In Search of an Apple
A post-apocalypse One Shot for SciFi Spring 2024
Henry had traipsed the winding roads of the countryside for days, following signs to a town called Appleton. Tough grass had burst through the tarmac and the hedgerows were overgrown to the point that the once two car wide road was now one car wide, not that cars were common any more. Once, Henry, had known a world built for cars. He'd sit in one to travel to work and back home, he'd eat a quick lunch, to the dismay of his wife for the crumbs of sausage rolls and pork pies were a nightmare, caught in the crevices of the seat, and he'd spend a third of day trundling down to the south coast every summer for the family holiday. His car was probably sitting on his driveway back home, rusting away.
A brown sign pointed down a pebbled road, the words were long covered in moss and grime but the symbol of an oak leaf in off-white peered through. Henry squinted down the lane but all he could make out was rolling hills overgrown with wild flowers, saplings, and plants once known as weeds. Through the thicket of green he could make out a building, quite sizeable by look of the columns at its entrance. Once a prosperous country home turned museum turned derelict. Henry continued on the road to Appleton.
His backpack rattled with half a tin of baked beans, a flask of water, and precious tea bags. His sleeping bag was stuffed inside to keep it all moving as little as possible. The idea of an apple, the image of it, the taste of it, carried him onward to Appleton. No town has a name like that without an orchard or cider press. Though the idea of alcohol tickled his fancy it would be a poor choice. Drinking alone had always put him in a sour mood.
The road rounded a tight bend and swooped down the hill, the quaint sight of Appleton a mile ahead. Stone cottages with slate or thatch rooves, a couple of pubs and inns clustered on the high street, and a town hall, replete with clock, in the centre. A bowling green lay off to one side, an old farm, left fallow too long, beyond its hedges. A church steeple towered above it all. The sight reminded him of the towns and villages he'd stayed in for childhood holidays and then with his own children years later. A bygone era, not just the holidays but rural living. Henry had lived on the outskirts of a city, like most people, and trekked to work in the city, like most people, complained of traffic, green belts, shoddy new builds, and potholes, like most people. Nights were spent in the pub or in front of the television, and often with a phone in hand with some silly game or social feed to entertain during the adverts. He'd heard of pubs still existing out east and south but for the last year Henry had wanted solitude. Time to grieve and remember, plus his doctor had said he needed to lose some weight and lower his blood pressure, it was too high for someone only thirty. Henry couldn't remember the GP's name, let alone his face. Or was it a woman. He couldn't remember, it didn't matter, there was no one to write prescriptions anyway nor were there any medicines for the chemist to provide. A severe decline on the road pained his blisters, a symptom of long walks that should have been a thing of the past now he was walking ten miles or more a day. The doctor would be proud, or maybe he'd warn Henry about his knees, hips, and ankles, there was no winning with healthcare professionals.
A blue car lay on the side of the road, half buried in the overgrown hedge, with blackberries growing through the rolled down window. The headlights were smashed, the boot open. Henry slowed and prayed there was no-one inside. Praying. What was the point, he'd scoff before, now it was one of the few actions that gave him calm and comfort. The seats were empty, keys still in the ignition. A quick turn produced nothing from the engine and the plastic top of the key snapped off in his hand, the metal rusted through. The plastic was sticky with age and when he checked the reg he wasn't surprised. Twenty-five years old. A banger for sure, would be lucky to get fifty quid for scrap, the fees would probably be more. He checked the boot, the glove box, and the doors for anything of use. Nothing but de-icer, a mouldy sponge, and a collection of crap CDs. His stomach rumbled and Henry carried onto Appleton.
WELCOME TO APPLETON
Historic Market Town
The sign was black with gold lettering, or had been if the weather and flora hadn't gotten to it. The iron would outlast it all, rusted and worn but still around, and in centuries to come archaeologists would uncover Welcome To signs all over the land and wonder where the towns, the people, had gone. Henry peered in the windows of the cottages on either side of the road. Most were empty, long empty. What was strange was the lack of vandalism. Windows remained, cars stood on driveways, doors locked and rotting. Some rooves had collapsed from disrepair and some windows were covered in condensation, house plants ruling the home now making jungles in a rural village far north of the equator.
From experience Henry knew the pubs and shops would be barren but homes would still sport the odd tin or box of tea bags. In a town like this there'd be wood and coal for fires too. The idea of an apple kept him hobbling along the cracking tarmac when the blisters stung. There had been no orchard in view from atop the hill but with nature undoing centuries of farmer's hard work the apple trees could be anywhere.
A house caught his eye, the net curtains obscuring the view inside. A white car stood on the drive, a little green rectangle on its reg plate, the electric charging cable plugged into the back of it. The cable trailed inside, propping open the front door. He laughed to himself and remembered his own electric car, useless once the blackouts started. The petrol and diesel drivers lasted a bit longer, but they became lemons too when shipping faltered. Henry wondered how much he'd have to cycle on one of those generators to charge a car as he followed the cable inside the house. The door swung open with a squeak from the hinge, the smell of damp potent. Mold grew on the mildew laden carpet and the wallpaper lay crumpled over the skirting boards. Paint flaked on the staircase and from the picture rail. The phone lay off the hook, the receiver laying beside a notebook. He checked if it was a copper line phone. It wasn't.
Henry stalked the hallway, upstairs was heavy with shadow and the doors to the living room and kitchen were closed. The thought someone could have been staying in the house crossed his mind. He stopped and admired the thick, greasy dust resting on the shoulder of a ceramic fisherman atop the radiator cover. The house was silent, the town was silent, save for the ringing in Henry's ears. Tinnitus from headphones, still nothing could beat excessively loud rock music when going for a run. A smile cracked his lips at the memory of training for marathons, his early twenties, before children, before a sedentary job, it was not a pleasant time though he was glad he'd done it but now the whole idea seemed bizarre and pointless. If he ran he'd need more food and water than he had. Henry reached for the living room door handle, the faux-brass finish mottled green and brown. With some effort it turned but the door opened an inch before hitting something wooden with a loud bang. He stopped and listened.
Silence.
The kitchen door swung open onto a dining table and four chairs, the cooker and the rest behind a breakfast bar on the left and then a door leading to a patio and what had once been a lawn. Henry wished he'd turned his small garden back home into a veg patch and bought a couple of chickens. A rainwater collection barrel would have been a good purchase too. Instead he'd wanted a barbecue-cum-pizza oven, a table and chairs, and his wife had wanted a flower bed. At least the last one was used and could be admired even in the rain. Henry closed the door behind him and checked the corners of the room. Empty. Paperwork, books, a laptop, phones, and a fruit bowl cluttered the dining table. All long dried, rotted, rusted, and broken. A utilities bill sat on the top, the paper brittle to the touch. £1648.92 for a month of gas and electricity to power a little rural house. Henry whistled remembering how mad it had gotten and figured the car hadn't helped, not that petrol was cheap either near the end. He'd spent close to £250 to fill up on the last week he went into work, the job costing him more than it paid him, everything else considered. It hadn't mattered anyway, not in the end, the blackout that evening was the last one. The national grid had popped from over-capacity, the failure of one power station rippled through the rest and that was that. No one could fix it, not any more, and the government and companies lacked the capital to repair and replace on such a massive scale. Once power went, so did everything else. A trail of dominoes with the stone age at the end.
Henry rummaged through the lower cabinets of the kitchen knowing the rats had probably beaten him to all the goodies. They had, and the stench of piss and fur made him balk. Empty biscuit packets lay beside oozing tins of mystery fruit while all the rice was stained with urine. He hoped the rats had eaten the spoiled rice but he figured that wouldn't slow a rat down. The top cupboards were more promising, once he'd found the mugs, glasses, and crockery he found the tea and coffee cupboard replete with a foil sealed pack of fifty teabags. He strapped his sleeping bag to the outside of his backpack and added the teabags to his stash. The coffee was instant and the granules had all clumped together and smelled of nothing. The rest of the tea had been exposed to the elements and besides he wasn't a fan of fruit tea. The final cupboard door fell off the hinge when Henry opened it, the MDF slamming into the sink, the knob still in his hand. There was a rustle of branches outside, tall grass and dandelions danced beyond the net curtains and some four legged animal bounded from the garden. Henry didn't care. Staring him in the face was a tin of beef ravioli, his favourite quick dinner as a kid. Behind it was another tin, and another, along with baked beans, tomato soup, and a Fray Bentos steak & kidney pie. He took the lot and finished off his half-tin of beans in celebration.
Leaves rustled outside once more and this time Henry peered outside. He wiped a thin sheen of grime from the window with the net curtain and hoisted it up. In the garden was a deer munching on the leaves of a gnarled tree, large red-green fruit hanging from its branches. Henry gasped, zipped up his bag, and tried the backdoor.
Locked.
The sound of the handle startled the deer but it didn't flee, not like the other one. Henry reached for the top of the door frame and found the key resting on the corner covered in old spider webs and greasy dust. He unlocked the door and gently opened it. With careful footsteps he made it outside and towards the tree. Three apple trees stood on the left side of the garden while the lawn had grown up to his neck with stalks of wheat likely blown over from nearby farms. The deer chewed a branch, tearing a leaf in the process. The deer would feed him for a year but he didn't have a means to kill the animal, nor the knowledge of how to skin, fillet, and cure it. Henry shushed the animal and reached for an apple near his head. With a twist and a pull it was in his hand, the rustle of leaves startling the deer. It ran into the grass, but not far. Henry smiled, rubbed the apple on his shirt, and bit into it with a crunch. The sweet juice ran down his chin and he smiled up at the sky and thanked God for apples.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more One Shots and Novellas every Tuesday and Thursday.
Beautifully written, very evocative!