Brute

By: Gracey Hile

  "Sitting on the rooftop, I stared over the tiny chimneys perched on each roof around the neighborhood. The ghastly toxins leaked up into the clouds, fogging the street lights as I held onto Brutus a little bit tighter. The loneliness of each home lined perfectly along each other-all four walls surrounding nothing inside and no one to unlock the front door after a long night's work-kept it in my mind that it was us against nothing now. 

     "It's just you and me now, Brutus," I murmured, my eyes still falling onto each turn-key home. I glanced down to see his eyes were closed, his perked ears twitching as his chest rose and fell in fatigue. How lovely did he look, his button nose glazed over with snot and a thin layer of saliva from where his long tongue kept it from running down his snout. I stroked his coarse back, then drug my hands up to scratch behind his smooth ears, the hair falling out from where the disease was trying to spread inside of him.

    "It's still not too late to fix this, though," I told him, forcing a smile as his right eye opened in acknowledgment. He sighed, then rested his head on my left leg. I turned my gaze back to the town, grimacing at all the work left to do. There was much to do. " 

    Brutus had never been my dog before the world collapsed. I remember when the earth became one big flame, the ozone layer collapsing faster than the World Trade Center on 9/11. The government pulled over the dome like a blanket, the sky becoming dark, and the world began to shiver within minutes. After that, it was a miracle just to survive through daytime. I found the dog when the ash settled, because my skin was peeling from my bones and I was crawling for my house- as if being inside of it wouldn't just make a giant convection oven around me- and I reached for his trembling body. When I pulled him by his paw, I could see he was trapped beneath a skeleton of a young girl who, obviously, was deceased. For a moment, I recoiled from them but the small German Shepard continued to whine.

     I mustered all of my strength, yanking him out from underneath her corpse, the skin falling off of her body like an oil spill. Finally, the puppy squirmed out and limped towards me, my bleeding fingers motioning for him to come closer. His body was warm, but cooling fast in the freezing air. I managed to choke,"Come here," as I struggled onto my knees. The dog cringed, snarling a bit in his anxiety to be hurt again. 

    "Come here, little brute," I reached for him, coughing through the smoke and rubbing my eyes so I could see clearer. He lowered his head, whimpering again, so I lunged after him in a pounce and managed to grasp his hind legs. I laid with my face on the ground for a moment, regaining my breath, just holding him there. I thought of releasing him momentarily, then shoved the idea away because I knew he wouldn't last once the fires died and the jaws of ice swallowed everything whole. Pulling him by his leg, I managed to grab him by his body. I just held him after that, and Brutus remained with me until the bitter end.