Keepers of the house

Keepers of the house by Lester Del Rey is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It follows a lone dog in a ruined, post-apocalyptic landscape, focusing on memory, loss, and the aftermath of misused technology. An old, intelligent dog named King is drawn by scent and dream back to a ruined university city, where he finds the Promethean Laboratory and discovers his long-lost master, “Doc,” dead beside a tape machine that still plays his voice. Through King’s memories we glimpse the collapse: a hated tower that broadcast a tingling power, failed experiments that revived rats and altered dogs, a plague of rabbits, and desperate rocket launches that carried infants away as civilization died. Chasing a white lab rat, King shelters from a storm in a crashed rocket and gorges on leftover rations; lightning later ignites the wired lab and consumes Doc’s remains. In the morning King returns, confirms the finality of death, gives a single mourning howl from the bridge, and turns south along the river to survive, leaving the last house he kept behind.

Summary written by Project Gutenberg, by machine.