Stories tagged “post-apocalyptic”
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Never call a candle fat
“…and the duck had a thought of genius and he died in the peaceful valley of wine and marshmallow flowerbeds.” What a strange time we live in thought Karl to himself. This was his son’s favorite bedtime story. Where did all the ...
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The Many Faces of Patriotism
The gate to the internment camp slowly swung open and the armored truck drove in. The detectors barely moved when it passed them and decontam was postponed until the next detour through a RadSec. The driver hopped out, wearing the dark uniform of the U...
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Mad Milkshake
The wanderer pushed his goggles up his forehead, wiping dirt from the corners of his eyes. There, in the middle of the deserted town, stood a perfect milkshake on a steel table. It even had a cherry on top. The wanderer ran his tongue over chapped lips...
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Love Clicks
Before the nukes dropped, he would never have looked at her twice. He held the half-empty canteen out the window of the beat-up old charger, engine idling. “Want some?”
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This Used to Be My Playground
I could feel my self clam up. My emotions threatened to overwhelm me and I forced them down. I had to leave, to go somewhere where I could deal with the news. Numbly, I heard myself say the right things, give the right people salutes, and worked my way...
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The Bitten
People say they came from Asia. People say China trapped them; Russia planned their release; that they crept through the DMZ and onto our troop transports. I think they may always have been here. Just… sleeping. In the cities, people are still dr...
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Out Of The Slime: Arrise
Once upon a time, We fought up out of the slime, That permeated the world that we lived in. We fought our way to the top, But once there we didn’t stop, We kept fighting as long as the world continued to spin. It didn’t take very long, Befo...
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Out Of The Slime: Arrive
We were winning the fight, Kept our enemies wrapped tight, But the world was much worse for wear. Whether we won or lost, It didn’t matter what lines we crossed, We’d already gone too far to care. What little land was left, We protected aga...
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Out Of The Slime: Arrest
The peace lasted for less than a year, Even though we tried to persevere, We couldn’t just change our ways like that. The StarFell didn’t stay for long. It turns out they weren’t very strong. None of their technology was meant for com...
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On The Air
-static- Hello? Can anyone hear me? It’s so quiet in here. Mama told me it would be OK. But…Mama didn’t come back. Mama? -static-
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Green
Sun and weather had faded the green handle of the garden spade from a pine emerald to the hue of late summer grass. Wiping sweat from his brow, Jessup dug in the clay-rich soil, knocking aside a layer of dust that the winds had deposited overnight. ...
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The Death of Cyberpunk
When it happened, there was no explosion. There were no fireworks. There were no bullets. There were no riotous hordes of insurgents. There were no bombs, nor were there grenades. Atomic power lay undisturbed; spears and cannons gathered dust and ruste...
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The City Is Mostly Bones
He’s hacking through the jungle with something that he thinks was used, once, to cut paper. He’s stepping over the kind of flat, black-soil patch amidst the cracked asphalt that makes him think of mass graves. The vines reach out from lampp...
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Running the City Limits
Curtis ran from the raggedy man, leaving his goods behind. He knew that men that wore rags were covering up their plague-cursed body. If he caught the plague the villagers would never let him inside the settlement. He was a Scrounger and he couldn̵...
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Breaking the Rules
Curtis shivered as he hung suspended from the edge of one world and over another. The cold wind cut through his dirt-caked clothes with ease. He looked up. The plagueborn was still standing a few feet above him blocking the only way back up. It looked ...
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It's the End of the World and It's Absolutely Beautiful
The ocean is a sickly yellow with waste but the sky is still blue a few days out of the year. I have no idea why this is the case but it doesn’t bother me. It’s days like these that I like to take my beach chair out of my hideout and take i...
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The King of the Road Meets the Peon
Matt saw a dot along the road, several miles down what was once an unassuming highway in Arizona. Thinking it was a semi truck (or at the very least an RV), he kept Dreadnought barreling towards it. When he eventually did slow down, he found out that i...
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The King and the Peon Meet Death Zone
The peon came to in Dreadnought’s back seat, bound hand and foot. Matt was driving the immense vehicle down what used to be the Interstate, and the massive truck was speeding at a fantastic rate. “What are you doing?!” the peon demand...
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The King, the Peon, and Death Zone Ship Out
Death Zone was a huge, heavily muscled man who wore a black tank top and similarly black jeans. He had two bands criss-crossing his chest, covered in ammunition. He had several guns of various sizes on his belt, and carried two suitcases with him. Matt...
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Peon's Predicament
The peon sat in the back, hog tied, looking at two of the craziest men, he was sure, he had ever encountered. He was at the bottom of the food chain by a desert mile and thought for sure he would soon become non existent and the thought of how he would...
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The Peon Makes a Gamble
“You ever have trouble out here on the roads?” the peon asked. Matt turned to him. “How do you mean?” “Do you ever get hurt?” “Well, heck yes,” Matt said. “You don’t be the king of the road wi...
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Eyes, Underground
Makeshift machete in hand, some blood still in his body, he moves forward through mud and tile, leaning against the curved corridor wall lined with metal frames and layers of peeled posters showing bright beaches, bright eyes, shiny cars and theater st...
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It Takes Both Kinds
Given that, he thought to himself, you might have been a little quicker opening the lock. Looking at her he felt something between scorn and pity. This woman had been old already in the before time. Now she was content to live like a like vermin. Sneak...
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The Day of Leaving
When Bright Sky reached her sixteenth winter, the Day of Leaving came. Ever since they saved her from the Grown-Ups, Bright Sky had shared everyythign with the other Children of the Valley. Her Leaving was especially hard, because she was the Story Kee...
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The last, best show.
The van ran out of gas about a mile from town and they couldn’t spare the fuel to fill it up again. Wearily, they unpacked their luggage and started walking. At least the suitcases had wheels on them. Jack, the leader, walked in front of the othe...