used to say this whenever I had nightmares.

They both told me there’s no such thing as monsters. Over and over.

Idiots.

Monsters ate them both.

ii

DEAR FELLOW SURVIVOR,

I’m not sure why I’m writing to you.

That’s a lie.

I’m writing because you’re the only human being I’ve seen in two years, even though it’s at a distance.

I’m writing because I want you to find this note and write back, or better yet wait for me.

I saw you in the market, scavenging for scraps, for cans and bottles and packets. I watched you from the department store roof. You looked like I must when I’m scavenging: desperate, desolate, terrified that a monster will come get you. I haven’t seen one in nine, ten months.

But I saw you.

And when you saw me – galloping across the car park like some rabid racehorse – you fled. What the hell was I thinking, running at a woman like that? Already tired, I couldn’t keep up with you. God, you were fast. I don’t blame you; if I saw me, I’d run too. Who’s to say I’m not a monster?

Except I’m not. I’m just me. My name is Eric, by the way.

Eric hopes you’ll find this. Eric hopes you’ll meet him here at midday next Wednesday.

Eric hopes you still keep track of days the way he does.

iii

Day 751 (continued)

All the people. All the pets. All the cattle, all the sheep. They ate everyone and everything.

They even feasted at the zoo. God, that must have been a sight to behold: monsters versus lions, tigers, polar bears, elephants. I hope the animals took a whole lot of the bastards with ‘em when they died.

And then with all the live food gone, they turned on each other until most of them were gone too.

At least, that’s my guess. It’s the only sense I could make of the carnage I found when I emerged from my neighbor’s shelter.

Yeah, they killed everybody and then they killed each other. Leaving me with nothing. Leaving me with silence.

iv

Dear Friend,

You didn’t collect my last note so I worried that I’d imagined you. I didn’t think I was having a Crazy Day that day, but it’s possible. So when I came back, I checked around. I remembered I’d seen you put down a backpack and yep, there it was, exactly where you’d left it. Wet of course, since it’s rained a couple of times this week. But proof you’re real. You’re alive.

Geez, I hope you’re alive.

Are you? Anything could have happened in the last few days.

I used to think I was the only one left. Just me. Me and the silence. One Crazy Day – well, maybe more than one – I spent hours walking around my burb, shouting. Shouting at geese. Shouting at ravens. Shouting at walls. Shouting down the road and up the road. Shouting in through windows and up at the sky.

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