Endless Apocalypse Short Stories by Florian Mussgnug

Author:Florian Mussgnug
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2018-12-03T09:37:46+00:00

Dust Devil

Curt Jeffreys

The dune rose to a height of thirty feet on the north side of the sand fence. Stretching as far as eyes could see, the great mound was a frozen wave of sand with a windblown curlicue on top. Hence the nickname he’d given it, Curly Top. Old Curly Top wasn’t really frozen of course. The monstrous pile of sand was on the move, inching its way forward as the wind pushed it along grain by grain, threatening to swallow everything in its path.

Like Ma’s shack.

Jubal lay at the bottom of Curly Top, face up to the sun, letting its warmth permeate his thin brown body. High rainless clouds drift overhead as the wind played with the giant dune’s curl. Twisted bows of color danced in the sparkling mist of particles flowing towards the squat shack where Ma was sleeping. He should have been fixing the sand fence where last night’s storm had knocked it down, but how could anyone be expected to work on a day such as this?

A flash of brown, quick as heat lightning, streaked across the sand, disappearing under a shelf of crumbling gray rock. The boy’s hand flicked in and out, returning with the squirming creature in a death grip. The boy’s teeth crunched through its skinny reptile neck, putting an end to whatever thought processes tiny lizards possess.

For young Jubal there was nothing better than fresh lizard, all warm, still dripping. He hunkered down behind the fence where he could not see the shack, reasoning that if he couldn’t see Ma then she couldn’t see him.

Wiping warm goo from his lips he tossed the remains over a dune. Fortified for the moment he took up his hammer, managing to drive in one nail before his tiny attention span failed him once again.

It was nothing, really. A speck, a mere dot, far off on the horizon. Not much to look at, to be sure, but it shouldn’t have been there at all, and that was enough to banish all other thoughts from the boy’s mind. Chores forgotten, Jubal squatted on his haunches, his unwavering gaze locked on the heat-blurred line between sand and horizon.

Jubal watched, fascinated, as the speck grew under his gaze, resolving itself into a man-shaped form that danced and squirmed in the heat waves like a drunken puppeteer’s marionette. A visitor! In all his fifteen years he couldn’t recall a single visitor. Not one.

Jubal ran to the shack, disappearing inside. Moments later he emerged, a battered rifle in his hands, his Ma close behind, her ancient shotgun loaded and ready.

Jubal squinted down his barrel, placing his bead square on the man’s chest. He’d never shot a man before but it couldn’t be much different from shooting anything else – dead’s dead, after all.

“Just keep moving,” Ma hollered as the man drew closer. She raised her weapon, cocking both barrels with a double click that somehow carried against the wind.

“I’m unarmed.”

The man showed his empty hands. Big hands, attached to a big body.

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