The Five

There are five of us here in the basement of the police station- four dogs and myself. I expect there will be no one left shortly.

Something is outside trying to get in. I only hear it sometimes clawing and banging on the door. It must be mutated from all the bombs that fell. It must be a creature searching for a meal with its last few days of life. It must be the only thing left out there.

I sent out two more dogs today. I heard barking for a while, and then nothing. The dogs never came back.

I sent them out to kill the creature. But every day I hear it clawing and pounding on the door. I wait in silence, sitting with the last two dogs, hoping the creature will leave us to die in peace.

I dream about it breaking inside and feasting on us. Sometimes I have this dream while I’m asleep too.

I’m nearly out of food, and I can’t afford to share it with the dogs anymore. I send them out to face the creature. For hours I wait.

Finally, I can wait no longer. I take a pistol from the floor beside me. I unbolt the door and open it, then walk up the stairs into the police station. It is remarkably intact. I see sunlight coming through the windows. It looks like early morning.

Something moves just past the open doorway. I step behind a pillar and wait for it to show itself. My fingers are tight on the pistol in my hands. Only one of us will last a few more days in this wasteland.

When it reveals itself, I am as surprised as I am confused. It is a boy. He asks me if my dogs are the ones that keep coming from the station. He says they stay with him and his family, and he comes here every day to search for supplies. But the basement door always stops him no matter how hard he pounds on it.

I ask him if more people survived, he said there are many. He says that the bombs were not- and he struggles with the word- “nuclear”.

I walk with him outside and see things I never expected to see again: trees, the sun, birds, and four dogs. The dogs come to me. I don’t blame them for not returning to me in the dark basement. But we are together again, we five.


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