Into the Wastes

By Milo James Fowler

Into the Wastes collects 10 short stories from the post-apocalyptic badlands: 

 

Soulless in His Sight 

You Kill Me 

Survival of the Fittest 

For a Handful of Crowns 

Drawn from a World of Hurt 

Breath of Life 

Sins of the Father 

Like Clockwork 

When Tomorrow Comes 

Idan's World

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chiaroscuro Press
• Release date: Jun 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227282972

Book preview

I N T O

T H E

W A S T E S

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short stories

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Milo James Fowler

www.milojamesfowler.com

Table of Contents

Title Page

Soulless in His Sight

You Kill Me

Survival of the Fittest

For a Handful of Crowns

Drawn from a World of Hurt

Breath of Life

Sins of the Father

Like Clockwork

When Tomorrow Comes

Idan's World

Soulless in His Sight

Fatha he always knows best, he knowed it when I was born and he knows it now as he takes his hatchet to this man's skull to break it open like an egg and let the brains run out all gooey and grey like porridge and smelly like the insides of a cat. This man he came tearing down our street on a motorbike making all manner of ruckus in the early morninglight, juking his way round all them brokendown cars in the road and the rotting dead folks inside them, but we keep all the windows up so's we don't have to smell them. This man he sure took the wrong turn if he thought he'd be passing by our way alive. First it was the arrow Fatha planted in his back from fifty yards; Fatha with his crossbow is a sure-dead shot. The gas-chugging bike it flipped off one way and smashed into a rusty car and this man he dropped the other way clawing at his back like he had a chance to rip out the thing.

You got him good! I whooped and I danced, kicking up dust and ash that makes this whole world smell like an old fireplace.

Ain't dead yet.  Fatha he whipped out the hatchet he keeps clean and sharp, dangling round his neck on a thick leather strap. Come, Boy.

That's what he calls me—Boy—because that's what I am, his child,  his only begotten son in all the world. So he loves me the most and does what he must to get me into Heaven.

This dying man he cursed a blue streak and kicked, pawing at the ground. Fatha's hatchet came down once and broke through the helmet, shattering black glass that hid this man's face, and the struggling stopped and this man he lay still and quiet then.

Let's get it off. Fatha tugs his hatchet free and reaches under this man's chin—and I help because that is what I do—and we pry the helmet off his sunsore head.

The blade of Fatha's hatchet messed up his face good, cutting clear into his skull with that one stroke. Fatha he's a big man with big muscles that kill like nobody's business. This man wasn't near so big while alive and not half so big now he's dead. Funny how death does that to a body. He has long greasy hair kind of like we've got and a dirty beard kind of like Fatha's got only Fatha keeps his clean. When I can grow one—and Fatha he says I'm awful close—I'm gonna keep it clean too, and there ain't no way I'll be letting my skin get all nasty like this man. I do right and keep my skin covered like Fatha tells me to all the time, and it keeps them sores away.

With the helmet off, Fatha's hatchet comes down again, once, twice, the hot blood spraying up like rain from the wrong direction. He's got this man's skull wide open now, and he wipes his blade off on this man's thick flannel shirt and takes a looksee inside, reaching in, prying the gap with his fingers through all that goo.

Fatha hums and mutters to himself like he does when he's thinking and when he's looking for something important to find.

Does he got one? I'm on my haunches copping a squat and petting the flannel, wishing it wasn't so bloody or it might have been nice and warm for the nighttimes.

Don't you rush me, Boy. Fatha's voice is always so quiet when it comes to this part, and he's got to work fast but he's also got to work slow—that's how he described it once when I asked him about it.

He told me there's very little time in the space between, once a body's heart stops beating, so it' s got to be done quick—but not so quick you scare off the thing, because then you'll never get it back. But then again, it's only if there's one in the first place, because like me, Fatha says there be plenty of folks in this world today with no souls.

This man he don't look like he'd have much of one, to tell the truth, but as Fatha says, no beggars can ever be choosers. And so I'll take what I can get and be glad of it. If I ever want to see Mama again, then it's got to be so.

Fatha curses loud and foul and shoves the man's floppy head off to the side to spill its mess onto the cracked asphalt.

No good? I rise with Fatha and I look up at him while he looks off into the faraway with his eyes there and not here, with his thick knuckles knotted on the hatchet.

I asked him one time why it was I needed a soul anyways. I seem to be getting along fine without one.

Fatha he said, No soul, and you don't get into Heaven, Boy. And I asked him, How come I was born with no soul?

And he told me, The Good Gawd seen fit to leave the planting of it to me, child, and soon as I find you one, I'm gonna plant it right in there. He tapped me on the forehead just so, like his sausage finger could do it too, put an honest-to-gawd soul right into my brain where it belonged.

What do it look like? I asked him.

Why, that's one there. He pointed me at the punctured skull of a different man at a different time, one who'd come through this street—Main Street, Fatha calls it—in a gas-guzzling racer. He pointed his thick finger and I strained to see, but all that was there was blood and brains. It ain't right for you. What you need is an honest soul.

That is what we pray for every night.

But now at this time Fatha he cries like he does whenever he's taken a life, and I know why, he told me before. He's afraid, you see, that he'll have to kill every