I Submitted Another Story

Giggity.

Hilobrow is holding another contest. They want a 250 word story about the apocalypse ... the catch? It has to be period specific.

Specifically between 1930 and 1935.

So, I popped the following up (and am one of about 20 submissions so far):

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They didn’t call it the Dirty Thirties for nothin’. Droughts, depression, world-wide political unrest, rampant crime - it all made for dark times. But I guess it prepared us for The Fall.

It happened in springtime. Dark clouds rolled over the world like a terrible storm. A storm that didn’t go away. Food production halted overnight. Scarcity created tribal warfare the world over.

That was four years ago and we’d been running since.

But today we stop running.

For months we’d been sticking to the outskirts of small towns. Pillaging what we could at night. Lucky if we found tinned food, stored grains or farmhouse preserves.

Once we found bicycles, and for one week we held an incredible pace – smiling as we distanced ourselves from the starving packs behind us. Maybe we got comfortable, I don’t know, but they managed to catch up.

They found us camping by a starving river and came fast. All blind fury. They were more interested in our stores than us, making it easier to fight them off and escape downriver. We weren’t unscathed.

I held her close as we floated. Her eyes were closed. Her face a pale grey like the sunsets these days.

I carried her. Tended wounds. Suppressed fevers. Hoped. Prayed that there was still a god somewhere.

I thought we‘d make it, that I’d save her and we’d start again.

But I can’t carry her anymore. And I can’t go on without her.

We’ll know soon enough if god’s out there.