The Echo of Desolation

July 16, 2025July 6, 2025 ~ afstewart ~ 3 Comments

As I entered the town, I saw a flash of pink and a little girl ran in front of me, swirls of dust following her. I stopped, every sense alert. She paused too, turned around to stare at me. She showed no fear, only curiosity, a gap-toothed grin stretching across her grimy face.

My hand went to my gun, but she vanished. Only the empty street remained, the wind blowing grit across the paving. A knot in my gut, I kept walking.

The rumours are true.

For once, I hoped the intel was wrong. My job was tough enough in a place of strangers; coming to the town where I grew up made it infinitely worse.

Striding down the street, shadows emerged at the windows, whispers drifted in the wind. I felt their presence, the taint of death clinging to the world of the living; a town of lingering ghosts. One more miserable consequence of the plague.

What I was here to eliminate.

The town square felt like the best place to assemble the machine. Central, the location would give good dispersal, not likely to miss stragglers. I unslung my bag and built the machine, piece by piece, the metal snapping together with a sharp clang. The noise attracted phantoms, watching me, never afraid, but surrounding me with murmurs. Voices I once knew, familiar, agonizing.

Remember, it’s just another job. Don’t look at faces.

Yet, how could I ignore them? Friends I went to school with, neighbours, family, all stared at me. I wanted to spare them, walk away, but I couldn’t.

They didn’t know, but I did.

Ghosts went through stages. Initially harmless, fresh and confused, but when they rotted, they turned malicious, violent. I witnessed the remains of what savage ghosts did to the living, the butchery and bloody corpses they left. No one should die that way.

When I finished, I straightened, said, “I’m sorry,” then activated the machine. The air sizzled, heavy with the stink of ozone, blue energy enveloping this town of ghosts, slicing through its former citizens. I closed my eyes, afraid to watch their forms dissipate. It didn’t help.

Countless anguished screams lodged in my head, reverberating in the aftermath of silence.

I stood for a moment and said a fruitless prayer to ease my guilt. Then I packed up my gear.

As I left the empty town, I looked back down the main street, watching a wayward breeze swirling the dust along the road like a carefree child. For a moment, I lost myself in that flow of unrestrained nature and my memories, hoping for a whisper, a giggle, a shadow of what used to be. But nothing.

With a sigh, I walked on, headed back to my vehicle, with one more scar across my heart.

~ A. F. Stewart

Bleak

November 27, 2024November 17, 2024 ~ afstewart ~ 4 Comments

They huddled together under tattered blankets, a mother and daughter hidden in the shadows of the abandoned building. Outside, the wind rattled against the walls and howled through the cracked windows; the noise drowned the rumblings of their hungry bellies. Weeks of running left them exhausted, yet neither slept. Fear kept them awake.

The girl whispered, “Was there ever a better world than this one, Mama? Grandma said there was. A place where we didn’t always run, didn’t hide. Where daddies and raiders never hunted and hurt us.”

Her mother squirmed. “Perhaps, sweetie. Once. I have vague memories, but they might be only dreams. If it existed, it was a long time ago and it’s never coming back.”

“Like Grandma?”

An intake of breath, a pause, and then, “Yes. Like Grandma.” There was a soft sigh. “What happened to Grandma is why we run, why I teach you. Now tell me the three rules.” She patted her daughter’s hand.

“Yes, Mama. Rule 1: Never trust anyone, not even if they’re nice to you. Rule 2: Try to be kind, but be cruel if you have to.” Her lip quivered. “Like we were with Grandma when we left her?”

“Exactly. She couldn’t keep up and leaving her behind distracted those raiders. Now what’s rule 3?”

“Rule 3: Don’t be weak. The strong live. The strong make it to the Promised Land. The strong dodge the raiders. The strong will be free. No masters, no daddies. No one to hurt us.”

“Good.” She tousled her daughter’s hair. “Never forget those rules. Never break them. If we’re smart, we’ll escape. Now get some sleep. We move out with the sunrise.”

“Tell me about the Promised Land, Mama. It helps me sleep.” The girl snuggled against her mother, burrowing into the blankets.

Words drifted on the darkness. “The Promised Land is a safe place, a place without raiders, or masters, or cruelty, where the fear of engines doesn’t exist. Women don’t have to worry there, don’t fear being hurt, or killed, or enslaved. We won’t have to run, or hide, or go hungry. It’s where we can be happy. Where we don’t have to live by the rules of men.”

The girl closed her eyes, dreaming of a beautiful land as she fell asleep. Her mother kept watch over her, listening for the sound of the raiders’ engines…

Weeks later, their long journey behind them, they left the wasteland and found a place of grassy scrub and a cracked road leading north. Taking her daughter’s hand, the mother squeezed and murmured, “We’re almost there, sweetie. Almost to the Promised Land, to safety.”

Two more days found them outside a neglected settlement, overgrown with vegetation and vacant of life. A broken fence surrounded rustic, disused houses and buildings. As they drew closer, they noticed an open gate crookedly swinging on rusting hinges. Walking inside, a faded sign greeted the pair, mocking them with the ruined, peeling letters: P R O I S M E D A N D.

The girl looked around and tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Is this it, Mama?”

“Yes.” The word cut cold in the air and held despair in its depths.

“But it’s empty, Mama. Where are the people? Where’s the Promised Land?” She stared at her mother, watching the woman’s expression harden. “Are we safe yet?”

“No.” The sound almost choked in her throat. “It’s gone. It’s all gone. There is no Promised Land, no safety. They destroyed it too.” She looked at her daughter as the sound of engines roared in the distance. “It was all a false dream. It was all for nothing.”

She bent down and tilted her daughter’s chin, staring into her eyes. “There’s one more thing to learn, sweetie.” Her other hand reached into her travelling bag. “Rule 4: Everyone lies. Even me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, sweetie.” She brushed her daughter’s hair with her fingers and straightened. “I’m sorry, but there’s nowhere to run and hide anymore and I can’t go back.” She smiled at the confused child. “I’m so sorry.”

From her bag, she pulled out a pistol and shot herself in the head, blood spraying her daughter’s upturned face. The nearing sound of engines mixed with the girl’s screams.

~ A. F. Stewart

Utopia

November 2, 2022August 9, 2022 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 5 Comments

I beg to have this morsel of bread, my knees on cold stone. The clean hand which gives does so with apathy. This weary skeleton is not worthy. It shakes and rattles as it moves away in contorted gestures. Shame used to have meaning, now it is only the infinite permanency of a worn soul.

They know what’s best for me. They always have.

I’ve no coin or cloth; blood is the only currency I have to give. And so my debt is paid by suffering. The countless ways in which they thrill their hearts baffles the mind. No imaginings of one man could conjure how many ways there are to inflict pain. Never has it been said that they lacked creativity.

I once viewed a piece of art. I suppose this is theirs.

Feeble, frail, am I. No longer do I recoil at the thought of the black hood coming to take me. I’ve eaten my share and lived long years. Time is precious, gifted by the keepers of this world by keeping us unworthy alive. And greed has never been my vice.

I’ll see the reaper soon. And gladly give my head to his axe.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman