Finding Fido

Stanley needs help in this post-apocalyptic mess...

Stanley picked his way through the wreckage of his old neighborhood, the acrid fumes of distant, partially suppressed chemical fires stinging his lungs. The war was barely over, yet already surveillance drones flickered overhead, a constant reminder of the New Order in power. He adjusted the pack on his shoulder, scanning the area with constant vigilance. Murky evening fog slithered across the full moon, as if she were hiding her face from the destruction on Earth.

He came to where his own house lay, a burned-out skeleton of rafters and stone chimney. Wife and children were long vanished; no one remained, except perhaps for ghosts, giving lurid shape to smoldering curls of smoke. He blinked. Nothing stirred in the silence weighing like a leaden blanket.

He turned around, circling the area, shouting,

“Fido! Fido, are you here?”

The sound bounced off a concrete wall stained with graffiti. Detection was inevitable. A drone sank into view from the fog, shining a beam on Stanley. He raised his hands. It ran an infrared scanner over him, matching his biometrics to the database of former rebels.

“What brings you here?”

A dull, raspy voice crackled through his earpiece. A human, not a computer program. Someone was watching the drone, a mindless task.

“I'm looking for my dog.”

“Why here?”

“His microchip reported this as his last known location.”

“What interest would a dog have in this blown-up mess? Nobody's lived here in two years.”

“My family lived here with him. When the bombs came, I couldn't save them…” His voice shook. “I saved Fido. He stayed with me as I joined the fight, all the way up until the armistice was signed. I need to find him. I don't have anyone else.”

“But still. Why would he be here?”

“I think… He's looking for our family. My wife… The kids.”

The drone idled a minute, rotors whirring.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” the man controlling it said at last. “Would you like me to help you find him? I can shine the light, scan for heat sources. There weren't any alerts before you showed up. But maybe it doesn't alert for animals.”

“Yes, please. Thank you… sir.”

“Private Mark. You're Stanley? Quite the resistance your squadron put up. I heard one general had a price on your head. Of course that's over with, now.”

Stanley searched, with the drone lighting the way. He tried to narrow down the range of coordinates from Fido's chip. It had not updated or refined in twelve hours. Then, the beam highlighted paw prints, tracking through gray mud.

“Headed towards the old coalmines,” Mark reported.

Stanley followed the drone as it approached the foot of a mountain. Mark's disembodied voice quivered in his earpiece.

“I see the entrance to one of the tunnels now. The paw prints are headed inside. Man, I can hear him! Listen!”

It took Stanley a few more minutes to scramble close enough to the tunnel to hear what Mark's sensitive surveillance drone was picking up. A keening, heartbreaking howl echoed through the air.

“Fido!”

The howling changed to short, weak barking, a note of recognition and desperation. Stanley plunged inside the cavernous opening.

“Hang on, man! Let me get this thing in there with you.”

The drone maneuvered itself down into the tunnel alongside Stanley, lighting his way. Every crag in the bituminous surface cast sharp, morphing shadows as they advanced. Finally, a gaping hole opened at his feet. He switched on his headlamp, leaning forward to send the beam into the shaft. It landed on a scruffy hound dog, shivering in the damp, blackened with coal dust, about a hundred feet down. Fido looked up. His tail wagged.

Stanley unrolled a coil of rope.

“I'm going down.”

“And how are you two getting back up?”

“I'll rappel if I have to.”

“Listen. Tie your rope to this drone. I'll hold it taut for you.”

Stanley looped the rope through an eyepin on the drone, half wondering if it was engineered with towing capabilities like an off-road jeep. He strapped it across his chest. He climbed downwards one laborious foothold at a time, speaking soothingly to Fido. At the bottom, he hoisted up the dog and laid him across his shoulders, a living, breathing weight.

“Ok, I'm headed up.”

“Roger. Holding steady.”

Mark's drone pulled in the slack as Stanley crawled back up, testing each jutting rock before trusting his weight on it. As he placed his foot on one outcropping, it crumbled under him. Pieces of coal clattered to the bottom of the shaft. He lost his grip on the rocks, falling backwards. The rope yanked hard. Stanley swung, hitting against the wall and grappling for a hold. Fido yelped.

The drone’s rotors sped up to a deafening buzz as it countered nearly his full weight for several seconds. He regained balance. The strain lessened, noise subsided. Stanley moved upward, finally hauling himself over the edge and sprawling in exhaustion on the mine floor. Fido licked at his face.

“You did it! Come on, man, get outta here.”

Mark's voice in his ears cleared the growing fog in his head. The rope tugged at him, steadying his stumbling feet as the drone led the way back outside into the muggy night air.

Stanley sat down to rest. He unhitched the rope from around himself and freed the drone. It hovered overhead, lingering.

“Thank you, Mark. I couldn't have done it without you.”

“Hey, you and Fido made my boring night watch memorable. You'll be ok from here?”

“Yeah, my truck's at the end of the block.”

Stanley waved at the drone as it receded into the fog. He held Fido close.

“We're on our own, boy. I'm all you've got. Gotta stick together now, ok?”

As he picked his way back through the skeletal neighborhood, he reflected that of the many blinking surveillance drones he would be seeing in the New Order, one of them would always have a friend behind it.

Words: 1000.
Written for "Horror Writing Contest" 
Prompt: “new.”
Also for "The Fortnight Ink Clash" 
Prompt: You find a large mine, and hear a piercing screech within.
Also for "Honoring Our Veterans - Challenge"