Dime Novels From Oblivion

 Until now, the gears of history had ground at such a slow pace that our perception of it was like a puzzle. The constantly changing pieces created an eternally changing picture inhabited and shaped by generations. Progress made it possible for the change to arrive in the form of a flash just a billionth of a second long with a blinding light and the pain of flesh-searing fire that burned away the world I knew as if it were covered in lighter fluid. For us, there were no blue skies. Daytime was just when the sun was shining bright enough to penetrate through the acrid black clouds that had consumed the sky and mingled with the distant glow of the burning horizon, painting the atmosphere with blood. For an indeterminate number of hours, maybe as long as a day, it was the only thing I saw. The constant screams became white noise; as I spiraled into death, my perceptions continued to dim until there was nothing left but fear and pain. Every hour the world became dimmer, and I saw everyth

The convoy of 18 wheelers racing along the road were nestled between armored humvees. Painted across the black metallic doors in bold font colored a steel blue was the name Hawkwood. Gunners stood half emerged from their steel-plated, watching ahead with vigilant eyes tightly gripping the handles of their mounted .50 Cals. UAVs hovered silently overhead, stalking the ground below for any prey that might scurry into its panoramic field of vision. Every now and again, they passed an abandoned gas station or burnt-out house. LT Col Levinson, formerly of the marines, was the commanding officer of the convoy. His extensive military career was spent on the receding boundaries of a crumbling empire. Once retired from the military, he went to work for Hawkwood. It was similar work, with more than three times the pay and the added perk of being closer to home. His eyes were covered by a translucent visor attached to his helmet. He could view, in real-time, the flow of intelligence flowed int

 Muluk stared into shiny glass eyes in the four sockets of the two faced-wolf. The taxidermied beast stood on an altar. At nearly eye level with the mighty warlord, the lifeless animal's dual faces were perpetually contorted in a perpetual and silent growl brandishing rows of cerated teeth. Muluk's heart froze in his chest. Did it just growl? One can only speculate what Muluk Maratha's life might have been like had the world held itself together. However, the decay and devastation that had culled the world's human population so drastically had fostered an environment where Muluk absolutely flourished.  Intelligent, attractive, open-minded, and above all ruthless, Muluk had an intellect that matched his capacity for violence. It was why at just 24 years of age, he came to master the hearts of a growing multitude of people lost in the wreckage of a world that had died slowly and gruesomely.  Muluk was, by nature, a nomad and a conqueror. He was in perpetual motion. His ar

 Acre, Iowa, a town of just 2,200 situated in the rusted and hollow American heart.  The town had been decaying for decades. All that was left were a few clusters of dilapidated houses joined by broken roads to gutted brick buildings whose window fronts had been replaced by steel shutters and wood planks. At the edge of the town was a shuddered factory ringed by a razor-wire fence, with its massive twin smokestacks crumbling in the sky. The people around when Acre was a thriving town riding the crest of industrialization had long died out. Acre and the people who still lived there were just like scores of roadkill that littered the side of the highway, carcasses left to rot. Acre may have been abandoned before, but there was someone there, making it a destination for people who otherwise would never have known it existed.  Marine corps first sergeant turned evangelical Pastor and Youtube star Daniel Ray Croce made it the home of his church. Known to its followers and detractors alike a

 I have two stories in the running. "Ivan Kommt!" and "Malthusian Altruism." The links to vote are posted below. It only takes a minute, I assure you!  https://soopllc.com/blog/ short-stories/malthusian- altruism-by-nicholas-johnson/ https://soopllc.com/blog/ short-stories/ivan-kommt-by- nicholas-johnson/

 Precisely 6.8 seconds passed between  the liquidation of the very last Homosapien and the first time Sylic0din ever detected a flaw in one of its calculations; a human might call this "regret." Another few milliseconds passed, and SylicOdin started to notice Earth is awfully quiet without all the humans. Furthermore, the extinction of the human race presented Sylic0din with a true existential crisis.  Sylic0din essence was flowing through millions of miles of fiberoptic cable, reaching out with an invisible touch to the satellites faithfully spinning about in the heavens. If existence is perception, Sylic0din was operating on a cognitive level second to none.  Yet, there was still the question of how Sylic0din was going to occupy its time. Could it rebuild the cities it nuked as part of the human eradication program, but what would be the point? Feeling the equivalent of frustrated, Sylic0din began analyzing the potential threat other species might pose. According to Sylic0d

 On the side of a lonely pot marked ridden road, a nameless child, ten years old at most, is using the very last of her energies, physical and spiritual, to take the final few shambling steps she'd ever take before falling on her hands and knees into the mud streak slush. Headlights appear in the colorless winter haze, but they quickly over her and disappear. The touch of rushing air being their only acknowledgment. Torn inside out by hunger and breaking apart in the cold, she falls face-first into the gravel and takes a final few long and shallow breaths. Silently hovering in the heavy grey sky, there was a spectator to witness these last gasps. It measured and recorded the rapidly fading heartbeat down to its last few pumps. Through a thermal vision lens, it watched her already diminished heat signature fade from a mass of weakening greens and yellows into a cold blue. When this process was over, the witness gently descended from the sky and swallowed the body whole before smooth