Tails of the Apocalypse by David Adams, Nick Cole, Michael Bunker, David Bruns, E. E. Giorgi, Deirdre Gould, Jennifer Ellis, Stefan Bolz, Harlow C. Fallon, Hank Garner, Todd Barselow, Chris Pourteau

of terror were swallowed by the sound of the rushing stream. Nobody heard him. Except for one.
    * * *
    “It’s not gonna hold.”
    “It’ll hold.”
    “It needs to be reinforced over there. Otherwise, it’ll break apart.”
    “It’ll hold.”
    “And how can you be so sure?”
    “I’m telling you, it’ll hold, Manny.”
    Jack, ever so slowly, let go of the branch. It was embedded in a pile of other branches anchored into both sides of a small creek bed. The two boys stood in the center of the stream, watching the dam.
    “We need to reinforce it here.” Manny pointed at a spot where the water rushed through, cascading along the driftwood and into the now much lower stream on the other side of it.
    Both boys dug their hands into the muddy soil along the water’s edge.
    “We’ll mix that with leaves and smaller sticks, and we should be good to go,” Jack said as he worked.
    They moved several handfuls of dirt up top and added whatever they found from the ground, working it into a thick paste. They then carried it carefully to the dam. Jack heard the faint whining sound but didn’t think much of it. He was too focused on ladling the leafy paste into the narrow openings between the dam’s branches.
    The second grunt was louder, more urgent. Jack stopped for a moment, listening closely.
    “What is it?” Manny asked. His hands were still submerged. At this point, their clothes were completely soaked.
    “I don’t know. I thought I heard something.”
    The third cry was followed by a low growl.
    “There’s something out there,” Jack said.
    He saw fear in Manny’s eyes. Fear and the hope that if it was an animal, it would simply pass through without bothering them any further. Jack knew better. The cries had been stationary. They’d come from the same spot maybe fifty feet behind the area of the ferns and close to the large boulder downstream. He moved away from the dam toward the other side of the creek bed.
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jack.”
    “We won’t find out until we take a look.”
    “I didn’t hear anything,” Manny said.
    “I did.”
    “We should go back. It’s getting late.”
    “I’m going,” Jack said, climbing out of the creek bed. Manny followed as he’d always done. They’d entered the world from their mother’s womb three minutes apart, with Jack leading the way. Manny had followed his older twin ever since.
    The whimper was urgent now and fueled by pain. It was Manny who found the source first. They’d climbed on top of the boulder.
    “It’s a wolf cub,” Manny said. Jack moved forward until he saw it too. The cub’s right front paw was caught in a large, iron trap. It was evident from the whining and the odd way it was trying to stand that the cub was in pain.
    The two boys gave each other a glance. Both knew that meat—any meat—was sparse, and for them to come home with something that could feed at least part of their group would be a big deal. Their status would instantly rise from mere children, dependent on their elders, to young men, able to take on some of the group’s responsibilities.
    When they climbed down the side of the boulder and approached the cub, it didn’t move. Jack didn’t realize just how young it was until they stood in front of it. Half its fur was blackened and singed, the other half burned off entirely. The trap had caught its right front leg half-way up, and the shin and foot were soaked in blood.
    Jack could almost feel the animal’s pain himself. He held his knife inside his pocket, readying himself to cut the cub’s throat. The boys had watched other members of their group of survivors slaughter animals before, and Jack was fairly sure of what to do.
    He’d planned to move around the cub and get behind it. From there it would be relatively easy to hold it and slit its throat. But when he saw the cub up close, all he could think of was to open the trap and set it free.
    “Help me open the trap,” Jack said after a