The End of the World
I’ve been writing about the end of the world a lot lately. I wrote ten short stories last year; five had apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic settings.
As much as I’d love to blame the pandemic, and the government reaction to it, I wrote the first apocalypse story before COVID had even readed its head.
The story, called Clickbait, formed around the idea of a group of unrelated people who are all drawn to the same spot on the Pacific coast. I didn’t know why they were drawn there when I began. I just saw an image of people staring into their cell phones, blindly following the directions given to them, the glow of the screens lighting their faces. I saw a beach littered with abandoned phones.
The story is not a cautionary tale about technology and online culture. It’s not a story about cell phones.
It’s a story about dreams, and not in a motivational “follow your dreams” kind of way. It’s a horror story. It’s about those hidden wishes and desires that propel you forward, true motivations concealed from your everyday waking life. It’s about clickbait: those impulses you follow without quite realizing it. It’s about departing before you fully understand your destination.
My father died while I was writing the story, and it shows.
Anyway. The story is not out yet, but it will be included in the upcoming anthology, Amazing Monster Tales #4, edited by the amazing and accomplished Jamie Ferguson and DeAnna Knippling. I’ll keep you posted.
An earlier story, Exit Ramp, is in Amazing Monster Tales #2, in the company of several other talented writers, such as Shannon Lawrence and Rebecca Hodgkins. I’ll offer that up for sale here, until Clickbait comes out.
Peace.
