After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh Page A

off.”
    “You’re lucky they didn’t kill the dogs,” Nick says.
    I fumble with my purse. “There’s a reward,” I say.
    He waves that away. “No, don’t you go starting that.” He says he didn’t do anything but read the tag and give him a drink. “I had dogs all my life,” he says. “I’d want someone to call me.”
    I tell him it would mean a lot to me and press the money on him. Hudson leans against my legs to be petted, tongue lolling. He looks fine. No worse for wear.
    “Sit a minute. You came all the way out here. Pardon the mess. My sister’s grandson and his friends have been coming out here, and they leave stuff like that,” he says, waving at the junk and the bottles.
    “I can’t leave the other dog in the heat,” I say, wanting to leave.
    “Bring her inside.”
    I don’t want to stay, but I’m grateful, so I bring Abby in out of the heat, and he thumps her and tells me about how he’s lived here since he was in his twenties. He’s a Libertarian, and he doesn’t trust government, and he really doesn’t trust the New Mexico state government which is, in his estimation, a banana republic lacking only the fancy uniforms that third-world dictators seem to love. Then he tells me about how lucky it was that Hudson didn’t get picked up to be a bait dog for the people who raise dogs for dogfights. Then he tells me about how the American economy was destroyed by operatives from Russia as revenge for the fall of the Soviet Union.
    Half of what he says is bullshit and the other half is wrong, but he’s just a lonely guy in the middle of the desert, and he brought me back my dog. The least I can do is listen.
    I hear a spitting little engine off in the distance. Then a couple of them. It’s the little motorbikes the kids ride. Nick’s eyes narrow as he looks out.
    “It’s my sister’s grandson,” he says. “Goddamn.”
    He gets up, and Abby whines. He stands, looking out the slatted blinds.
    “Goddamn. He’s got a couple of friends,” Nick says. “Look you just get your dogs and don’t say nothing to them, okay? You just go on.”
    “Hudson,” I say and clip a lead on him.
    Outside, four boys pull into the yard, kicking up dust. They have seen my car and are obviously curious. They wear jumpsuits like prison jumpsuits, only with the sleeves ripped off and the legs cut off just above the knees. Khaki and orange and olive green. One of them has tattoos swirling up his arms.
    “Hey, Nick,” the tattooed one says, “new girlfriend?”
    “None of your business, Ethan.”
    The boy is dark, but his eyes are light blue. Like a Siberian husky. “You a social worker?” the boy says.
    “I told you it was none of your business,” Nick says. “The lady is just going.”
    “If you’re a social worker, you should know that old Nick is crazy, and you can’t believe nothing he says.”
    One of the other boys says, “She isn’t a social worker. Social workers don’t have dogs.”
    I step down the steps and walk to my car. The boys sit on their bikes, and I have to walk around them to get to the Impreza. Hudson wants to see them, pulling against his leash, but I hold him in tight.
    “You look nervous, lady,” the tattooed boy says.
    “Leave her alone, Ethan,” Nick says.
    “You shut up, Uncle Nick, or I’ll kick your ass,” the boy says absently, never taking his eyes off me.
    Nick says nothing.
    I say nothing. I just get my dogs in my car and drive away.

    Our life settles into a new normal. I get a response from my dildo email. Nick in Montana is willing to let me sell on his sex site on commission. I make a couple of different models, including one that I paint just as realistically as I would one of the reborn dolls. This means a base coat, then I paint the veins in. Then I bake it. Then I paint an almost translucent layer of color and bake it again. Six layers. And then a clear overlayer of silicone because I don’t think the paint is approved for use this way. I put a