Read Online This Is Not The End: But I Can See It From Here (The Big Red Z Book 1) by Thomas Head - Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas Head
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corpses, the bloated, pale islands on which the Shado sometimes fed. Sometimes, after great rains, the macabre piles swept away, weakened with rot and driven by the irresistible power of the water, the ensuing floods adding fuel to the growing, greening land.
So yeah, I understood how a man comes to believe helicopters don’t exist. That government is a story they tell to keep captains in charge.
Now I understand it completely. And don’t want to fall into it. Don’t want to see kids stare like befuddled morons at sky-dragons farting straight white clouds. Or wind up dumbfounded by why the gods would place what stands before me—a supermarket in the middle of a forest of grass.
I scan the place and in the while it takes me to ask myself what I’m looking for, I hear the laughter again. Sick of trying to find whoever’s doing already. It could be a laughing elephant, I couldn’t spot his big wrinkly gray ass in this mess.
Instead I just look a sturdy little building, as blunt, cracked, and uninteresting as a naked old man.
No doubt something nasty and toothy lies within. But outside there are just a few freckly birds poking around. A pair of horse-looking gargoyles stand half-buried in the mud at either front corner. Used to put in a quarter in them and ride around in circles.
Without a reason the birds scatter.
As I step back, the windowless door opens with a sharp groan. In the next breath there is an enormous dog looking at me.
Porcupine quills stick out like tusks. Two stick in the air like middle fingers. The beast’s pink eyes are scanning from the folds of its swollen face with far too much interest.
That look on its face: Who is out there?
Then, in half-terrified shock, I feel my blood cooling. My skin gets covered in goose flesh from my neck to my butt—it’s Big Early. The MP’s dog. The creature that is going to get me home, I know. I just do. Maybe God tells me this, not sure. But the thought runs as cool and silent through my mind as life-giving water.
He’s staring at me from within the store.
A whimper.
The dog approaches. How did he live. How did he get here. Before I can freak the fuck out, that raggedy looking thing is coming, sniffing the air as if to make sure I am real. Like I’m the weird thing in all this. He’s licking the air like a snake now. The laughter noise seems to move all around me, like a whispering insect.
What the fuck is this?
It’s me laughing.
He is three feet outside, maybe forty feet in front of me, silent as a nightmare when he halts. Looks at me.
“Do you know how crazy it is you’re alive, dog?”
That dog better not answer.
“Do you!”
I shake my head, better now that he is real. It just is. I cock an eye, but add nothing by way of justifying, even though he keeps looking at me as if demanding some reply.
“Come here, boy. Let me get that shit out of your face.”
Chapter 15
Big Early bites down.
The pain is enough almost enough to dissolve the sudden rush in my chest. To dissolve my questions. As he chews, growling, I can sense the pitiful thing searching my face for forgiveness. I lower my eyebrows with some effort. Relaxed. I think of nothing and breathe until my countenance is a calm sheet of ambiguity.
Gotta put on a brave face for the poor thing, I think. Because, fuck, these things are in there deep, that’s why. No sense being optimistic either, making him think this shit’s going to be alright.
Got some work ahead of me.
I grunt as Early falls over, flopping in pain. Some time passes, I have no idea how much. All I can say is that it is later, and occasionally, I pet him, feeling myself being carried away by the fear that helping him is going to kill him. Sometimes I watch blearily as the blood pours out of his mouth. Pitiful, pitiful. It takes a couple forevers and
So yeah, I understood how a man comes to believe helicopters don’t exist. That government is a story they tell to keep captains in charge.
Now I understand it completely. And don’t want to fall into it. Don’t want to see kids stare like befuddled morons at sky-dragons farting straight white clouds. Or wind up dumbfounded by why the gods would place what stands before me—a supermarket in the middle of a forest of grass.
I scan the place and in the while it takes me to ask myself what I’m looking for, I hear the laughter again. Sick of trying to find whoever’s doing already. It could be a laughing elephant, I couldn’t spot his big wrinkly gray ass in this mess.
Instead I just look a sturdy little building, as blunt, cracked, and uninteresting as a naked old man.
No doubt something nasty and toothy lies within. But outside there are just a few freckly birds poking around. A pair of horse-looking gargoyles stand half-buried in the mud at either front corner. Used to put in a quarter in them and ride around in circles.
Without a reason the birds scatter.
As I step back, the windowless door opens with a sharp groan. In the next breath there is an enormous dog looking at me.
Porcupine quills stick out like tusks. Two stick in the air like middle fingers. The beast’s pink eyes are scanning from the folds of its swollen face with far too much interest.
That look on its face: Who is out there?
Then, in half-terrified shock, I feel my blood cooling. My skin gets covered in goose flesh from my neck to my butt—it’s Big Early. The MP’s dog. The creature that is going to get me home, I know. I just do. Maybe God tells me this, not sure. But the thought runs as cool and silent through my mind as life-giving water.
He’s staring at me from within the store.
A whimper.
The dog approaches. How did he live. How did he get here. Before I can freak the fuck out, that raggedy looking thing is coming, sniffing the air as if to make sure I am real. Like I’m the weird thing in all this. He’s licking the air like a snake now. The laughter noise seems to move all around me, like a whispering insect.
What the fuck is this?
It’s me laughing.
He is three feet outside, maybe forty feet in front of me, silent as a nightmare when he halts. Looks at me.
“Do you know how crazy it is you’re alive, dog?”
That dog better not answer.
“Do you!”
I shake my head, better now that he is real. It just is. I cock an eye, but add nothing by way of justifying, even though he keeps looking at me as if demanding some reply.
“Come here, boy. Let me get that shit out of your face.”
Chapter 15
Big Early bites down.
The pain is enough almost enough to dissolve the sudden rush in my chest. To dissolve my questions. As he chews, growling, I can sense the pitiful thing searching my face for forgiveness. I lower my eyebrows with some effort. Relaxed. I think of nothing and breathe until my countenance is a calm sheet of ambiguity.
Gotta put on a brave face for the poor thing, I think. Because, fuck, these things are in there deep, that’s why. No sense being optimistic either, making him think this shit’s going to be alright.
Got some work ahead of me.
I grunt as Early falls over, flopping in pain. Some time passes, I have no idea how much. All I can say is that it is later, and occasionally, I pet him, feeling myself being carried away by the fear that helping him is going to kill him. Sometimes I watch blearily as the blood pours out of his mouth. Pitiful, pitiful. It takes a couple forevers and
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