end of the world

Dancing In The Dark Won’t Keep Us Alive – short story/future novel idea

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Last week I responded to a prompt on Medium and wrote this short story using two characters I had already created for a potential future novel. The prompt was musical; you had to choose a song title and/or lyrics to respond to and I picked Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen. For some reason the characters of Cody and Anya popped into my head as I feel like their entire story is very much a dance through the dark… This is a very rough and shortened version of how I think they will first meet and put their dark plans into action. See what you think!

Image by DelilanVan from Pixabay

When the newsflash ended our eyes met across the cafe table. The coffee he had offered in apology for kicking my bag across the floor had been barely touched, and suddenly I had no appetite for it.

I didn’t know his name yet, but the great scrawny scarecrow of a man raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Don’t tell me that surprises you.’

I glanced back at the TV, which had moved onto commentary and coverage of the protests already building up outside parliament. I scanned the cafe and saw the other customers frozen in shock, their foreheads furrowed, their lips moving without speaking.

‘He really said that?’ the waitress behind the counter questioned, before dismay and anger filled her face. ‘Jesus Christ, I voted for that lot! He really bloody said that, didn’t he?’ She looked our way, shaking her head in fury.

I smiled and nodded. ‘He really did say that.’

The scarecrow cleared his throat, his eyes on me. ‘Cody,’ he said, with a wink. ‘And you are?’

‘Anya,’ I told him, ‘and no, it doesn’t surprise me. Nothing surprises me anymore. The better question is, what are we going to do about it?’

A huge grin lit up his face. ‘Now you’re talking. I knew you were my kind of girl.’

Maybe he was flirting, who knows? It was one of those moments for sure. Life-changing — and everyone in that cafe felt it. There was something heavy in the air, yet it was crackling with electricity and Cody was staring at me in pure hunger. It felt like we were standing on the edge of the universe and somehow, though I knew we wouldn’t survive, I was ready for it. Ready for something.

‘What did he say?’ one of the old women by the window asked, her voice cracked and trembling. ‘What did he say about us?’

‘Why are they surprised?’ Cody lowered his voice, leaning in closer. ‘It’s hardly a shock, is it? Extremely rich and powerful person doesn’t give a shit about the rest of us? Jesus, where the hell have these people been living?’

I nodded, still grinning. He was right. I was right. Suddenly, we were right. Everything was happening. There was a crash out the back and a frustrated scream from the waitress.

‘What’s the point in anything then?’ one of the other old women asked.

‘It’s all kicking off now,’ someone else commented.

Cody and I looked back at the TV. Sure enough there were violent protests breaking out all over the country. We saw police leaping out of vans, batons raised. We saw crowds charging down the streets of London. We saw windows being smashed.

‘I need to close up!’ the waitress yelled from somewhere. ‘We all need to go home!’

Cody held out his hand. ‘Care to dance?’

‘Dance?’ I took his hand. It was weathered and warm. He was a walking talking scarecrow with his straw-like blond hair sticking out from under his grey beanie. Under his black duffel coat I glimpsed a white t-shirt with The Clash emblazoned across it.

‘This could be the end,’ he said with another wink. He scooped up my bag and handed it to me and we left the cafe arm in arm, staring into each other’s eyes. ‘And if it is, I’d love to dance with you, Anya.’

‘Everyone always thinks it’s the end,’ I quipped, as we pushed through the doors and out into the rain. It soaked us in seconds but neither of us cared. We pulled our coats around us, linked arms again and started to walk along the side of the harbour.

‘True. There will be outrage and protests for a few days, then everyone will go back home and back to work like the good little sheep they are.’

‘Indeed they will. They’ll probably even vote for him again next time.’

‘His career won’t be over,’ Cody agreed. ‘He’ll find a way to milk it and monetize it. They always do. He’ll be on Celebrity Big Brother before you know it, winning the viewers over.’

‘You can almost predict it. Still,’ I caught his eye, ‘it was a hell of a thing to get caught saying.’

‘Yeah, but at the same time any reasonably intelligent person knew already, right? Yet somehow it’s a genuine shock to some people that the establishment don’t give a damn about them.’ Cody laughed and shrugged skinny shoulders under his heavy coat.

‘So, a dance?’ I reminded him.

‘Somewhere chaotic,’ he mused, looking around. ‘Somewhere we can watch the world end.’

‘Or plot its downfall?’

He flashed another dazzling smile. ‘Now you’re talking.’

‘Hilsborough Hill?’ I suggested, nodding to the rolling green hills that looked down on us and out to sea. ‘It’ll be beautiful up there this time of night.’

‘And just us, dancing in the rain.’

We set off, hand in hand, two perfectly dysfunctional strangers. While the small seaside town exploded in outrage behind us, we followed the harbour-side until we started to climb the majestic hills that looked down on it all. As we walked we heard glass shattering as windows were smashed in, cars screeching and crashing, people shouting, sirens blaring.

I agreed with Cody. It wouldn’t last long.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s cruel, cold words would be washed over in the days that followed. The media would brush them off and rewrite them. The truth would be painted over with another more digestible one. The tabloids would turn on the protesters and paint them as the true aggressors. Others would watch the violence from home and feel frightened and isolated. The excuses would begin.

He didn’t mean it. It was taken out of context. He’s only saying what we’re all thinking! I mean, come on, he’s not wrong, is he? He was only joking! No one can take a joke these days! He’s getting cancelled, that’s what it is. And anyway, he was right, wasn’t he?

The media would find a new story. They would wash it all away but I knew the truth wasn’t going anywhere. We knew. We had always known. He had confirmed our worst fears and he had, for the first time in a politician’s life, spoken the truth.

At the top of the hill the wind and rain swirled around us and Cody and I embraced.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Anya.’

‘You too. Feels like fate.’

‘It really does. What a day! And life is so short.’

‘It is. Just look at them.’

We looked. We saw the little town glittering back at us, small untidy lives and unfilled ambitions and dreams only glimpsed at night. We wouldn’t be like them, like slaves to the system. We would be free.

‘I’ve never felt so free,’ he said to me then. ‘I’m thankful to that twisted bastard for finally saying it.’

‘We were right all along,’ I replied and he nodded, pulling me into his chest. I could feel the bumps of his ribs and I watched the wind pulling at his hair, trying to free it from the woolen hat.

We held onto each other and danced. The darkness consumed us and the hill we stood on felt like nothing, like it wasn’t even there. The rain soaked us, the wind battered us and still we danced, out eyes closed, our bodies pressed together.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said then.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m getting sick of waiting,’ he said with a yawn. ‘Sick of waiting for the goddamn apocalypse. Even this won’t bring it you know. Not fast anyway, not fast enough for me. There will still be jobs and money and bills, right to the bitter end.’

‘You’re right,’ I said, looking up into his face. ‘Tomorrow they’ll all get in their cars and drive to work to make the money to pay the bills and then they’ll get old and die and never realise they were a slave to bastards like that. That he laughed at them all along.’

‘They’ll deny it,’ nodded Cody, ‘even to themselves. But I say, how about we wake them up?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’ve been thinking about starting a movement. Anya, you and me, and a few others. There’s nothing left to lose, you know? He said it himself. We heard him say it in his own words.’

‘Yes, we caused climate change and we knew it all along and we didn’t care, and we still don’t care!’ I repeated the words Giles Forbes-Roberts had been caught on camera exclaiming with such arrogance, such gleeful light in his eyes.

‘They’re all going to die anyway,’ Cody continued, repeating the MP’s words and mocking his Eton bred accent. ‘That’s just the way it is. Jesus Christ, up here we all just wish it would hurry up, you know? Less of them would be better for us, that’s what we always say.’

‘Let them die,’ I grinned, ‘we’re quite happy to just let them die.’

Cody threw back his head and copied the raucous drunken laughter of the MP as he lounged against the bar with champagne in hand and no idea the young lady he was talking to was recording his every word.

‘Let them die!’ I shouted, spinning with Cody, dancing in the dark as if nothing could touch us. ‘Why don’t they just hurry up and die?’

‘Do you want to hear about my movement then?’ Cody asked, holding me close as we rocked and swayed to the music of the waves smashing the rugged cliffs below.

‘If it involves violence towards people like Giles, I’d love to.’

The Day The Earth Turned (On Us) – From Concept To Series

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

I can’t remember the specific day or time I got the idea for my new YA post-apocalyptic series, The Day The Earth Turned – but I do know the place.

From my house, if you come out of the gate and turn left you are standing beside a busy road but if you turn right you head down a pleasant leafy lane, lined by ancient oaks. Beyond the oaks are fields and farmland, a small copse, and as we reach the end of Mill Lane and turn left, the Moors river ripples peacefully through.

Heading this way, the thick hawthorn hedging on your right gives glimpses of the fields beyond – fields that have been quarried one by one over the years, each one taking their turn to be ripped up and then eventually, left to recover. And recover they do. The field behind our house was a field when we first moved in – then months later it was quarried for sand and looked awful. The grass gone, the earth overturned, huge machines ripping up the land. Once they had finished, they moved on and the grass and wildflowers grew back.

down the lane

About four years ago we heard that the quarrying had reached its end and the fields were earmarked for development. The landowner, who happens to also be our landlord, was considering various options that would continue to make the fields profitable for him and one proposal was a fake lagoon or water park.

We listened in horror. Not only would the land be built over, but tons of concrete would be poured on top of it, then thousands of visitors would be encouraged to flock to this new leisure facility daily. As residents of a semi-rural village that already has an airport to contend with, we felt the look, feel and pace of our home would be ruined forever. The busy road I mentioned is always busy and it only takes one accident, or one local event, and the whole area gets gridlocked. Thankfuly, the lanes linking around the village are relatively quiet and peaceful which means they and the surrounding fields, rivers and woods are a haven for wildlife.

The plot of land they want to develop is beautiful. Its mostly fields, surrounded by thick hedging and trees with a long copse in the centre. We see small herds of deer on the fields behind our house almost daily. We also have barn owls and tawny owls, buzzards and sparrowhawks, stoats and weasels, rabbits, badgers and even hares in the area. I felt devastated when I pictured those fields built on. Not even for much needed housing, but for a water park when we live ten minutes from the beach?

fields behind our house

Where would the wildlife go? They wouldn’t stay, that was for sure. The quiet lanes would become a nightmare of jammed cars or they would have to be widened and that would mean more trees being felled and ancient hedges being ripped out.

It was a horrifying thought and it still is.

I was almost thankful for Covid putting a brake on it all. The village was even more beautiful and peaceful during lockdowns.

At the moment, not much has happened. The land has been left untouched and as far as I know the planning proposal for the fake lagoon never went through. But something will one day. After all, rich people who already own land and houses, need more money, right? Poor things.

Anyway, I think that was the spark that set this series in motion. I was so pissed off. I walked down the lane thinking about how under threat it all was, how everything is constantly under threat from mankind, how humans just rip it all up, tear it down, stamp all over it, pollute and ruin it. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world…

It’s shameful.

Walking down the lane to the river usually fills me with peace and gratitude, but sometimes it makes me sad and angry too. It’s a hot spot for fly tipping and its even worse when you find they have chucked it in the river. I can’t understand people abusing the earth they depend on. I can’t understand people who chuck rubbish out of car windows. I cannot understand seeing a beautiful plot of land and wanting to build something so ridiculous on it.

I felt angry and I felt like nature was angry too. Or it should be if it could be. I started thinking, if only Mother Nature was a real conscious entity, what would she do to us? She would perceive us as a threat to her life and she would seek to eliminate us, I’m sure.

That’s where the idea came from. Almost wishing nature could do this, almost wishing wildlife would turn on us for a change. When you consider what we have done to the natural world and to animals over the centuries, we ought to be ashamed, and we deserve to be punished for it. I’ve often wondered how different our relationship with animals would be if they could talk. If they were to go up a level in consciousness, intelligence and self-awareness, for instance. Would we still find it so easy to destroy them and their homes?

And funnily enough, recent years have seen an increase in wild animal attacks on human populations, probably partly due to humans encroaching more and more on their territory and of course, made worse by the effects of climate change. Just yesterday I was reading an article about an orca who seems to have trained her pod to hunt and destroy fishing boats after she was injured by one.

In The Day The Earth Turned series, I delve into a world where the adults have been culled by nature itself. She has shaken them free, destroyed them to save herself. The children remain, but can they figure out how to survive in this new world without enraging Mother Nature again? In this new world, animals have reached new levels of aggression and consciousness. This turns out well for a character called George who befriends an otter, but not so well for another character called Gus when he is ambushed by crows and a dog at the same time. Even tiny robins can cause problems and everyone needs to stay out of the path of the furious stag.

The animals are angry. They are filled with rage. This is their world once again, and the children need to learn fast to survive.

I wrote my ideas down in a tiny notebook four years ago, and then two years ago I finally started writing the books. It was a stop-start process at first as I was also finishing up The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, but once that was done I dedicated myself to this new post-apocalyptic series. It was hard to write! But more on that another day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about where the idea for this series came from.

The book is available for preorder on Amazon right now and I’d really love it if you gave it a go!

Here is the link!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Day-Earth-Turned-Book-Summer-ebook/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1685093948&sr=8-2: The Day The Earth Turned (On Us) – From Concept To Series

The End of The World Is Here…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

I’m hoping that got your attention.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But really I just wanted to let you know that my new YA post-apocalyptic series is nearly here!

The Day The Earth Turned is a four-book series set immediately after a huge apocalyptic event. Not just one pandemic, but several, have decimated the population and only the children remain.

Here is the blurb:

The adults are all dead. Society has collapsed.

Two groups of teenagers emerge on either side of a rural village, traumatised, bereaved and determined to survive.

As tribes form and territorial lines are drawn, can they overcome their differences and find a way to rebuild?

Or will gang warfare end this emerging new world before its even begun?

Each of them have their theories about what killed the adults and as the dust settles on the old world, a far bigger, darker, and angrier threat is bursting to life all around them.

It’s taken a long time to get here! Over four years of jotting ideas down, creating characters, writing each book in the first draft one after the other, then going over them again and again, changing the tense from past to present and constantly feeling like I would never get there! This was definitely the hardest writing project I’ve ever worked on. I loved it from the start but just kept feeling like I couldn’t do the idea justice. I’m happy with how it all turned out though!

“Summer” can now be preordered on Amazon for just 99p for the ebook. Paperback coming soon! I would really love to share these books with you so if you have any interest in apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, disasters and stories about survival and the environment then please give book 1 a go and see what you think. I’ll be blogging more about the book and the characters as we head towards release day!

Here is the link to Amazon!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3S22CL8I39EPH&keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1684488101&sprefix=c%2Caps%2C809&sr=8-1: The End of The World Is Here…

Post-Apocalyptic Fascination

~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

Ever since I watched Maximum Overdrive when I was a kid, I have been fascinated by post-apocalyptic fiction and drama. Developed from a short story by Stephen King, Maximum Overdrive explores how a group of survivors come together after machines start turning on the humans who made them. Not your usual post-apocalyptic concept, but it still explored how a small group are left when everyone around them has perished. I remember pretending it was real when I walked my dogs around the fields where we lived. I’d pretend I was the only soul left alive in the area and I’d pretend to be grossed out by dead bodies and gruesome finds, while I plotted in my head how I would continue to survive in this new world.

Image by George Tudor from Pixabay

As a huge Stephen King fan I inevitably went on to devour The Stand – a thumping great book about an apocalypse caused by a virus. I found it so fascinating I read it twice! Everything about it intrigued me. From the outbreak of the virus and the horrific details of how quickly it spread and decimated the population, to the individual stories of the people who survived and how they came together, to the rise of good people and bad people and the ultimate battle between them.

Currently, I am watching The Walking Dead for the first time and I am almost at the end of season 10. I’m utterly addicted! A zombie apocalypse is an even more gory and frightening one, but again, it is the human stories that fascinate me – from survival of the early outbreak, to the hopes and fears of groups trying to find safe places and barricade the walkers out, to the inevitable bad humans who are arguably more revolting and dangerous than the walkers, to the fascinating survival skills the humans pick up or develop along the way. I genuinely feel like should a real end-of-the-world situation arise, I would be better prepared thanks to watching this TV show!

Image by ahmadreza heidaripoor from Pixabay

I am also currently writing my own post-apocalyptic series and it’s been great fun but also incredibly challenging. I have delved into dystopia before, with The Tree Of Rebels set far in the future after wars have nearly obliterated the human race, but this is the first time I have attempted post-apocalyptic fiction that starts as the tragedy unravels. It’s challenging because it’s been in my head for so long and I have read and watched so many post-apocalyptic books and films, that I feel a bit intimidated. I so want to get it right that sometimes I struggle to write it at all!

I have however written the first two books and I am half way through book three. Because there is a good chance I will want to go back and alter things I am not releasing any of them until all four books are ready. But writing it, and watching The Walking Dead got me thinking – what is it about this particular genre that fascinates us so much? It’s hugely popular – you only have to look at the various Walking Dead spin-offs in action or in the pipeline, to see that the end of the world as we know it is a big business. Here are a few reasons I think the genre is so popular:

  1. Dissatisfaction with this world – I don’t think anyone would swap this world for one over-run by walkers, deadly viruses, or rampaging robots, but even so, I do think a dissatisfaction and anxiety about the society we live in fuels our interest in post-apocalyptic fiction. Characters in post-apocalyptic dramas tend to find a new way of doing things. Once they have survived long enough to start rebuilding, they tend to rebuild in a different way as if they have learned from the mistakes of the past, and I think we are curious about this. If everything was razed to the ground and we had to start again, what kind of society would we work to build? I think most of us would opt for a kinder, fairer more environmentally friendly one and that’s interesting to think about.
  2. Curiosity about how we would react – they say you never truly know how you would react to extreme danger, pain, fear, or the threat of death. We simply have no idea whether we would die easily or become a true survivor. Would we hide away crying, or would we come out fighting? In post-apocalyptic fiction and drama, the weak don’t tend to last long. Characters make stupid mistakes and fall victim to all kinds of terrible deaths. We like to think we would do better. We would be smarter, faster, stronger and more adaptable, but would we? Wondering about this fuels our need to watch and read the genre.
  3. Fascination with survival skills – in a post-apocalyptic world, characters are forced to go back to basics. Walking instead of driving, using horses instead of cars, building shelters, hunting animals for food, fishing, setting traps, filtering water so it’s safe to drink and so on. In our modern lives we don’t need to do any of these things and we tend not to worry about food or oil running out, but maybe we should. We used to be better connected to nature and we used to do all those things to survive. Things are far too easy for us now and we are softer because of it. Watching post-apocalyptic shows and reading the genre makes us more aware of the need for such survival skills. Anyone with these skills is going to have a better chance of survival and I think we enjoy picking up a few tips, just in case!
  4. Boredom – I think to a certain extent us humans grow bored of the society we live in. Once you are in the never ending circle of work, pay bills, work, buy food, work, work, work, you wonder if a different kind of life is possible. In post-apocalyptic situations, the characters are freed from the drudgery of the work/money hamster wheel and they can do whatever they like. Life might be dangerous, but it’s certainly never boring.
  5. Disillusion with the human race – now, I would obviously never advocate population control or the mass death of humans! But like a lot of people, I am endlessly disappointed with the human race. I am frustrated and saddened that they continue to vote for selfish, rich people who continue to wreck the planet. I hate to see our wildlife being decimated, our continuous consumption pushing the planet to the brink. If we are not careful, we’ll have a post-apocalyptic situation on our hands sooner than we think. Human beings can be wonderful, but they are also frustratingly stupid and selfish. I see this more and more around me and I weep for what we are doing to Mother Nature. I can’t help thinking she would be better off without us here. I think we enjoy the genre for this reason too. In books and films where the majority of the population have perished, we get to see what the world would be like without most of here, without us wrecking and polluting, using and abusing it.
  6. The need to go back to basics – I’ve blogged before about my strange desire for a far more basic life. If I could, I would withdraw from society almost completely. If I could live in a little house or cabin far away from humanity, with woods and fields and a stream around me, I would go in a shot. I would go off-grid and get back to nature. I enjoy watching and reading this aspect in post-apocalyptic shows and books. People living basic lives, at one with nature, far away from anyone else.
  7. Preparation for the future – sadly I think this might be one of the main reasons the post-apocalyptic genre is so popular. We are faced with climate change disaster and ecological disaster, not to mention soil disaster, and the possibility of more pandemics. Wow – sometimes I wonder how any of us get up and get through the day with all that hanging over our heads! It plays on my mind constantly. I have no idea what will happen but I have very little hope that the powerful people in charge will do the right thing. I think millions of us will suffer and die as things get worse in the coming years and for young people, the situation is even more dire and depressing. Maybe we are fascinated with the genre because we are trying to prepare ourselves for what may be coming our way.

What about you? Are you a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction and drama or is it something you avoid? Do you have a favourite post-apocalyptic TV show, film or book? Let me know in the comments!