Brian Steele: 4POCALYPSE - Four Tales of a Dark Future

In 2011, I had recently published my first novel and had begun several new projects. I was trying my damndest to keep up with the whole social media thing, attending writer’s conferences, and such. One of the conferences I attended with a writer friend of mine, John J. Smith, who I had known for several years.

John and I had collaborated on a short story, The Innocent , which I included in my first collection of short stories, Ordeals . The collection didn’t do much, but that story and a couple of others got great response. I had been writing for decades, but never as seriously as I really wanted. After the conference, an idea began brewing in my head.

I met Brian Fatah Steele through a writers’ forum back in 2003 and was always very impressed with his tales and how he conducted himself amongst the other writers of various levels of experience and maturity. We kept in touch and began to build a great rapport and respect for one another.

Through Brian, I came into contact with Jack X. McCallum. I had never read anything from him, but as I got to know him, his sense of humor and perspective on the world led me to believe he was a shining example of literary and creative chaos, which I loved! I began to see these three gentlemen as kindred spirits and decided it was about time we took our destinies into our own hands.

After a significant amount of back and forth, of creative collaboration, of bitching and moaning and laughter enough to bust a gut, we set it all up. Thus was born Dark Red Press, an independent author co-op designed specifically to build up our work, skills, and notoriety. Instead of self-promotion, DRP’s main goal was united promotion. We worked for each other, as much as for ourselves. I should state that finding four writers of the same mindset and forward-thinking motivation was sort of like finding four small diamonds in the middle of the frigging Sahara! Yet, here we are.

To date, we have published Jack’s “Made In The U.S.A.” — a fabulous and dark romp through the darker side of pop culture; Brian’s special edition of “In Bleed Country” — a terrifying and adventurous tale of the world-within-the-world we live in; and, most recently, John’s “Finding Katie” — a paranormal romance thriller that is one of the best page-turners I’ve read in quite a while.

Now, here we have 4POCALYPSE — Four Tales of a Dark Future . This is the first collection specifically by the four Dark Red Press authors. All centered on the theme of what happens when the world as we know it ends… in whatever manner that may come about.

Personally, I’ve always imagined that the “end of the world” would come not with a bang but with a whimper. In the end, I feel that the earth will cleanse itself in preparation for renewal. It is simply the way of nature, itself. Every so often mankind comes up against something that is a force of nature, that they are unprepared for. Take, for instance, the Black Plague of the Middle Ages. Modern day estimates suggest that the plague wiped out as much as (or more than) half of Europe’s entire population. It took around 150 years for that continent’s population to recover.

The plague was thought to have originated in China, was carried by Oriental rat fleas making their residence on the rats of the merchant ships of the day. No one started the plague. It was nature.

Who’s to say that this was not a simple, effective cleansing of the populace in that area? Then, again, it could have just been a fluke. Right?

Some believe the apocalypse — or, Ragnarok or whatever other name one might call it — will be dealt by the hand of God. Some believe that humanity will simply run its course and a massive die-off will occur. However you see it, it will remain an unknown until it is nigh upon us. And, perhaps, not even then.

Surprisingly, each of the tales contained herein relate different apocalyptic events yet only one of them describe it as a “bang”, so to speak. I had nothing to do with that, I promise you. I told my tale and Jack, Brian and John told theirs. Yet, I do find it interesting, that little fact of similarity.

As I see it, when the end of human civilization comes, it will arrive in such a creative fashion as there will be nothing more desired by any survivors than to relate it in word, song, or poem for the remainder of human history to come.

We DRP guys are just getting a head start.

This novella could not have been written without the advice and information I obtained from Douglas A. Brookes and my brother, Nathan Steele. Their background expertise in all things computery and electrical far surpasses my own limited knowledge. This tale is dedicated to them, for all their help and all the hours they endured listening to me babble about concepts I barely understood. I’d also like to thank my brother Adam Steele for putting up with my near-midnight call, frantic to know if a certain phrase I had used was valid or not. Any misuse of the science found in the story is either due to artistic liberties, or more likely, my own stupidity.

This story developed quickly with secondary characters getting their names, and from there, what I wanted to say with this piece that simply started out as an idea about “How awesome would it be to have Necromancers controlling Zombie armies!” The writing process fell into place as soon as I discovered my tale’s soundtrack. As with the majority of the novels and novellas I’ve written, this one couldn’t start until I found it, and a playlist with Deadmau5, Skrillex, and The Glitch Mob made sense this time. I don’t know, I guess dubstep equals a post-apocalyptic wasteland in my imagination.

Finally, you probably wouldn’t even be reading this if it wasn’t for CL, Jack and John, my cohorts in Dark Red Press. Those guys rule my face off. No, literally… they ripped it off and threw it on the carpet.

DataLog Text-LiveJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 22-10-24

Standing here on the edge of the sky bridge ruins, I can see where the rivers used to guard Pittsburg below. Back when it was Pittsburg. One of the last major strongholds, the city had used its three rivers as a natural barrier against her enemies. I suppose that worked when there were just mindless hordes of Feeders. It fell about five years ago when caught between two Mancers. One of them dumped about fifty thousand Feeders into a choke point and detonated them.

The city is mostly swampland now, corpses and fetid remains drifting in the muck. Feeders don’t rot like Humans, and a wall of mutilated parts formed a dam elsewhere down another river. It’s a wasteland slurry of vegetation, meat and water.

I’m going to cross it tomorrow morning.

It’s growing darker, and I glance along the mountain ridge to one of the Towers, miles away. I’m surprised it’s still running. No matter. Tapping on my Servant, I access the T-Net to get better coordinates. I wouldn’t need the T-Net to keep recording this, I’m cog-jacked in, but I don’t want to wear out its limited battery life. It’s essential I record everything, doubly so that I make it to the eastern seaboard. A tower hub is outside what used to be Boston.

The Servant connects and I slide it from my holster. Fingers across its screen, I pull up a hard-light map to make sure I’m going the right direction. The so-called “Transcendental Net” is routed from the Tower to my Servant, every bit of needed information in my hand. If only they had known, I think for the umpteenth time. Still, T-Net is less a mouthful than “Data Enriched Ultra-High Frequency Atmosphere.” Checking my location, I power down the connection — an idea that would have been unheard of once. Once.