Season One, Episode Eighteen - “The Shot”

After the ApocalypseA Pandemic Survival StorySeason two, Episode four “Empty”Mags watched the old man slump into an overstuffed, coffee-stained chair in the teachers’ lounge. It smelled like cigarettes and moth balls. Decades of stale smoke wrapped in tweed jackets with elbow patches. Undoubtedly, it had been the treasured refuge of some crusty old academic with only a few years left to retirement. This old chair his redoubt from the squalling of adolescent rage. That person was gone. Their jaded, dusty dreams swept away with the apocalypse. Now this chair was empty. Now it made a good place to temporarily store this old man. ...S2 E4 OutroHello survivors! Welcome back! Picking up steam in Season 2 now. How do you like our new characters? I like the Mags character. I hadn’t pre-planned to write her this way but she just naturally turned into a strong person. The kind of person you need in the Apocalypse. I did have several people threaten to unfriend me over at the Facebook group after episode 3. Have patience. And, if you need to yell at me you can join us at the after the apocalypse Facebook group. And, if you want to hire Robert for something, I don’t know, maybe to record the message on your voicemail, you can find him at Command Voices. Wouldn’t that be great? “Welcome to the Apocalypse, We’re tied up surviving at the moment. Please leave a message. We’ll get back to you, if we survive…” …Our tribe is growing nicely. We are at 28XXX downloads and running between 100-400 per day. Thank you to those of you who have subscribed in your apps. And thank you for sharing with you friends, enemies and total strangers. It looks like it’s working. Keep it up! Just drop the link shows.acast.com/after-the-apocalypse into Facebook, twitter, whatever. We are word of mouth so keep making words with you mouths in the direction of other people. Also thanks to new Patreon member Corby who threw me a couple bucks. I appreciate the help. …Feel free to reach out to me with any suggestions or comments. I am having a blast writing and producing this – and I hope you are too. If we have brightened your day even a little bit with our story telling it makes us happy. We appreciate all your help and attention – and whatever you do – keep surviving. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

16 Okt 202132min

After the ApocalypseA Pandemic Survival StorySeason two, Episode three “The Hungry River”Janet glared through the sleet, up the hill, searching for the Humvees that she expected to appear over the crest at any moment. “Persistent deadbeats…” She swore under her breath as the chain saw chattered in her hands. She knew if she could slow them down, even for a minute, it might give the bus enough time to escape....Outro S2 E3https://shows.acast.com/after-the-apocalypseHello and welcome back survivors. Here we are, episode 3 of season two and it feels like we’re hitting our stride.This was a fun episode to construct. I love the visual of the river devouring the bridge. Just a great picture in my mind’s eye. The other thing that happened here, not to give you too much of the sausage-making, was a roller coaster ride. It’s a series of tension builds and releases, where we are just letting you off the hook and we slap you again with a new shock wave. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2 Okt 202124min

After the ApocalypseA Pandemic Survival StorySeason two, Episode two “Pursuit”KJ clutched the knife in one cold hand, lowering the heel of her other hand to the ground for support.She was in a full crouch now. Just a few yards away she could see the hooded man on the bench, under the portico, and he looked to be dozing.“If he’s a guard, he isn’t a very good one,” She thought. Something about him didn’t fit. A moment ago, as she was sneaking along the wall, she had glanced into the window of the resort and saw some of the thugs.The King’s soldiers were no better at guard duty. They lay sprawled and asleep on the lobby furniture, surrounded by trash and bottles, no doubt sleeping off another hard debauch. ...Outro Episode 1 Season 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

18 Sep 202134min

After the ApocalypseA Pandemic Survival StorySeason two, Episode one “The Gathering Storm”“Geez-Us”, the old man swore, looking out the window. “Is this ever going stop?”Janet just looked at him. She didn’t feel like beginning another conversation about the weather. It had been raining for at least five days straight. Some sort of late season not-so-tropical storm remnant had wheeled up the Gulf and parked over the Southeast. The weather was strange. Something about the abrupt cessation of human activity on the planet had thrown everything into chaos. Once again, Janet thought, the irony was thick and steady in the apocalypse. ...Outro – S1 E2Stranger in a strange land. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

4 Sep 202129min

Book One - The Old ManAvailable at WWW.Booklocker.com...Hello Survivors – This is Chris from the future! Yes indeedy – I am speaking to you from Groundhog Day 2025 – with an update! If you are listening to The After the Apocalypse Podcast series and have gotten to this point that means you are at the end of season one. And I have teleported in from the future to let you know I have now published the novelization of season one. It’s a real, 362 page book, with great writing and great story telling and the characters you love. This book covers the same narrative as What you have just listened to, but has been greatly refined. There are new chapters and new sequences and lots of filling in the blank where things were brushed over in the podcast. So if you are a reader of books, first of all congratulations, because you’re part of the 5% who are, and second of all go buy and read a leave a review of my first book in this series, “After the Apocalypse, A Pandemic Survival Story, Book One – The Old Man. You can find it at any book seller but the best place is at my publisher’s website www.booklocker.com.Or, if you want some special love, I have some physical copies and will gladly sign and inscribe one and send it to you, just reach out to me by email at cyktrussell@gmail.com.Thank you so much for your support, And as you lock and dead-bolt the bunker door and settle down to read your new book by the flickering candle light, don’t forget to keep surviving! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

3 Sep 20212min

After the ApocalypseA pandemic survival storySeason One, Episode Twenty - “The Road Ahead”“Ear Wax.” The old man said. “Here we go again...” Janet rolled her eyes and lay back against the rock outcrop using her pack as a rough pillow. She arched her back like a cat, stretched her arms out over her head and relaxed to look at him. “No, seriously…” The old man continued, “How do you deal with ear wax in the apocalypse? You can’t see into your own ears…” “I’m not touching your disgusting old ears.” Janet responded, hoping this was the end of this particular conversation. They were on a bluff a couple hundred feet above the river. She looked down and across the muddy flow at the smoke rising from another burning town. The bridge spanning the watercourse was dotted with abandoned cars and trucks. The trailer of an 18-wheeler was sticking half out of the water, near one shore, jammed against a bridge pylon. ...S1 E20 - Outro So here we are my survivor friends. The end. But, it’s not the end. Think of it like those old SciFi movies where they’d put up the words “The End” and then tag a question mark onto it. Don’t worry it’s not a question. “We’ll be back.” It’s one of the strange ironies of these stories is that the more you do it the more ideas you have. It’s like a perpetual motion machine. Because I am super psyched! Really. I am so pleased with the way this season came out. I am in love with these characters and their arcs. I’m in love with this universe that we’ve created. I’m in Love with Robert’s audio performance. It really came together and beat all my expectations. And you! Nothing happens unless you show up my survivor friends. I am so grateful for your attention, especially in this attention scarce world that we live in. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just went over to A-cast and checked; we’re at 13,000+ downloads. Which is amazing. Thank you to all of you who have left a review or shared the show with your friends. I hope you’ve noticed that I’ve tried to keep the narrative smart. Not just string together action and dialogue. Assume that you folks don’t need me to explain everything. I can reference history, or philosophy or literature and you are going to get it. So, again, thank you for being a smart audience. Pat yourself on the back. You earned it. Hopefully you liked episode 20. I know it was dialogue heavy. I wanted to fill in some gaps and cement the journey of these three characters. Coming up in season 2 we’ll introduce some new characters, and we’ll raise the stakes as this universe starts to coalesce into centers of gravity. I did a fun interview with Mike from the Apocalypse Post podcast this weekend. We had a blast talking about the characters and the show. I’m going to get the recording of that and we’ll stick it on the feed here so that you can listen to it. Hey Mike, thanks for having me. His universe is more of a Mad Max universe. I remember Mad Max. I actually saw the Road Warrior first, which was Mad Max 2. It had everything a good apocalypse movie should, a good anti-hero, a dog and lots of action in the wastelands. Road Warrior was a great movie. I loved it. Mad Max was a pretty good movie too. The original Mad Max movie cost $200k to make and made $13M. That makes it one of the most profitable movies of all time. I guess there is money to be had in the apocalypse. Anyhow, Mike and a few thousand others get costumed up like Mad Max characters and go out into the desert to a festival called “Wasteland”. If any Wastelanders are listening – welcome thanks for spreading the word, have fun this year, it’s coming up in 10 weeks. I’ll give you a little fan-boy trivia. There was a role in the Road Warrior called warrior woman that was played by Virginia Hey who was also the blue skinned alien Zotoh Zhaan in the cheesy SciFi show FarScape. Next up I’m going to hit ‘pause’ on the show production for a couple months. We’re sitting at the middle of July 2021, Let’s shoot for starting Season 2 in September. So don’t’ delete us, stay in touch. In the meantime, I’m going to convert season one into a book, e-book and audio book, if I can swing it. I’ll be posting various progress reports and looking for help from readers and spell checkers on our Facebook page. Join me - “OldManApocalypse”. As always I am working to a tight budget, like the first Mad Max film! – so if you can go to the Patreon page for After the Apocalypse and throw me some money it makes everything easier. Just to be fully transparent, we are not talking about a lot of money here, but currently the variable costs per show are about double the income. As they say in the startup world – we’ve got a negative burn rate. With your help I can turn that around! That’s it for this season my friends. I feel a bit sad having to say goodbye to you for a couple months. Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to fill in some of that dead space. So chin up, one foot in front of the other, and above all else – Keep surviving! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

11 Juli 202125min

After the ApocalypseA pandemic survival storySeason One, Episode Nineteen - “The Gauntlet”“I don’t like it.” KJ said. “Of course you don’t.” the old man said in return. “Besides the obvious answer that the world has gone to hell, why not?”“There’s too much smoke. Why would there be so much smoke this many weeks in? Who’s burning stuff and why are they doing it?” “Maybe it’s a barbeque.” The old man joked. “Yah know, short ribs, beer… It does smell like cooking meat.” “Maybe they’ll barbeque your scrawny ass, old man.” She countered. “It smells more like plastic or tires or something.” Bill sniffed at the air and didn’t seem pleased with what he smelled, but for now he could only pace and offer up an occasional worried whine. ...Greetings my survivor friends. How’s the apocalypse treating you? Special welcome to my daughter, who pitched in with the typo hunting in this episode. Thanks for the great Father’s Day card! I am stunned and amazed that here we are, episode 19. Who knew we’d be able to pull it off. This chapter was fun to write. I think we have a clear understanding of who these characters are – so I can drop them into situation and let them speak for themselves. We see our female protagonist Janet, a.k.a KJ the Killer, slipping into that ambiguity that the end of the world forces on people. We see the old man teetering on the brink of reality and sanity. We see the world thrashing about in the worst types of reactions that befall humans. The question is which way will they all slide? What will they choose? Do they even have a choice? We introduced that there is a ‘big bad’ roaming around as the world starts to coalesce around survivors. The ‘big bad’ is more than an antagonist to create narrative tension. The big bad is an alternate blueprint. He is the dark side of humanity that is always just outside, peering through that little window shaped like a porthole in the front door of civilization waiting for us to make a mistake. And that’s always the tension with humanity. Civilization is a chaos suppressant. Civilization sees chaos as evil. All our religions have a manifestation of chaos, from Loki, to the Devil, to Coyote – there’s always that tension between order and chaos, or more pedantically, good and evil. If you don’t have that tension, then the story is just action without purpose. Or horror without purpose. Or comedy without purpose. And when the narrative fiction falls into that space you lose interest in the fate of the characters and all the action in the world can’t keep it going. You need stakes. Unless there are stakes. Unless there is tension. There is no compelling narrative. And that’s the fun part of creating a dystopian, apocalyptic universe. You get to decide how that tension of good versus evil is resolved. Anyhow… enough with the ontology. And speaking of Coyote the mischief making chaos god of some Native Americans - Here’s my reading list tip for you this week. The Tony Hillerman books about Navajo police detective Joe Leaphorn? I’m not a big mystery fan, but I started listening to these on audio book when I was commuting from my home outside Boston up to an office in Quebec City Canada. It’s a long drive. I would get books on tape at the local library for the ride. Hillerman was an Albuquerque New Mexico resident and did a great job describing the Southwest US cultures, and in particular the Native American mythologies. The audio books, if you can find them, are read by Native American voice actors and the cadence of the read is amazing. There ya go – grab some Hillerman audio books for your summer vacation. In two weeks we will present the last chapter, chapter 20, in this first season. Then we’ll take a pause to turn the first season into an e-book, a paperback and an audio book. I’ve got a copy editor to work through the scripts and I’ve got a couple artists working on cover art. I’m recruiting a book launch team and typo hunters. Come over to FaceBook and join the After the Apocalypse group that can be found by searching for “OldManApocalypse” – all one word – and pitch in. I’m asking nicely. I could use the help. I’m happy with how this season and the overall format came out. We’re up over 11,000 downloads now. That’s not bad for 6 months in as an indie podcast. The format lends itself to binge listening. The short consumable episode length and consistency allow people to just queue them up and march through them. Another irony of the podcasting world is that what took me 6 months to produce takes you a couple days to consume! I can keep up with this fortnightly cadence and still produce a decent quality product. Unfortunately for you I have a full-time job and other things to attend to or I would be cranking out a season monthly! The next season we are going to add more compelling characters to the universe, we are going to add situations and institutions and threats that test our survival skills. So stick with us after the break. I hope all of you up in my hemisphere are enjoying your summers and those of you in antipodal hemispheres are enjoying your winters. As always I could use your support on the Patreon page to keep paying the bills. And I can use your participation on the facebook group at oldmanapocalypse. And of course keep leaving 5-star reviews on iTunes and keep telling your friends. And together, we will keep surviving. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

26 Juni 202129min