So the announcement I promised:
Coming Next Year
2024 is a battleground, and a new challenger enters the race.
They took his nation, now he's taking theirs.
The King of the North is ready for the next fight.
Carter's Campaign
CHAPTER 22
December 25, 2019 – 02:30 EST
WORLD END: T-minus 77 days, 8 hours, and 30 minutes
The Harding Farm, Merrickville, Ontario
The farmhouse was exactly as West remembered it—a sturdy, unpretentious anchor of white siding with a porch that faced west, standing defiant against the driving snow. It hadn't changed in all the 150 years it had been standing, and right now, that permanence was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
The tires of the X5 crun
I get one bottle of Baileys a year, it's my tradition, and I may or maynot spike my coffee in the morning in the run up... and so That particular morning was... a four coffee morning... and when I imbibe I tend to get into a comedic mood.. Thus this one and the next one... which was written after this one... which means I was waaaay more Festive than I care to remember (Care/could)
I accept no responsibility for this utter chaos fever dream...
I might have been a little... festive in the spirits department when writing this.
I blame... everyone and everything but me.
The Holly Jolly Apocalypse of Big Bill and Rat
ACT I: The Beans and the Behemoth
The world ended not with a bang, but with a psshhhht.
Big Bill remembered it vividly. It was the Great Aerosol Uprising, or as the few survivors north of the border called it, "The day the spray-tanned bastard down south pressed the wrong button." The history books—if there were any left besides the charred comics Rat kept stuffing into his boots for insulation—would say it was geopoliti
The apocalypse is cold, hungry, and feral. Unless you're Big Bill—a grumpy survivor forced into a velvet Santa suit—and Rat, his chaotic elf companion. When they stumble upon the last Coca-Cola Christmas truck, they must use tinned ham, a dead battery, and desperate holiday spirit to survive a troop of cannibalistic Boy Scouts. This Christmas, the last hope isn't a hero. It's a delusion in a red suit.
This one ends tomorrow.
The Epilogue is an announcement
After this I am taking a Carter break while I get other projects out... but they will return.
The next book I am releasing is :
The Acheron is such a fitting name for that boat.
And our good buddy Archer is back (The Damage Control Officer that fished Andrew out of the trapped compartment and stood with him through the crisis)
Anyone that clings to a rock, in the darkest depths of the Atlantic Ocean, and stays there through Winter... While chewing cod, and making tea that is literal syrup...
Yep, I pity anyone that tries to take that Island from them. Newfies are a hardy, stubborn, and brutal lot, and I adore them.
They can shackle him, mock him, parade him.
But Andrew can reach into their safest places.
West can keep those children safe.
He has a rock.
He's got the Royal Navy at his back.
And he has a plan.
CHAPTER 21
December 24, 2019 – 19:30 EST
WORLD END: T-minus 77 Days, 15 Hour, 30 Minutes
INT. UNITED STATES NETWORK STUDIO - WASHINGTON D.C. - NIGHT
The air in the USN studio smelled of ozone, burnt coffee, and setting spray. A hermetically sealed bubble of high-definition reality, chilled to a crisp sixty-five degrees to keep the pundits from sweating through their pancake makeup.
Mitch Callahan sat at the center of the anchor desk, a silver-haired monolith of cable new
I worked in this monestary as a professor, it was actually where I earned my official academic title.
I was working for the Cambodian government and running a nationwide English program. It was... beautiful, challenging and rewarding work.
When given the Ancient East as my challenge prompt I thought, write what you know. So... this.