A Beginners Guide to Dogwalking

IT had been 20 years since the Virus. 20 years since society, since humanity had changed. People, dying by their thousands had fled the cities, fled to the only places left that were isolated enough to survive. Towns. VIllages. People started to withdraw, scared of the outside world and the death that awaited. Villages were baricaded. Streets became isolated, walled in communities and anyone who travelled the Out were viewed with suspicion and fear. Everything that you could possibly want could be provided from your street. Streets became our haven. Streets became our homes. Distancers knew there was no need to ever leave the safety of your street. People were born and grew up without ever having left the street. Everyone knew it was safer, better in your own street. Everyone but the walkers. The Dogwalkers were those who had kept roaming the out. They were now the onlies who were allowed to leave the street. They shared words with other streets and brought back wot we had not. We gave them home and hearth and they gave us news and needful things. Nobody liked the arrangement but it worked. We needed them as much as they needed us but then one day they stopped coming back. We had stood as we always do and watched them, one by one walk down the street, the sounds of their boots echoing in the morning gloom. They had climbed the barrier and disappeared into the mist and that was the last anyone had seen of them. Nobody knew why and there were nout that cared enough to go on a finding. Nout but Finn.

But Finn was only 15 and had never before travelled the Out on her own. Now it was up to Finn and her pup Baskerville to find the Dogwalkers. Up to her to save her Da'

What Finn finds will change her, will change the world in more ways than she could ever imagine.