Tails of the Apocalypse

A Word from David Bruns

There’s no better feeling in the world than being greeted at the door by a four-legged friend who’s bubbling over with excitement to see you. Whether you’ve been gone four minutes or four days, the joyous welcome is the same. With the exception of four years at the Naval Academy and two years in nuclear power training, I’ve always had a dog in my home. Part furniture, part family, dogs have always been part of my life. Always.

But the awful truth is that our canine friends don’t live as long as we do, and every pet owner knows the feeling of making that last, lonely trip home from the vet with nothing but an empty collar and a heavy heart. In the days and weeks leading up to that final moment, you suffer right alongside your friend and there is nothing—nothing—you wouldn’t do to make his time with you just a little less painful.

That’s the moment I wanted to capture in “The Water Finder’s Shadow”—those final days when you would do anything, say anything, risk anything to ease your friend’s passing. Set in a post-apocalyptic world of desertification and tribes, Polluk is waiting for his friend Shadow to pass—and not making good choices about whom to trust.

If you enjoyed “The Water Finder’s Shadow,” come visit me at www.davidbruns.com, where you can download a free Starter Library. You’ll find some other short fiction titles as well as my sci-fi series, The Dream Guild Chronicles. I also write military thrillers with another Navy veteran. Our most recent book is Weapons of Mass Deception, a novel of modern-day nuclear terrorism that looks less like fiction every time I open the newspaper.