My Daughter

The streets were empty. Barren, Amy decided, like herself, after Demon's Run. Of course they were. It was July 20, 1969, the day of the moon landing. Everyone the world over was glued to their television sets, watching Neil Armstrong's foot teach them how to become Silent assassins. That would be a good pun, she decided, if it didn't hurt so much.

Amy ducked into the next alley and stared at the rusting garbage bins. The smell was noxious: urine, rotting vegetables, a molding pile of dog feces at the edge of a pool of dirty rainwater. She pinched her nose and ducked into the alley. As she passed a cardboard box, she heard a rustling and turned. "Melody?!"

The box rumbled, collapsed, and a small arm stretched out. A furry arm.

Amy's heart sank as a bedraggled gray feral darted out from the rubbish, jumped onto the hood of the garbage can, and escaped from the alley. She kicked the cardboard in anger and it dissolved like milk softened graham crackers, the kind she would never feed to her daughter as an after school snack.