Roller Derby Apocalypse, The Queens of Iron

By Jim. Atkisson

Two years after the summer of love, in the town of Gooseberry Pennsylvania, a firebrand religious cult leader is on a collision course with the Dragon's Eye Comet and Roller Derby Queen, Sherry Berry.

 

It's the summer of 1969 and Gooseberry is in the midst of a record smashing heatwave and the town is flooded with travlelers on their way to a large music festival in New York, when a collision happens, putting two lives on  collision course with the future!

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Bright Dog Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215323137

Book preview

August 15

1989

9:01 PM 

Our story begins in the present, on a stifling August night.  It’s important to establish when our story begins because sometimes this story drifts back in time to seemingly unrelated events twenty years ago, but in the end, it’ll all come together because there’s no randomness in the universe.  The end of things kicked off two decades ago after two cars collided at a four way stop sign.  A new, barely ridden mint green Volkswagen Beetle collided into the driver’s side door of a rundown rusty Oldsmobile Cutlass in Gooseberry Pennsylvania on an unforgiving hot day.

It’s Thursday, the fifteenth of August 1989, and Gooseberry is in the throes of a record smashing heatwave.  The highschool kids of Gooseberry High this summer all teased, poofed up their hair like inflatable carnival moonbounces, taught themselves to play the air guitar and moonwalk by watching music videos, and despite a menacing thunderstorm, and little to do around town, the Atom Smasher was smashing the stifling night with loud music, flashing lights, and a larger than normal crowd for a Thursday night.

A brightly lit, synchronized-flashing neon, marquee sign high on a pitched roof hid the wall of approaching storm clouds.  Though a few observant people noticed parched tree leaves rustling, and rattling from gentle breezes pushing out in front of the storm no one could anticipate the devil was riding on the tail of this storm.

The Atom Smasher Skating Rink, faded and tired, a nondescript dated white building just inside of Gooseberry was an oasis of arcade games, local teenage gossip, and other juvenile shenanigans to ride out the heatwave and pass the summer nights.  Faded and bright quarters kept the summer’s top 40 hits playing in the Smasher’s two large jukeboxes.

Outside cars came and went in the busy gravel parking lot.  Tires crunching and crumbling grey-crushed stone beneath the weight of turning tires as parents delivered teenagers out of sight of friend’s watchful eyes, but just in sight of the Atom Smasher’s front doors, and under a parent’s last minute curfew expectations and other reminders for their young adult.  No matter where parents deposited their kids in the parking lot all of them were laser focused on a night of fun in the Smasher.

The Atom Smasher happens to be the home of the Gooseberry Queens of Iron.  The Queens of Iron were a celebrated hometown roller derby team.  15 Roller Derby Queens adorned in black tops, black shorts, with gold lace trim, and crowned in black and gold speckled helmets.  The Queens of Iron were moms, wives, and aunts with big hearts, and burly bodies to match.  They possessed a competitive nature, a spirit of grit, and a smart person knew they were not to be trifled in or out