Apocalypse How

By Andy Cooke, Charles E.P. Murphy, Brandon Bennett and 12 more

What will the end of the world be like?
Plague or nuclear fire? Asteroids or floods?
Divine wrath or people meddling with what should have been left alone?

The apocalypse may come in the future, but what apocalypses might have occurred if history had played out differently? What if nukes had flown during the Cuban Missile Crisis? What if an asteroid had been on a collision course with Earth before the first person could set foot on the Moon? What if humanity destroyed itself through endless litigation and growing bureaucracy?

In this collection, the writers of Sea Lion Press offer sixteen tales of apocalypses past and future.

Stories
Cascade Failure by Andy Cooke
Latest Report by Charles E.P. Murphy
A Fire in the Tomb by Brandon Bennett
Apocalypse Anonymous by Bruno Lombardi
I Am Fred by Wm. Garrett Cothran
Radio Chatter by James Stanbury
Icarus' Fall by Matthew Kresal
Multi-Pocalypse by Jared Kavanagh
The Name of God is God Himself by Liam Connell
Omega by Ryan A. Fleming
Doomsday Diary by Natasja Rose
For Want of a Horse by Charles Cartwright
The Two Horsemen by Mark Ciccone
The Fire This Time by Ian Bertram
Forever Sunday Afternoon by Ryan A. Fleming
Utterly Without Redeeming Social Value by Alexander Wallace

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sea Lion Press
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223005599

Book preview

Latest Report

Charles E.P. Murphy

29 th November 1962 – From The Department Of National Survival

SUMMARY OF POST-WAR SITUATION, GLOBAL

1. Following nations are destroyed, leaderless, or otherwise irrelevant due to nuclear action: United States, Soviet Union, Cuba, Belgium, Hungary, West Germany, East Germany, North Korea, Turkey, Norway, Cyprus.

2. Following nations are destroyed, leaderless, or otherwise irrelevant since end of war, due to aftermath (i.e. fallout) or resulting conflict/refugee swarms: Canada, France, Finland, Israel, Mexico, China (Red), South Korea, Armenia, Sweden, Denmark.

3. Following nations are functioning but damaged by conventional bombardment or limited nuclear attack: Britain, Greece, China (Republic), North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Japan, Egypt, Syria. We have confirmed Spain to be affected by fallout from Gibraltar nuclear strike.

4. Trade with Pacific Asia, Europe, and northern America should be considered non-existent.

5. Estimated 12 to 20 million refugees in southern America.

SUMMARY OF POST-WAR SITUATION, DOMESTIC

1. Two million refugees estimated in Argentina. Refugee swarms reduced by naval patrols but land border impossible to hold: neighbouring states have been allowing refugees to pass through or encouraging them to head to Argentina.

2. Military and merchant fleet swelled 10% and 15% respectively by remnants from foreign militaries & merchant fleets.

3. Malvinas secured as arable land.

4. Death toll from first few days of panic now confirmed at 34,489 nationwide (not counting police, army).

5. Martial law and rationing now stable. Population calm now that national survival is clear (Exception: attacks on refugees and assumed refugees).

6. All relevant political factions now part of or supporting Government of National Emergency.

7. Military threat from Chile is currently minimal. Chilean army mostly in interior and troops on border are focused on defence.

8. Fuel rations precarious.

9. Food rations have artificially benefitted from this year’s harvest.

SUMMARY OF FOOD RISK

1. Foreign imports should be considered irrelevant.

2. Nuclear autumn conditions expected to last two to three years. This will reduce badly yield of next two to three harvests, which will also reduce meat production.

3. Number of refugees increases amount of rations needed.

4. Other American countries will be having the same problem. Less stable countries may attempt to invade neighbours to seize food.

FOREIGN THREATS

1. Chile is primary threat. Invasion would be devastating. War to be avoided as long as possible. Argentina should encourage Chile to focus attention outwards.

2. Recovery of United States is secondary threat. United States can be expected to enforce 'Monroe Doctrine' to get food and fuel. Argentina should prepare local alliances against recovered US, carry out covert methods to prevent US recovery. (Options include: arms smuggling, germ smuggling)

3. Threat of British attack over Malvinas is irrelevant. Britain has confirmed it has no interest.

OPTIONS (FOOD PRODUCTION)

1. Full development of Malvinas for crop production.

2. Nationalisation of gardens, parks, stadiums etc for extra growth, spreading risk.

3. National construction of greenhouses, as many as limited materials allow, to reduce nuclear autumn effect.

4. Mass cull of non-dairy farm animals to reduce demand on crops. Promote the extra meat as a ration boost.

5. Increase cost and difficulty of pet ownership. Culling of dogs, cats, and unsuitable horses should be held off until Year 2 or 3 when public backlash will be lower.

6. Seizure of all Indian-held land, to carry out more practical farming. Indians to remain as labour under supervision.

OPTIONS (OTHER)

1. As part of animal cull, send livestock to neighbours to boost their short-term food supply and diplomacy. Reduce risk of invasion.

2. Reduce current rations by 5% to stretch them out. This for all residents. Reduce by 10% after for non-strategic jobs, 5% for strategic jobs.

3. Maintain air force at current levels as deterrent. Any invasion to be met by same-day strategic bombardment of enemy cities and threat of bombardment of farmland.

4. Dedicated army regiments and gendarmes for food security.

5. Declare death penalty for various black market crimes and food theft. Televise any such execution of ‘high-up’ culprit.

6. Undeclared euthanasia of the very elderly, the chronically ill, the mad etc where possible to reduce food demands.

7. Undeclared culling of refugees camps by allowing disease outbreaks to continue, targeted reduction of supplies.

8. Undeclared cull of elderly and unfit refugees in general.

9. No further refugees to be allowed into Argentina.

REPORT NOT TO BE DISTRIBUTED, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Afterword

This short piece examines the aftermath of a Cuban Missile Crisis gone hot.  Argentina was chosen as the furthest location from the epicentre that was still within the Americas. This worked for the three beats I wanted to hit:

A) A country untouched (directly) by the apocalypse.

B) How bad things can get without having to be nuked yourself.

C) The reader gradually realising the line has been crossed.

About the Author

Charles EP Murphy started writing and nobody’s made him stop yet. He has both self-published and written short stories, articles, and novellas for publishers including Sea Lion Press, Obverse Books, and NeoText Review.

He has predominantly written in the alternative history sub-genre, which serves as an unholy union of his interests in history, politics, and deep-cut comics continuity trivia.

A Fire in the Tomb

Brandon Bennett

The coat could not cut the chill Raines felt from the mist and foam kicked up by the landing craft and the waves. Coastal artillery and the heavy battle line guns traded thunderous stomach-churning rolling blasts of bass; cannons and machine guns provided bursts of staccato tenor; interceptors and bombers blazed buzzing through the skies.

He had reached past the adrenaline-infused heart-pounding terror to a surface of calm above the raging emotion within. The rifle in his hands felt light, almost intangible; the gear on his back was weightless. Only the helmet, creating an artificial night at the topmost edge of his vision and strapped snug around his chin, was the evidence that he remained burdened with human limitation.

A crack-boom crashed violently against his eardrums, and debris pelted the portside wall of the craft. A chunk of metal as thick as a thumb jabbed through six inches. He looked to the left and saw a plume of smoke rising from the tank-lander that was already falling behind. When his ears started working again, he heard distant screaming.

The craft slowed, and the ramp lowered.

For an instant, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he stepped forward into hell.

The forty soldiers on the craft charged forward into the water. Three of them never got their feet wet. The water was freezing and cut straight to the bone; he gasped and almost stood straight up. If he had, the bullets that whizzed over his head would have cut him to ribbons.

He stayed low, his rifle forward and over the water's surface, and ran as fast as the thick foam, chilly water, and sand underfoot permitted. A woman in front of him fell; either she tripped or caught a bullet.

The water fell below his hips, then his knees, and soon his boots pounded on the stiff wet sand past the waves, planted as thick with mines and caltrops as shellfish and seaweed. The last of the calm deserted him now, and he looked frantically for anything resembling cover. A tank – somehow surviving the barrage of fire directed at it – rumbled slowly forward. He considered running towards it, but set that aside in the swift realisation it was the biggest target on the beach.

A thick sand berm ahead of him hid a dozen soldiers, alternately popping up and firing at positions on the hillsides overlooking the beach. As he ran for it, a pillbox above them burst open with a crash as a ship offshore found it with its battery. With a slide that would have made his Little League coach proud, he went down behind the berm and popped up, rifle on his shoulder, his forward arm in a modified cradle to save his bad hand, fired three shots in the direction of the nearest machine gun, and dropped back down.

Rounds smacked into the berm, spraying sand over Raines and the other soldiers. A man next to him popped up, fired a round, and fell back with a great clang. Still alive, but dazed, the man reached up and felt the great furrow in his helmet and started laughing madly. Then he stood and began racing for the hillside.

The man danced through the hailstorm of bullets. The whole war appeared to stop as Raines and the soldiers behind the berm watched the man climb, still laughing madly, over the brush. He fired three times into one of the narrow firing slots, then turned and fired two more rounds into another.

A soldier in a pillbox threw a grenade. He caught it as though he were a first baseman taking in an easy groundout, looked at it, laughed, and made to throw it back – when it blew up in his hand and shredded him to pieces.

The war came slamming back into view.

The other soldiers were looking his way. He silently cursed the bars with which he’d been commissioned. He was as much an infantryman as he was a Spanish goat. He’d barely made it out of the rifle range before being shuttled to Southampton, dumped on a boat with General Balfour's pre-invasion speech still ringing in his ears, and sent off in the general direction of the Gallic threat to mankind.

He took one long breath in, slowly let it out, and decided.

Press the advantage.

They pushed over the berm. With the holes in the defences the dead man had created, there was a narrow path between the guns where the fire wasn't focused on them. Still, artillery pounded and a piece of shrapnel pinged off his helmet; several of the soldiers fell as they climbed.

A big shell whizzed over him, feeling like it would singe his hair if he'd stood up straight. Lightning and thunder came together in a hard shower of dirt and rocks, and the bunker behind the hill cracked like an egg before it could light them up with machine gun fire. A voice screamed and cursed in Breton, then a gunshot sounded from within the bunker, and the screaming stopped.

Drop a grenade in it to be safe, a sergeant said. A few seconds later, there was a muffled thump and a few wisps of smoke.

He wiped sweat from his forehead. His hand came back covered in dirt, but no blood, which he took as a good sign.

In the depression between the hills, they had a moment of respite. A quick headcount showed nine left.

The soldiers looked to him, and he looked to the sergeant. The two of them crawled up the hill over the cracked bunker. The town was behind it, and he had already memorised the maps and reconnaissance photos.

Do you see that building over there, about four hundred yards south-southwest over the hedge, past those two rows of houses? he asked. Concrete, surrounded by tank traps.

Yes, sir.

I need to get there before the artillery does.

With all due respect, are you out of your goddamn mind, Captain – the sergeant looked at his nametag – Captain Raines?

I wish I was. Can you help me get there?

The sergeant looked across the town. For a moment, he wondered what was in the sergeant's head – what kinds of angles, calculations, and judgments he was making. Then he wondered, with a bit of worry, whether there were any calculations or if the man was just about to wing it.

I think we can do it, the sergeant said.

Good. Let's go.

PAST THE BEACH, THE defenders were sparser than expected. Fortifications were torn apart by constant bombardment. It seemed the French had thrown the full weight of their forces into the heavily-fortified shoreline and coastal artillery in the hope they could throw back the invasion before it got into the hills.

Reconnaissance showed a trio of additional divisions in reserve to the south, but word from Intelligence said the French forces fully believed the attack would be miles away, and the landings here were a feint. They would change tack when reports came back of the size of the fleets massed offshore, but the confusion would buy a few valuable hours before the tanks began rolling in.

At one point, some ambitious Frenchmen took a few pot-shots at them from a townhouse a dozen blocks away. Between return fire and manoeuvring, the two groups lost contact. They smashed into each other slicing corners in a narrow alley. The terror on every face was matched in intensity only by the loudness of the gunfire echoing off the bricks as the three of them and two of his soldiers found their fears realised.

The concrete structure they approached was wide and low, a vast bunker that edged into a hillside, with a few abandoned trucks scattered between the bollards and crash barriers. In twos and threes, the soldiers moved from barricade to barricade, checking every corner, window, nook, and cranny for the flash of a rifle or the glint of a helmet or a gunsight. They found none. The war seemed somewhere else. The booms and cracks were a bonfire night background, and there was hardly a soul to be seen. Either the town had been evacuated, or its residents were following the instructions to stay inside and away from windows.

The sergeant pulled the rear door on one of the trucks and checked inside, rifle leading the way.

What the hell?

He’d heard the sergeant’s tone a hundred times before, whenever someone was violently introduced to the reason why he was on this beach. Another soldier looked inside and retched.

His suspicions were confirmed when he checked the truck. More than two dozen bodies were stacked neatly on narrow trays, each in various states of decay. Most of them had suffered some form of violent death. One was fully decapitated, the head resting at a casually jaunty angle some distance from the neck.

What kind of place is this? the sergeant asked. What are they doing?

He swiftly closed the door before the sergeant could see the faint rapid twitching under the bodies’ eyelids. That's why I'm here. To stop that.

Well, good, now we're here for that too, the sergeant said. The rest of the soldiers murmured in swift agreement. Christ on a crutch. Is that what's in this place?

I hope not, he said. But perhaps the people who are responsible for it are in there.

Good. Let's go, the sergeant said.

EMERGENCY LIGHTING bathed everything in a soft red glow which almost hid the deep scoring in the walls, and turned the puddles of blood and hydraulic oil an angry black. Light fixtures swayed in the air-conditioned and pressure-regulated hallways. Doors cast moving shadows, distracting the soldiers when they came around every corner. Every door was locked, card-coded and marked with symbols that made the soldiers leery of trying to break in. Narrow windows revealed only empty, white cleanrooms, the wedges of light from fluorescent tubes casting an ethereal glow into the gloom.

Thumps of pipes and whirrs of machinery filled the air, punctuated with distant screams, echoes of echoes, the harsh slamming reports of machine-pistols in closed spaces.

A man in a blue-and-white doctor's coat rounded a corner. Between the surprise and half a dozen people shouting at once, neither side would have understood the other even if they had been speaking the same language. The only thing that kept him from getting shot was that he instinctively threw his hands in the air as he shouted.

The doctor looked over his shoulder and ducked towards a doorway. A soldier’s instinctive shot missed, pitting the concrete of the wall and creating an instant of ear-ringing silence—

—broken by something coming around the corner after the doctor. At first glance it seemed a man, but every new detail drove further from that perception: short and stout, head wide and ill-shapen, eyes buried so deep in hollows they were barely visible. Its movement gave Raines the impression of a sped-up tape of a paralytic's first attempts to relearn to walk, but with none of the hesitancy.

The thing slammed the doctor's head into the doorframe twice with a skull-shattering crunch, and leapt towards them. Their rifles fired almost as one, and it fell limply to the ground. One of the shots had passed through its neck, where a spine ought to be. It twitched, screamed and dragged itself towards them. Another round of fire, then another, and another, and it stopped twitching, though it still breathed.

What the hell is going on? a rifleman asked.

Raines pretended not to hear him, which was not hard; the ringing from the gunfire took time to fade away. Even if he had an answer, it would not have been a good one.

They kept moving forward and passed a half-opened doorway. The room behind was dark, save for a single dim sodium lamp illuminating the shadows of a pair of heavy wooden desks. He patted the sergeant on the shoulder twice to say he was covering. The sergeant swept the room right to left, and the two of them entered quickly and covered the corners, then behind the desks.

Captain, the sergeant said, his voice barely above a whisper.

The sergeant had his rifle pointed at a woman sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. She wore a dark lab coat and stared up at them vacantly. Blood pooled in her lap from a wound in her chest. Her breathing was shallow, and a pistol lay where it had fallen a few inches from her hand.

He stepped over and gently pulled the gun away from her with his boot. The scrape against the floor was the loudest sound he had heard since they entered the building.

Do you have a smoke? he asked.

With one hand – the other kept the rifle aimed at the woman – the sergeant reached into a pocket, pulled out a box, and tossed it to him. He fumbled with the box until a cigarette revealed itself, then knelt next to the woman and placed it in her mouth. He produced his lighter, and with a snap and a spark, a flame illuminated her ashen face.

I missed, she said, glancing down, her voice barely more than a groan.

Doctor Zaidi. Not the way I would have chosen for us to meet again.

You know her? the sergeant asked, confused.

We met, before the war, the captain said.

She coughed once. American cigarettes, all you taste is the filter, no? How do you have such a mighty country with such bad tobacco? Her smile died on her sallow cheeks.

What have you done, Zee?

We found him. The Hun, she said, and the cigarette fell from her lips. She exhaled, and a wisp of smoke rose from the wound in her chest. His basal cells could fix anything. Even— she glanced down at her wound.

Then why haven't you used them now? he asked. He nodded to the hand that had not held the gun; a hand still wrapped tightly around a syringe.

This time, the smile on her face did not die. The landings. No time left to test, only to try, and I failed. I thought I removed him from the basal cells, that I was enough a god to smite the devil. But there's more of him in here alone than all there is left of me, she said, glancing towards her clenched fingers.

There are not four cavaliers of the apocalypse. She coughed again. There is one. Attila, and Hell follows him. The blood flow had slowed to a mere trickle, and her breathing grew shallow. She turned and looked him in the eyes. Her mouth worked, struggling, but no sound came out, and she ceased to be.

What the hell are you two talking about, sir? the sergeant