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 Page B

and carried it downstream, scratching its ears as he went. The village was several miles upstream from where he was. He figured he’d go down another mile and leave the cub there. After that, it was on its own.
    Ten minutes later, his back and shoulders ached so much, he had to stop and set the cub down. It hobbled a few feet away from him, still unable to put any weight on its injured leg. It looked miserable.
    “Come on now,” Jack said as he picked it back up and continued their journey downstream. A series of rock formations stood a few hundred yards to the west, near the stream but relatively hidden behind a cluster of low-standing pine trees. Jack climbed across the rocks to a small gap between two of the boulders. The overhang there was large enough to give shelter from the rain and protection from prying eyes that might look up from the creek. Only by climbing the rocks as he had would anyone see the small dugout. Jack hoped that wouldn’t happen.
    “This will make a nice den for you, at least for a while. You stay here. Okay? I’ll be back tomorrow to get you something to eat. It won’t be much. Don’t leave!”
    The cub appeared even smaller now as it lay, back pushed against the flinty wall of the hollow, licking the handkerchief. Though Jack expected to be punished once Manny returned and the villagers learned what he’d done, he ran upstream just the same. Part of him regretted setting the cub free. It would most likely die anyway, either from hunger or from the infection in its leg. He should have killed it and brought it back to the settlement, he knew. Everything would have been better. Perhaps even for the cub, blessed with a merciful, quick death.
    * * *
    The pain was red.
    It wasn’t only in his leg. It radiated upward into his chest. When he slept, his fever dreams were filled with images of crows pecking at the wound, piercing the slowly healing skin and ripping out large chunks of it.
    The night before, he’d eaten a rat. It crept up from the stream, probably attracted by the blood seeping through the cloth around his leg. He couldn’t keep any of it in his stomach. It came back up in heaves, though he managed to walk a few feet before he threw up.
    The boy returned after two nights and brought a bowl of thick liquid. He only stayed for a short time, during which he replaced the smelly cloth with a fresh one. The new cloth had some kind of salve on it. It smelled almost as bad as the previous one, so the cub shied away from it.
    The next day—or maybe it was the day after that—the boy came back again. The other boy was with him, and they each brought him a fish. They sat with him for a while, cutting the small fish into pieces and feeding them to him. He felt better after that.
    From then on, the boys came every day. They never stayed long but always brought something for him to eat. They petted him, and when he began to feel better, he played with them, pretending to gnaw them but never actually biting them. In his mind they were cubs like him, from the same pack and equals.
    After a few more days, he was able to put both front paws on the ground with only a little pain. The boys came one last time. That day, he saw fear in their eyes, and when they left, he knew they wouldn’t return. He waited at the entrance to the cave for two nights and two days.
    When they didn’t come back, he left his hiding place and followed their scent along the banks of the creek until he reached the settlement. His nose caught the sweet smell of death before he found its source.
    Half the huts were burned to ashes. Slain bodies lay on the ground, limbs ripped from their torsos. There was no sign of the boys. No sign anywhere. He sniffed at each tent, each hut that still stood, and even the remnants of all the burned ones. He found the younger boy along the lakeshore, ten feet from the water’s edge. Half the boy’s arm was missing. His lifeless eyes stared into the sky. The cub’s howl echoed across the