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The late spring air tickled my trimmed antlers, welcoming me home. It welcome Penelope too, her urn nestled in the bottom of my backpack.

The town was deserted, the three of us having arrived via the main highway. As I walked down the overgrown county road, through the dense forest, I didn’t know what to expect. Whatever I had envisioned, it wasn’t shocking to find Emmanuel, Michigan in complete disarray; overgrown grass filled the yards of weather-damaged houses, tree branches littered the roads alongside an occasional car either flipped over or left abandoned to the elements. Meanwhile, the town’s Main Street leading directly towards the K-12 school and ransacked town hall reminded me of what your average street in the cities looked like nowadays: looted, burnt, and utterly destroyed. Four years of neglect and Mother Nature’s wrath certainly did the trick.

Too many emotions burned inside my chest. The least powerful was nostalgia, especially after everything that happened; my upended life, Penelope’s pregnancies, our marriage, me trying to find work, and then the apocalypse.

What helped keep my head on straight were five and three-year-old bundles of joy standing by my side. The five-year-old fawn, wearing a yellow raincoat one size too large, and jeans as dirty as mine, stared vigilantly at our surroundings with the same determined look my late father held when he watched me play sports. A solar-powered lantern the size of his head gathered meager strips of sunlight it could grab while staying clipped to his backpack. The three-year-old, meanwhile, wore a perfectly sized dark magenta jacket over a large shirt and pair of denim jeans we’d found in a mostly-looted Goodwill. Along with her bright pink backpack she refused to give up, even after I’d tried explaining how it could easily stand out to bad guys chasing us. What kept me from tossing it was when she pointed out how Zeke’s yellow raincoat was bright too, and I relented.

Like mother like daughter. She looked like her and oftentimes acted like her. The brightness in those grassy-green eyes, the way she smiled, and her insatiable curiosity hurt more than a stray bullet. Yet I endured. I needed to endure, especially as we loomed towards the once-cozy suburban street her mother grew up on.

“Zeke, Melanie, stay close,” I spoke. “Be ready to duck for cover when I say.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Melanie whispered.

“Right, Dad,” Zeke replied.

My fingers gripped the rifle in my paw. I left the safety on but kept my calloused finger still, ready to flip the switch. The shaking from my digits traveled up to my swiveling ears and to my tail, wiggling nervously behind me.

We’d been on foot for weeks, avoiding raiders and the rare patrol from the enclaved city in Detroit. All three of us had been on edge until we reached the northernmost tip of Lower Michigan, then across the bridge into Upper Michigan. Once we finished our business in Emmanuel, the plan would be to cross into Canada through the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, then follow the highway to Winnipeg and eventually…

“Daddy, what’s Call-Gary? And Ed-Muffin?”

“Calgary and Edmonton, Melanie,” I corrected her with a soft chuckle.

“Yeah, those!” she said. “You look and look at the map and say those names.”

“They’re cities, Melanie. In Canada,” Zeke explained, one paw grasping hers while the other held the switchblade in his coat pocket. A part of me wondered if it was wise to give a weapon to such a young man, even if we lived in dangerous times. “Canada is the country that’s north of us. And Calgary and Edmonton are where we’re going next, right, Dad?”

A smile crept up my muzzle. Hopefully, the International Bridge was still standing, and we wouldn’t need to go the southern route around Lake Superior, and therefore risk being noticed by the enclavers in Minneapolis. Or rather, what used to be Minneapolis. If the rumors about enclaved cities were all true, then being captured by one of them would be akin to being dragged off into the depths of hell. We would be essentially slaves performing forced labor, working in horrible conditions, treated like property by the city’s ruling elite, and all just so they could have electricity and other pre-apocalyptic luxuries. With each mile made, I dared not think about those monsters taking my children and enslaving them, or worse.

“Yes,” I nodded, forcing the horrible images out of my mind. “We are going to Edmonton and Calgary. One or the other. Everyone I’ve talked to says they’re safe cities, like Huntington. They hate the enclavers like we do, kiddos, and they’re farther away from either of ‘em.” A sad sigh escaped me. “But first…But first, we’re fulfilling Mommy’s wishes.”

Within minutes, we made it to her home. I walked down the overgrown sidewalk to a familiar setting. There it stood, at the far end of a cul-de-sac amid a circular row of old houses. I recognized one of them easily. Compared to the rest, the exterior still had an ugly yellow paintjob that had been peeling away. To my surprise, an intact van still sat in the driveway.

I motioned for Zeke and Melanie to stop behind me. I whispered for Zeke to wait behind the van while I went to the door, and he obeyed. My ears remained pointed to the ground as I stepped on the front porch. A part of me never thought I’d consider it, but for once, I hoped to see the house’s owners still alive and well.

My knuckles rapped on the front door once. Twice. Thrice.

“Diane? Ezekiel?” I called out, trying to hide my nervousness. “Are you in there?”

Ever since the Collapse, I’d begun to learn the difference between quiet and absolute silence. The house didn’t just look poorly maintained, but it was like it had been preserved for some time despite everything. The neighboring lawns had much longer grass, plus clothes and items that littered it and the street. A few cracked windows could be spotted and there were no cars in sight. Not in the case of Penelope’s parents’ house. They never left, but they didn’t appear to be present either.

I knocked one more time before finally deciding to break in. After a few kicks and impacts from my shoulder, the old door burst open, and yet no movement or alarmed shouts came. Absolute quiet. Never before had the silence said so much.

Nodding back to them, Zeke followed close behind me as Melanie held a death grip to his paw. Their eyes marveled at how clean and orderly the interior was, and so did I. Besides a few water stained in the corners of the wall and a few dishes piled up in the kitchen sink, one would confuse the present for the pre-apocalyptic days. I suddenly felt like an actual intruder in somebody’s home.

While my fawns were distracted by a row of DVD cases perfectly organized beneath a wooden stand and its dusty flatscreen, I surveyed the rest of the home. Nobody was in the master bedroom. Nobody was in the ground floor office. Nobody was in the basement, though I did find an abundance of used cans piling up in a corner. All of them were cleaned to the morsel. I almost started entering one final part of the house, a room across from the master bedroom. A travel poster of an Italian city—Florence, if memory served me right—stuck peeling to the door. It stood shut and secured like a tomb, but one turn of the brass knob would open it wide up. Along with so many smells and memories.

A shudder crawled up and down my being. Guilt jolted up from the tips of my antlers to the hooves of my toes. Turning away, I didn’t enter. I couldn’t enter. Between holding her ashes in my backpack and entering a sacred place where she grew up, I feared entering the closed bedroom would break me. The last thing Zeke and Melanie needed was their father bursting into tears inside their mother’s childhood home. They needed me to be strong.

“Zeke,” I said moments later. “I want you and Melanie to stay in the living room. I’m gonna look through the backyard. There should be one more place to look.”

“Sure thing, Dad!” He sat beside his baby sister, who examined a random DVD in her paws, marveling at the shine it made from sunlight leaking in the window. I heard my son muttering, “Still can’t imagine how these things even work…”

“Are Grandma and Grandpa here?” Melanie asked me, whimpering. “Are they…alive?”

I let out another gruff exhale. “I don’t know.”

I exited into the backyard moments later, finding tall grass that swallowed unkempt flowerbeds and what appeared to be a glass greenhouse as old as the property. Memories of Penelope describing how she’d spent her youth pretending to be a princess in a garden flooded my vision, along with a happy memory of the beautiful doe gaping at a bouquet of roses I’d given her on our wedding anniversary. They’d been one of the last items I’d bought with paper money at an actual store before everybody fully registered the end of the world, and people still thought dollar bills still had value.

I held my rifle steady. The greenhouse door stood ajar, but it didn’t appear neglected. Stepping forward to push it open though, a new smell struck my nostrils. It was an all-too-familiar scent completely different from the odors of spoiled food and rotting vegetation. It was death, and the dots connected too late when I used the end of my rifle to push the door fully open.

Inside the makeshift greenhouse was a long pathway squeezed between piles of dead. creeping plants. Dead husks of tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and perhaps beets. However, my full attention lay on the still figures sitting on a rocking couch hanging from the ceiling. Suddenly, I had to cover my nose due to the decomposition, and I fought to hold down my meager breakfast.

“My God,” I muttered in shock, disgust, then resignation. “How long have they…?”

One of the corpses was a doe in her early fifties and the other a buck in his late fifties. Leaning against their swinging couch appeared to be a hospital wheelchair, looking small enough for the doe. They were both skeletal and had their eyes closed. They each wore thick clothing and appeared to be huddled together for warmth. It had to have been during the winter. Maybe sometime before the snow melted. Did they simply give up? Did the crops fail, and they starved?

I lowered my rifle, setting it on the ground as I approached. My chest felt heavy.

“Hello, Diane. Hello…Hello Ezekiel,” I said to them. “It’s been a while…Five years.”

My antlers and legs suddenly weighed a ton as I stood there, staring at the older deer sitting on that rocking chair. I half-expected them to move, and for Penelope’s father to twist his tired face into a sneer at my presence. How dare I return. How dare I show my face.

My eyes fell on an aged piece of folded paper on a carved nightstand. A closed book kept it in place for anybody to find. The name on the corner read: To Penelope, our daughter.

I opened it slowly.

To hopefully our daughter,

We miss you so much. We miss you every day, even after what happened that night. You probably resent us for the way we raised you, and rightfully so. As the world ends around us, we can only hope you’re safe and sound. We’ll see you and our grandchildren one day.

Love, Your Mother and Father.

I fought the urge to tear the paper apart. Instead, I folded it back up and placed it neatly inside their book, closing it.

“Listen,” I mumbled, looking down at their rigid boots settled on the ground. My expression hardened, and it was hard to forget their words. “It’s selfish of me, but I…I’m not gonna lie and say a part of me isn’t relieved about this. We both know that me coming here would’ve resulted in…old wounds opening up. I wouldn’t’ve cared about what you called me or did to me…but the last thing I would’ve done is let you two throw all your pain out onto my fawns. I know you’d have done it…and I know I would’ve killed you two myself if you tried hurling insults at my fawns, let alone try to hurt them for everything you think I did to their mother. Hell, Ezekiel, when Penny told us all she was pregnant, you called Zeke a—”

I stopped myself, inhaling and exhaling. She wouldn’t want me to say things I’d regret.

“Anyway…what’s done is done, I guess,” I steadied myself, placing my backpack down and pulling out the heaviest object inside. The urn that held what remained of the doe who changed my life and stole my heart. “I won’t apologize. Not to you. I’ll never say I’m sorry for loving your daughter. But I will…I will apologize that I couldn’t get Penny to see either of you one more time.”

I cleared my throat, still trying to ignore the rotten smell. My eyes watered.

“Penny, she…she got sick a year or so after giving birth to Melanie,” I said. “She spent the next couple of years trapped with pneumonia. Some days it got better, but other days, it felt like God was torturing us. Believe me when I say she wanted to see you two one final time, but we could barely travel far before…” A trembling paw remembered hers, and I almost let out a sob. “I did every one of my duties as a good husband, just so you know.”

My limbs hesitated to move. After collecting my thoughts, I carefully placed the urn on the swinging couch. It moved ever so slightly as I settled it between her father and her mother, in their arms. Letting go of the circular vase felt more painful than the day I held Penelope’s paw as she passed away, or when I told Zeke and Melanie that their mommy was gone, or when I decided to gather her ashes and travel all the way from the Republic of Appalachia to Upper Michigan.

“I wish it didn’t come to this.” My voice trembled, my head bowed, and antlers pointed at them. My fists clenched tightly. “She-She wanted me to tell you…not to blame me for what happened. S-She said if you were alive, to not hate me or Zeke or Melanie. Most of all, she wanted me to tell you how much she loved you both. She always loved you. She wanted to return home even after that fighting, and…even knowing there wasn’t much time…Penny asked that I bring her back to you. She wanted to be here.”

Rain started to tap against the glass roof. With stiff legs and a tear-stained face, I left without saying goodbye. Except not without placing Penelope’s smartphone, the same one Diane and Ezekiel had gifted her for her eighteenth birthday, next to the urn on their laps. I did make sure to shut the greenhouse door though and locked it shut.

I’ve done all my duties as a husband, I thought. And now, time to keep doing my duties as a dad.

***

Me and my fawns remained at their grandparents’ house, taking up the living room as our sleeping quarters for the night. At the very least, it was better than a moldy shed or hollowed-out gas station to keep away from the rain. It poured like Noah’s Flood outside and refused to likely let up until dawn. In the meantime, we sat in a circle looking through a photo album Zeke had discovered. I made a mental note to take at least a few photographs of my wife as keepsakes before we departed in the morning.

“Is that Mommy?” Melanie asked, pointing to one photo.

I nodded, “Yeah, that’s her. She’s attending this event high schoolers used to go to called ‘prom’. It was a dance to celebrate growing up.”

“I’ve heard of that!” Zeke said, a little pride in his voice. “I heard that in high school, they had dances for everything. Games, Halloween, Valentine’s Day…Did you go with her to prom, Dad?”

“Not exactly,” I chuckled while grasping the album further open. “Somebody else went with your mom. It wasn’t me, but prom night was the night we did fall in love…”

Zeke made a gagging noise while Melanie giggled uncontrollably, and I examined the picture further. She wore a gorgeous dress, standing at the front door with her then-boyfriend, an elk named Roger Barnes. On the opposite left page were other photographs of Christmas, a teen party supervised by her parents on New Year’s Eve, and eventually the Valentine’s Day Dance with Roger. The bright glow reflecting from Zeke’s solar-powered lantern illuminated everything on the page, from the stylized words on the page proclaiming it was Penelope’s senior prom to the dazzling smile that I saw visible on my daughter nearby.

To my right, Zeke leaned over my arm to abruptly turn the page, then frowned in confusion when it was blank. A page dedicated to his mother’s high school graduation didn’t hold any printed photographs.

“Where’s the rest of it, Dad?” he asked.

I steadied my breath as I recalled the months leading up to Penelope’s graduation.

“Guess your grandparents never finished it,” I said, then slowly closed the album shut. “We should go to bed, kiddos. It’s gonna be a long night, and an even longer day tomorrow. We’re heading to Canada.”

Zeke and Melanie let out frustrated moans but complied, nonetheless. They scurried into their individual sleeping bags, cuddling close to mine for warmth, and I reached a paw out to slowly dim the lantern off.

“Daddy?” Melanie whispered through the darkness. “Can you tell us a story?”

“Can it be a different one?” Zeke added. “Dad’s told us Star Wars a billion times!”

“Alright, alright,” I conceded with a chuckle. “I’ll tell you two something different. It’s one I’ve never talked about before. But you need to promise me you won’t interrupt me with questions just to stay up longer, Zeke. Okay?”

“Okay, Dad,” he promised. “I’ll listen.”

“Good boy.” I glanced at Melanie through the pitch black, spotting her mother’s eyes. “You ready, Mel?”

“Ready, Daddy!” she chirped. “What’s the story about?”

“It’s about…a princess, and the servant that swept her off her feet,” I explained. Composing my thoughts and steadying my breath, I started telling them the story. “Once upon a time, there was a…a beautiful princess in a tiny kingdom deep in the woods. Far from the largest ports and the most towering of castles. In spite of her kingdom being small, it was still a beautiful, welcoming place. Growing up, Her Highness lived luxuriously, was well-fed by her chefs, and beloved by her parents, the king and queen. The princess was lonely though throughout her childhood. She felt trapped as the years passed.

“This was because the king and queen were much older than her, as they had spent years trying to have a child and succeeded when their daughter was born. So, in an effort to protect her from the evils of the world, they sheltered her. Their intentions were noble, and they truly did love her, but their strict rules prevented Her Highness from enjoying life beyond the castle walls and away from her studies. Thus, she made very little friends outside the castle, and the ones she did make were met with fantastic scrutiny by the king and immediate disapproval by the queen. They believed even…even a single flaw in their personality or appearance was enough to turn them away. The same was said for any potential boyfriends to the princess, be they God-fearing princes or dashing knights her own age.”

“God-fearing princes?” Zeke pondered aloud. “Was there a church?”

“Yes, the kingdom had a church, and they greatly influenced the king and queen,” I confirmed his question. “To them, nobody proved to be good enough save for one prince, a young man who appeared perfect to the king and queen but held a greedy heart that desired other princesses. At the time, Her Highness did not see this darkness in him, but that all changed on the night of the Enchanted Ball, a celebration of all princes and princesses having fun and dancing throughout the night. The princess was so excited, but then, during the Enchanted Ball, she discovered her prince in the arms of another girl. Her Highness was devastated, but the black-hearted prince did not shed any tears or apologize. Instead, he boasted about desiring the hearts of other princesses, and that he never loved her. To further ruin what was supposed to be a magical evening, her fellow princesses humiliated her, calling her terrible names, and Her Highness fled the Enchanted Ball to cry outside the palace gates.”

“Oh no!” Melanie whimpered. “Poor princess…”

“What happened next, Dad?” Zeke asked.

“It was the dead of night, and the poor princess felt all alone. However, she wasn’t. An older servant had been assigned with chaperoning at the Enchanted Ball and heard of Her Highness fleeing in disgrace. He felt compelled to investigate. As she cried and cried in a private meadow, the servant revealed his presence and kindly asked the princess what troubled her so much. The princess was surprised, but thankful for his concern, and explained the terrible betrayal. The servant felt incredible anger at the actions of the black-hearted prince and desired to tell the king and queen, but the princess begged him not to. They treasured the prince for his status and would not believe the words of a lowly servant. With great reluctance, the servant agreed, but did insist he help bring her back to her castle, as it was reaching midnight, and the princess did not have a carriage.”

I didn’t tell Zeke or Melanie that when the servant returned the princess home, the king and queen were angered by their daughter breaking curfew. It didn’t matter if it was a few minutes past nine in the evening. Thus, they locked her out of the castle and told her not to return until morning. So, the princess returned to the servant’s carriage after catching him at a fast food joint a few blocks away, asking if she could stay with him until morning.

“The lowly servant and princess suddenly found themselves in a great storm,” I continued, ears pointed towards the rain pelting the roof of the old house. “A great storm much like the one we’re in, outside this very house. The storm was so tremendous that they had to find shelter in a cave. And in this cave, the princess and servant huddled together for warmth and opened up about their roles in life. The servant discussed his dreams and so did the princess. They discovered having so many things in common, and across the stormy night…they fell in love. They kissed, declaring their love for each other.”

Again, Zeke made a noise of disgust while Melanie awed at the romance, giggling.

“The next day,” I chuckled with a sigh. “The next day…reality set in for them. Their romance was forbidden for many different reasons. God-fearing royalty could not marry those who did go to church. He was also a lowly servant who, who helped clean…” I cleared my throat, trying to find a way to describe classrooms in a fantasy setting, then settled on saying, “the royal academy. Where Her Highness attended to her studies. The biggest reason they could not fall in love though, was because the servant was older than her. Ten years older than her. She was eighteen when she attended the Enchanted Ball, and the lowly servant had recently celebrated his twenty-ninth birthday.”

“Just like you and Mommy!” Melanie suddenly pointed out. “Daddy, didn’t you once say you and Mommy are ten years apart? You said that when you first told me all about Mommy!”

I couldn’t help but smile through the darkness. Smart, just like her mother.

“You’re right, Mel. You’re absolutely right…” I sighed, returning to the story. “The princess and her lowly servant could tell nobody about their love. Otherwise, the king and queen would have him arrested and executed. He even felt incredible guilt for kissing their daughter and tried to speak little with Her Highness once they returned to the castle. Nevertheless, these feelings of love endured, and the two snuck out into the garden to once again declare their love.”

I did not mention that their next few declarations of love took place in motel rooms in the next town over, or that the servant and his princess deeply discussed their vulnerabilities as well as dreams. The servant dreamed of traveling beyond their small town, as did the princess, who in turn confessed that she yearned to live in a city. The servant considered himself to be ugly and just another hick loser with low prospects and no future, but the princess insisted he was not. She in turn believed herself to be plain and unappealing, but his words and later actions revealed that he considered her incredibly sexy, as well as beautiful. He easily proved it to her after kissing her, then undressing with her on the bed.

Unfortunately, their final visit to a motel room would seal their fate.

“They kept their secret for many months, but not forever,” I went on. “One day, the suspicious king and queen wondered why their daughter continued to disappear after sessions at the royal academy, and one day followed her at twilight. Suddenly, they discovered the secret between Her Highness and the servant. They witnessed her kissing him behind a tree deep in the wilderness and were enraged. To further drench them in fury, the princess revealed herself to be pregnant with his son. The joyous news though was viewed as blasphemous by the king and queen. They accused him of using evil magic to seduce her, ignoring the princess’ pleas to spare him mercy. So…they locked her away in the castle’s tallest tower, and after being dismissed from the academy and threats of arrest hovering above him, the servant waited for the end. It did not come though. The princess had been clever and found a way to escape the tower on her own, rendezvousing with the servant in his carriage to escape the kingdom. Faraway from danger, Her Highness married the servant in a distant land, where she gave birth to her son, and loved her husband dearly for the rest of their days. And they…they lived happily ever after…Kiddos?”

By now, Zeke and Melanie had fallen asleep near the end of my tale. Smiling at them dozing steadily and peacefully as babies, I planted a soft kiss between my son’s ears. I did the same for Melanie. I then lay back down into my sleeping bag, joining them in whatever fairy tale dreamland they’d both traveled to, away from our harsh reality.