Tails of the Apocalypse

A Word from Chris Pourteau

I’ve loved dogs for a long time. In fact, except for a handful of years in high school and college, I’ve never lived without one.

Dogs are slobbery. Some of them bark a lot, even when there’s nothing to bark at. Most unashamedly beg for food.

But they’re also incredibly loyal. They’ll fight for you before they fight for themselves. They can sense your moods, giving you space when you need it or resting their heads on your lap to let you know you’ve got a friend. At night, they’ll lay by your side and watch over you, just in case the zombies come knocking.

So when I sat down to write “Unconditional,” I wanted to capture that. All of it. All of what it means to be a dog: the second-class citizenry they sometimes endure; the soul-mate love they sometimes find with a special human; the undying loyalty and self-sacrifice they give instinctively.

One day in the fall of 2014, my friend, Stefan Bolz—who contributed “Protector” to this anthology—posted a photo of his dog, Ember, on Facebook. She stood in the middle of an empty country road in the fall, leaves covering everything, stock still and staring down the road’s lonely length. The perspective of the shot reminded me of similar images I’d seen on The Walking Dead a hundred times over. Ember held a determined stance, but there was also something sad in the way she stared at that empty road. Like she’d lost something—or someone—and was on a quest to find them. Her boy, perhaps. And that was the genesis for “Unconditional.” Thank you, Stefan, for posting that image.

When I first published the story, I worried about how it’d be received. It’s no Disney tale of two dogs kissing over a plate of spaghetti. I even considered giving “Unconditional” a happy ending. But no, that’s not what the story demanded. And so I published it on Amazon in January 2015 and bit my lower lip.

By and large, the response has been tremendously positive. Readers—especially dog lovers—found something in the story that spoke to them, and its reviews reflect that. And then I thought: why not an entire anthology? And with other animals too, not just dogs.

So I reached out to the most talented authors I knew, and that’s how this anthology came to be. Although I originally published “Unconditional” as a solo short story, I felt it had a place as the final tale in this collection. The story—and reader response to it—started the process that created this anthology, so there was a certain serendipitous synergy to including it. If it’s your first time reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it. And if you’d read it before, I hope you found something new to like.

If you’d like to know more about me and my writing, please visit chrispourteau.thirdscribe.com and sign up for my newsletter. Or you can email me at c.pourteau.author@gmail.com or find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/arkewall. I’d love to hear from you.