The Last Dreamers

Trigger Warning: Contains themes of war, trauma, and brief references to violence and injury.

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He woke first, in the dark and the cold of night, snapping awake from a fitful dream with a sound in his throat like a plea for help. In his dream there had been people in the streets, whispering and pointing, with arms raised high over their heads. People half-dressed and still softheaded with sleep. A red, red sky. Smoke on the horizon and the thunder of distant explosions. He stood among them in a silent wonder that grew slowly to fear, his eyes on the sky and on the gleaming metal birds that screamed the day of judgement at last.

But the man came to from his dream and turned on his side in the stinking bedclothes. Blinking like a mole in the featureless dark until his eyes adjusted. He counted the slow rise and fall of his chest and felt all over his body with old, stiff fingers. Making sure he was still there. All of him whole and complete.

He whispered a prayer to a forgotten God and crossed himself in the old way—head to chest, left to right: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A habit from a former life he could barely remember. He sat up and coughed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Cold. A chill air on the concrete, seeping up into his bones even through the bedclothes and the heap of mattresses under him. Somewhere in the dark he could hear the dog whimpering. The woman too. Caught fast in the grip of their own nightmares like traps of their subconscious minds.

His joints groaned as he stumbled to his feet. Feeling the cold air with his arms out and tottering to and fro in all directions like a blind beggar. The concrete rough against his bare feet. The air chill and musty where he moved through it. He found the chain for the light switch and pulled it with a grunt of effort. A fuse sparked. A generator hummed in slow jerks and spasms. A thin fluorescent came to life, blinding him for a moment till his eyes adjusted once more.

The man turned to look about the room.

Bare concrete walls that sloped up to a stone ceiling far above his head. The fluorescent hanging low and dangerous from a thin bar and a single white moth fluttering to it like a sign from God.

The man turned again.

She was on the other side, lying on her back, the dog curled beside her like a filthy brown rag. Her hair matted and tangled. Her face dirty. The heavy bulge of her stomach under the bedclothes a terror to him still, always a terror. As he watched she whimpered again, then gave out a small scream that shook the dog into sudden wakefulness. It struggled to its feet, and from where the man stood he could see that it still cradled the stump of its front leg close to its body.

The dog nudged her with the tip of its snout. The woman stirred but didn't wake. The dog nudged her again. This time she woke with a shuddering gasp, jerking up and blinking into the feeble light.

"S'okay," the man said. His voice made a faint echo in the stone chamber. "S'okay," he said again. "S'only a dream."

The woman looked over at him. Her chest heaving, her forehead bathed in sweat despite the chill air. By her side the dog whined and rubbed its head against her. She reached out a trembling hand to stroke it.

The man moved slowly towards her. The dog swung its head over to watch him come. He stopped at the foot of the mattress pile and sank down to his knees before her like an old faithful to an altar. His own dirty hair framed his face, and he shook his head before letting his eyes rest on the large swell of her pregnant belly.

"How's the baby?" he asked, hesitant.

The woman looked hard at him a moment longer. She frowned, as if trying to remember who he was, how she knew him, what he was doing there. She shook her head and started to scoot away from him, then her eyes softened, and she let out a smile that brought a spark of life rushing back into her like sudden color on her dirty cheeks.

"Okay," she said in a thin whisper. "Been moving inside me all day. Strong." She laughed. The dog looked up at her with its head cocked to one side in confusion.

"S'good," the man said. He rose to sit on the edge of her bed and reached out to stroke her leg. "Have bad dreams?"

The woman nodded.

"Same old?"

"Yes. Same old." She looked at him, and the man saw a faint shimmer of tears begin like mist in her eyes.

"Me too," he said.

"But mama was in mine. I saw her. She was trapped in our house after the metal birds passed. There was smoke all over too, and fire and blood and people screaming, but she didn't look—"

"Dead?" The man sighed and squeezed her leg gently. "Everybody's dead, believe me. S'just you and me now, the lucky ones. Cruel of God to let us live, but it is what it is."

The woman was on the verge of tears, but she sniffled and wiped her eyes with a corner of her frayed blanket. When she looked at the man again the color in her face was gone. Washed out. Faded.

"S'night outside already," the man said, glancing down at her stomach to avoid her gaze. "I'll set the filters before rain starts. We go out when the air's clear enough, okay?"

"Okay," the woman said in her low voice. "Okay."

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They sat huddled together under the filthy bedclothes, listening to the wind outside and to the long rip of rain on the canvas tarps. In the next chamber the filters hummed their electric sounds as they cleaned and moved the rainwater to holding drums. Sometimes a crack of thunder boomed overhead, the voice of God that echoed even through the concrete walls and made the lone fluorescent fizzle on its thin bar.

"Will you tell me a story?" the woman said after a while, stroking the dog curled up on her lap.

The man turned to face her. "A story?"

"Yes, before we go out."

"What kind of story?"

"Any kind. Something to make me laugh. A nice, happy thing."

"Hmm," the man said. "S'okay I have one."

"What's it called?"

"The woman who asked for a story."

She laughed and nudged him with her elbow. "Good one."

The man smiled. "Know the one of the philosopher dog?"

"No," the woman said, still smiling.

"Well, s'goes something like this: one day there's this dog sitting on a wall, all prim and proper—"

"Wait, what kind of dog?"

"Uh a brown shaggy one with droopy ears, like this little guy you've got here."

"Oh okay."

"Yeah. So this dog sits on a wall on the day of judgment, watching smoke rise in the sky and squinching every time some of those crazy metal birds passed over his head. S'was an old dog, mind you, with part of his coat all torn up and dirty."

"Uh-huh," the woman said, her smile faltering as the man went on.

"The sky was red, y'know, and houses exploding everywhere and people screaming and the like. You could hardly even breathe at all for the fumes. But this dog here sat on the wall thinking of the sad nature of existence."

" 'Humanity's a plague on itself,' this philosopher dog says. 'S'a virus that seeks only to destroy the natural world given to us by God. So maybe this war's a manifestation of all their flaws and a consequence of their actions. Tis' a hell of their own making, if you ask me.' "

" 'I'm sure it is,' this philosopher dog goes on in his philosophical way, with one paw tucked under his chin and all. 'In fact,' he says. 'In fact I'm starting to think—' "

"But what he was starting to think nobody knows," the man said. He gave the woman a sad, half-smile. "Cause a drone flew past and shot out an explosive round that left the philosopher dog twitching and bleeding out on the burned grass."

" 'Good riddance,' the owner says, crawling out from under the van he'd been hiding ever since. 'Asked for a dog, not a damn philosopher. Now I can have some peace.' "

"And then he climbed over the rubble of the wall and sat in the burned grass by the dog, licking a sweet and watching the world go to hell all around him. The end."

The woman was silent. Her mouth opened, then shut again. The man looked at her. Wind howled outside. Rain lashed the canvas tarps and played a melancholy tune with the iron cables holding them in place.

"That's horrible," she said after a long while. "Not happy at all."

"Think so?" the man said.

"Yes. Did you make that up?"

"Well, kind of."

She sighed and pursed her lips and turned away from him. Lowering her head to the filthy dog lying on her lap with its own head down. Her body shook quietly. The man thought she was crying. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it briefly, confused.

He didn't know what else to do.

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The stone corridor rang with their steps. They shuffled down the tunnel together, hand in hand and wrapped close in their stinking rags, each one the other's world and support altogether. The dog led the way. Limping. Its maimed leg cradled close to its body like some precious object.

At the end of the tunnel was a dip in the concrete and a stagnant pool of black water that sloshed around their ankles as they waded through it. A single fluorescent fizzled overhead. It threw a sickly pale light on the stained walls, and the man led the way through the black water to a step-ladder embedded in the concrete.

He went up first, turned to help the dog up after him. Then the woman followed.

"Here," the man said, giving her a hand up the metal steps. "Careful. Not too fast. Watch your belly. You're alright."

The hatch clanged shut behind them. Loud. Like a gunshot. The man spun the wheel to lock it, grunting with the effort. He stood and cast about in the rubble, found a large sheet of rotted strawboard, and drew it over the hatch.

"There," he said, panting. He wiped his hands on his clothes. "S'all good and covered now. Let's go."

They walked across the ruins of a darkened space and emerged into rainy gloom and a night darker and colder than death. Scorched grass all about them. Wood and rubble. Buildings like hulking shadows in the distance. A pale fog came drifting over the yard in which they stood, chilling their feet even through the thick leather boots they wore.

"It's cold," the woman said, turning to sniff the windy air. She wrapped her rags closer about her body and shivered.

"And clear enough too," the man said, breathing deep, the thin rain on his face. "Rain's washed off the day's taint already, like the meter showed."

"Hmm. Let's be quick this time or we'll catch our death of cold out here."

"Yeah," the man said. His breath a slow rattle in his chest. He flicked on the searchlight hanging from a strap on his shoulder and directed the beam up across the yard. The dog barked at it, then began chasing the wavering light like it was a rabbit up the grassy slope. They followed.

On the road they went north. Moving slowly among the scorched and blackened ruins like ghosts in a feverland. Counting the landmarks as they went. The remains of a signboard with a product promising clear, glassy skin. A helicopter tangled up in overhead cables like a fly caught in a web. Spent shell casings in the grass and rockets like metal flowers crowding the sidewalks on all sides.

The dog barked at every shadow, chasing the beam of the searchlight through the fog. The man walked alongside the woman in silence. Thinking of an older time, of cars honking in the streets, and a warm sun on his back. Blue skies and clear water and birds in the trees. Daydreaming on the road as they shuffled through the gloom. Beside him the woman suffered her own daydreams. Walking with her arm in his and her head down against the wind.

They stopped at the first intersection. The man called out to the dog to halt and raised the light and swept it side to side. Trying to see through the dense fog ahead. The thin drizzle still falling. A traffic light glowed red at the other side of the road like an eye in the gloom. Winking on and off and then on again. Forever.

"S'here," he said finally.

The woman looked up at him. "Here where?"

"There. Follow my hand. Look."

"I don't see anything."

"S'just past the light. Over there, yes. See?"

"Oh I can see it now. It's a big house."

"Look down, see the basement window?"

"Yes but it's closed. There's no latch on it."

"We'll go through the main house," the man said, swinging his light up to point at the ruined shell of the building that gaped to the dark sky above. "See if we can find some food in there."

She called out to the dog. It came to and followed them up the drive and across the ground floor of the shattered building. Their shoes crunching glass. Bits of wood and melted plastic hidden like wreckage in the creeping fog.

The light moving on the walls. Few pictures in broken frames. A burnt corpse in an armchair startled the woman into a sudden scream and she recoiled from it, stumbling, arms flailing about her head like an infant in distress.

The man caught her before she fell. He was there beside her, his free hand grabbing her waist below the heavy bulge of her stomach, his light cutting through the dark like the word of God made flesh.

"S'okay," he said, righting her again. "S'okay. You're good."

"T-thank you," she said, shivering and pulling her damp rags ever closer about her body. She grimaced, turned from the armchair in disgust. "G-God I'm cold. We need to be quick about this and g-get back soon."

The man nodded. He sniffled, exhaling a white and featureless cloud before his face. He raised his free hand and looked at it. His fingers already going numb and blue at the tips, like dead stumps. The man lowered his hand. He turned.

A figure in a doorway met his gaze.

The dog barked at it. Suddenly. A low growl like an earthquake rumbled in its throat. The woman saw the figure and gasped out in her fear. The man took a step back from it, faltered, his heartbeat speeding up like a metronome in his chest.

"Who are you?" he said in a weak voice. He licked his lips and swept the searchlight up towards the silent figure.

Metal and glass. A long pale thing standing there, human shaped and hidden in the drifting fog. Watching them with electric eyes that roved to and fro in its head like small blue cameras.

The woman shrieked as the figure came into the light. It moved with faltering steps like a puppet and stopped before the growling dog as if sensing a wave of danger from it. The man looked over at the figure, trying to still the trembling in his limbs. It was pale blue and naked. He could see a wound in its side where a clear fluid leaked out steadily.

An old memory came to him then, filled his head like slow poison. Gleaming metal birds dropping death as they screamed overhead. Pale figures marching with rifles in the streets. Smoke in the sky and explosions rending the air.

"Who are you?" the man said again, shaking.

The figure looked down at him. A soft whirr of motors and a click. It opened its mouth.

"I'm...sorry," it said.