Derelict Dreams, An Illustrated Novel (e-Book)

Derelict Dreams, An Illustrated Novel  

About this premium e-Book:

Follow two young sisters on a harrowing journey through Las Vegas in a British double decker bus while giant, decaying, advertising signs walk among the hotels and casinos, and horrific gangs force the end of civilization. Why are the signs here? Can the girls survive? Will anything remain worth living for? This eBook includes more than 80 full color pictures that illustrate the story and take you deep into what it means to survive an apocalypse. 

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Please enjoy an excerpt from Derelict Dreams:

Prologue

 The signs tore themselves from their old buildings that had held them for decades. They ripped free from their pointless vigils, no longer advertising anything that existed. They pulled, clawed, and crawled, using appendages that broke through from their frames. Like sprouting weeds in empty lots, they gathered in odd places. Many grew huge, and glowed to life as if connected to some invisible power source. And then, they set out, in isolated herds, or as loners, heading south. They trekked through streets and deserts, across snow and over mountains. In some places, old classic cars traveled with them, driverless. There was no obvious explanation for how these behemoths were walking like animals, or how they even existed in the first place. 

Roll Inn Trailer Court rose above an abandoned warehouse. Poker Slots Bar and Sandman Motel plodded along a desert highway behind an old, yellow roadster. El Rancho Hotel trampled the brush behind a Duesenberg, following a brown and white dog. Silver Horseshoe Bar ambled over train cars in a field of fireflies. Victory Motel moved above a stand of pine trees, and Ford’s Bar & Pool climbed through snow below a swirling star field. All these and many more followed their own paths toward Las Vegas.

Chapter One

Sis and I had been on our way to the school bus stop when we first saw one of the old, walking signs. I was eleven, and my sister, ten. Fall leaves still covered the sidewalk and stirred in the breeze. 

Sis said, “Jen, did you see that?” 

I turned in the direction she was pointing, and we saw movement among the dead leaves and bushes. The thing was small, like the old man’s bulldog that lived in the house behind us. It stepped farther out onto the sidewalk, and we could see it was walking on its own. It read Private Road, and had barbed wire wrapped around it. 

I guess you could say it was cute in a way, but it sure didn’t make sense to us. It turned and ran the other direction. We ran after it, but it disappeared into the bushes, and we couldn’t find it again. 

I laughed. “Are you kidding me? What was that?”

Sis rolled her eyes and grinned. “Someone playing a joke on us?” 

“I don’t know.”

We couldn’t have known that this was only the beginning, and that we would soon see many more signs like this, along with others much larger. At home that night, we didn’t tell our parents about it because we didn’t think they would believe us anyway. They’d probably say we were making things up.

I used to wonder what was real and what was a dream. Or was life everything in between? Las Vegas was supposed to be a magical place for adults. My parents didn’t take my younger sister and me to the casinos, but they had driven us down The Strip, and also, we could see the city in the distance from where we lived. I think it was even more mysterious from our vantage point a few miles away than in the middle of it. The Strip was a sparkling line of lights with a slow-turning wheel in the center. On one end stood the Stratosphere, the tallest building, a tower with a red light on top. On the other, a beam of light shot up into the sky from a glass pyramid called Luxor. I heard that in the summer, bats would hang out in the light beam, eating the flying insects attracted to it. 

Once, when we were hiking in the hills of Red Rock, a beautiful park west of town, we climbed high enough up the sandstone rocks to see all of the Vegas Valley. It was a hot day, more than 100 degrees, but our parents had taken us out early to avoid the worst of the heat. We imagined we were superheroes ready to save the world. Our superhero ideas came from a character we had created together who we called Wild Girl. She had strength when we didn’t. She stood up to danger when we were too afraid. She showed us the way when we were lost. On top of that mountain, we were both Wild Girl.

We didn’t know then that a terrible enemy was coming, and that it would be both invisible and intangible. The destruction of the city wouldn’t happen with an explosion, but with a creeping fear that would destroy thought, trust, and common sense.

Steve Patchin is an author, photographer, and artist who has been working and running a studio in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1996. Derelict Dreams, an Illustrated Novel is his first novel. It includes more than 80 full-color original artistic photographs that make his apocalyptic story of two young sisters come alive. Steve is a Las Vegas native with an extensive portfolio of photographic images, realistic composites, and impressionistic paintings. He has owned and operated his photography and video business, Patchin Pictures, since 1996, winning eight Emmys for his work.

Steve has never stopped expanding and refining his art, photography, and writing. His resume of images displays an abundance of styles and subjects that are uniquely appealing: from traditional landscapes and cityscapes to his distinctive “photo paintings” that are more impressionistic, sometimes surreal, or other-worldly.