When Gods Fail by Nelson Lowhim

save me from all this. I'd treated
her wrong that night. But that hadn't been me. It was some animal
that had allowed me to survive. The only other people out there who
had survived this far were lucky, killers, who knew better than to
trust another soul that was trying to survive like them. So what
would happen in this new world? Surely some agreement or truce
would come from it? The more I thought, the more I wondered why I
was trying to find other people. Would I want to? If all the
population centers had been hit, which in a grand mutually assured
strike they would have, then why was I trying to walk towards them?
The only places that wouldn't have been struck would be places that
were of no one's concern. Correct? The United States and all other
major players would have been wiped out, but places like the Amazon
would hold no value. Then I would have to go far away from
population centers. Travel to or through Central America.
    I shook my head, spat on the ground. Watched
my saliva as it sat there, an abomination on the otherwise pristine
earth.
    Central America? That was my hope. With the
sleds we had enough food to get down there. If it was untouched by
nukes it would be filled with people. Perhaps people like Bill,
Paul, Big Lee, and Johnny. People who had nothing more to do than
be territorial. I was unlikely to find someone as enlightened as I
was. If that was the case, all hope was lost. Besides, I didn't
want to travel that far. I had to make something here.
    I got up as the sun floated higher in the
sky, hidden behind the clouds, which seemed to be losing their
thickness. It was time to move and find something. The thought of
finding other people still jumped about my mind. What would I
do?
    As I walked down the peak, I took another
deep breath. The air had warmed considerably since I woke up. A
scent, something familiar, something that I hadn't smelled in a
very long time, hit me. It was organic, but it wasn't human. Soil.
Not the barren soil between the rocks that I'd smelled so far, but
fertile soil. Soil that I'd smeared across my knees a million times
as a boy. I trotted back to Jenny who stretched with the blanket
covering her legs.
    "Jenny, you awake?"
    She looked at me with half opened eyes.
"Yes?" She smiled.
    The smile caught me off guard. Could it be
that she'd forgiven me? That last night wasn't just a moment of
weakness? I grinned, eager for more. "Do you smell that?"
    She sniffed. "No, what is it? People?"
    "No, soil!"
    Her look evaporated, and she gave me a
sympathetic look. Then she laughed. "Soil?"
    "Yes, soil," I said and chuckled. Her eyes
sparkled. This was all that mattered. The rest of the world could
smolder for the rest of eternity, all I needed was one more look
like that from her. "Soil that we can grow plants on. I'm sure of
it."
    She sniffed the air and nodded her head
imperceptibly. "It does smell like that."
    I started packing our things. I didn't want
to look her in the face anymore. If I did, I was liable to break
down in her arms. Her last words were encouraging. They could've
been said to satiate me, or they could have been said in earnest.
Both were good signs.
    "Let's see," I said.
    We walked up the satellite peak and back
down it. The smell grew stronger. It would drift away sometimes,
we'd change direction and it would return. Soon, near the bottom of
the hill, close to where the plains stretched out, I saw a patch of
mud. Green shoots sprouted out of it.
    I focused on the patch of plants. They
looked like weeds, and the patch was about ten yards in diameter,
but it seemed like a piece of paradise. I took out my map and made
a note. We would leave it be for now and come back when the plants
were older.
    "This shows that the world is growing again.
That we will soon be able to live normally," I said.
    "That we will be able to build?" Her tone
felt like a punch. Had the size of the patch turned her off?
    I tried to ignore the comment. Only a minute
ago she seemed full of life