Unfinished Shorts by Paul Groffry Swanson (beautiful books to read txt) 📕

but could not rule it out as a possibility. It had clearly felt the slam of his foot; no machine that he knew of could feel pain or even any sensation.
Core did not know what to do. He didn’t want to get up and go get the others; it might be gone when he got back. Neither did he want to touch it; it might snap his fingers off with that beak if he tried to take it back with him. He figured he would just stay there and hope someone would hear the racket the thing was making. Without realizing it, the thing had stopped screaming and was just lying on its side. Surprised, he got up and bent down to look at it a little closer. The eyes were dimming in and out like a flashlight running out of batteries.
Assuming it was safe, he called over one of the Biologists. She was just as perplexed as he was and called the other three over. They also had no idea what it was. The only thing they could agree on was that it was dead. They bagged the specimen and carried it back to the camp. By this point, few tents were up. They set up the cold storage unit and dropped it into place. They did this with very few words.
No one knew quite what to say. They must have had an idea or two, but no one wanted to be the one to sound like the idiot. Core sent a message to the flagship from which they left. All he could tell them was that it looked like a ‘chicken robot’.
They said to wait until morning and then they would send a team of specialists to examine it. They finished setting up camp about an hour later. The specialists would be there tomorrow. With nothing to do but wait, they sat down and did just that (with the exception of the Geographers).

Story 4 Armageddon

When the meteors fell they destroyed everything he knew, well almost. One day he was sitting in the city library reading about knights and chivalry, oh he loved the notion of chivalry, and the next moment the book in his hands was ash. Everything around him turned to ash, and everybody.
All he heard was a loud boom and the glass around him shattering. The shards never hit the floor, just shattered and was gone just like everything else. The building frame and him, was all that remained. Some nearby buildings collapsed under the strain of being warped others just stood strong. That was when he was eleven, now he was thirty-two.
And instead of being at work, in some office, he was a wanderer. And the rest of the known world fled into cities built underground. Fewer than a thousand people survived the constant explosions made by the meteors.
At first he thought it was just that city block that was destroyed, but on his walk home he saw horrors beyond any book he ever read. Shadows burned into walls and bone fragments lay scattered across the roads all the way back to his home, which was also in pieces. After searching the rubble of his home he found only a single object was spared destruction. His broadsword. It had hung on his wall ever since he got it as a gift, everyone around him knew that he loved medieval things so they got together and decided on the weapon. He remembered how happy he was.
And now twenty-one years later he still carried that broadsword with him. It was strapped to his side, hidden under the cloak he had sewn to keep him warm. With him he also carried a shovel, a sack to carry his food, three water canteens and a pocket sized world atlas. His black hair dangled messily over his eyes and he brushed it aside with his fingers.
His walk from New York to Illinois had been a long one. He had taken his time. After arriving at Springfield and searching for three months he headed head north toward Chicago. He hadn’t seen very many survivors. Only two cities he had ever come upon had survivors, the first being in Buffalo New York; which was the one he spent the rest of his childhood in, and the second was in Columbus, Ohio.
And now even as the meteors continue to fall, he wandered the land looking for others, making notes in the atlas he carried around.
He saw an overpass not to far away, that’s good, he thought because it had started to drizzle. It down pored just as he made it under. He dug a shallow hole in the ground that was about three feet wide and seven feet long. He took off his belongings and grabbed a piece of beef jerky out of his food sack. Then he tossed his stuff into the hole at the top and then chucked the food sack on top. He covered the hole with his cloak to disguise it and walked to the other end of the overpass and took a piss.
After walking back and swallowing the rest of his jerky he slipped under the cloak and slept in his hole. He did this to hide himself and his belongings from the rogues that also wandered the lands. To avoid contact with these gangs was a wise idea. It also kept him warm, like an igloo, or at least he hoped that was the correct comparison.
The rain continued though out the night. When he woke it wasn’t yet dawn. He put his stuff back on and continued deeper into the city. The sun was just beginning to rise as he approached a bridge. A crooked sign on the side of the support beckoned him. It would have normally welcomed him into the Windy City but it was crossed off with graffiti and instead it read “Welcome to the Dead City.”

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Publication Date: 11-19-2009

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