Title: The Black Parade

Series: After the Dust, Book One

Author: Ilana Lindsey

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/28/2026

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 286

Genre: Sci Fi Horror, action/adventure, activism, aristocracy, captivity, class differences, coming of age, dark, dystopian, folklore, grief, healing, hurt/comfort, illness/disease, mental illness, morality, music, nature, political, PTSD/post-traumatic stress, road trip, tearjerker, LGBTQ+, m/m, romance, heartbreaking romance, social justice, survival, horror, post-apocalypse, climate fiction, United Kingdom, trauma bonding, speculative romance, scifi, achillean

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Description

As billions die from an apocalyptic cloud of polluted dust, David—a climate activist in a previous life—is holed up in an abandoned hospital in London offering a cure to anyone who needs it. Months earlier he escaped from a rogue government scientist whose illegal experimentation gave David two unasked for gifts: the ability to cure people with his blood and a locked collar around his neck. When Lysander, the sheltered son of an aristocrat, arrives and begs David to save his mother’s life, David has to try. Together, the two young men begin a journey across the UK toward an island community they hope will provide food and shelter.

Lysander struggles, longing for the security he took for granted before society crashed. He despairs over David’s hero complex and tendency to lead them both into danger. David is torn between protecting Lysander and the guilt that drives him to use his power to save the dying. Their clashing personalities, values, and ideas of what safety looks like, are woven together with an irresistible attraction that grows into something deeper. As they face the elements, other survivors, and a government desperately trying to reassert control, David and Lysander’s greatest challenge becomes staying together while fate conspires to rip them apart.

The Black Parade
Ilana Lindsey © 2026
All Rights Reserved

The shade beneath the motorway bridge provided a weak and momentary relief from the heat. They’d been walking for no more than a quarter of an hour, but the knowledge that this relentless march would be his life for the foreseeable future gave Lysander the beginning flutters of a panic attack. He fiddled with his bracelets. Sweat had collected beneath them, an itchy rash developing. He considered taking them off but didn’t want to deal with David’s reaction to his scars. He could have put on a long-sleeved shirt, but it was so bloody hot.

When the air changed, he jumped and braced himself. It took him a second to recognise the sound of moving vehicles in the distance. The rumble and roar gave Lysander a thrill of fear and excitement. He wanted to both run towards the noise and hide from it. People. Other people were coming.

David set his things on the ground. Lysander did the same and rubbed his shoulders as David scampered up the brick abutment and peeked over the parapet.

“Do you see anything?” asked Lysander.

“Shh! Don’t talk. We don’t know who they are.”

“I suspect they’re still rather far away.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Be quiet.”

Lysander rolled his eyes. He stretched and touched his toes to ease the tension in his lower back. He shook out his legs. His blisters weren’t hurting as much as they could have been given the circumstances, and that was absolutely true, he wasn’t just telling himself so. Five hundred miles. He was going to die. Maybe they could find a car with petrol still in the tank and keys in the ignition. Maybe with a bow on top and a note from the universe wishing them good luck. He sniffed. Maybe they’d come across some horses. Lysander could ride, and he bet David didn’t know a stirrup from a bit.

“It’s trucks,” said David. “Big ones, shit green. Military. Damn, there’s a lot of them.”

“They distributed antidotes to common soldiers? Good to know that uneducated killing machines make up a decent percentage of the remaining human population.”

“Uneducated? That’s what you’re worried about?”

“I’m not wrong, am I? One would imagine the apocalypse would mean less necessity to worry about political correctness. It’s done; society has fallen. It’s survival of the fittest from here on out.”

“Shh! They’re getting closer.”

“You’re the one who started speaking,” said Lysander. “I was just being polite and responding. Anyway, why would we want to hide from them?”

David jerked to look at him. “Are you serious?”

“They’re humans. Civilisation.” The bridge vibrated as the trucks drew nearer. “They can tell us where people are gathering. There must be something. We can’t be the only civilians left alive. They can protect us, give us food and shelter.”

“It’s the army!”

“Yes, I know. But you and I, we’re okay. We were the ones picked to survive. They issued me an antidote and you…” Lysander made a vague gesture. “I don’t think it’s necessary for you to look at me like that. You do a lot of glaring, do you realise?”

David slid down the abutment and landed on the pavement. He strode towards Lysander. “I…I told you.”

Christ, oh fuck, Lysander had set him off. He backed up, holding his hands out in self-defence. “Look, calm down.”

“I told you what they did,” said David. “They released the Dust. This is what they did.” He swung his arm around. “They killed everyone. They killed yo—”

“Don’t,” said Lysander. He wished he knew how to throw a proper punch.

“They’re the ones who took us.”

The air shook as the first truck passed overhead. David looked up, terrified, grabbed Lysander, and yanked him into the shadows beneath the bridge. Lysander struggled, but David slammed him against the wall. When Lysander tried to yell, David slapped a hand over his mouth. He looked wild, like a trapped animal. He gaped at the roof, his calloused palm rough against Lysander’s lips as he held him still. A flurry of dry leaves and dirt danced outside the tunnel as the vehicles thundered above. Lysander submitted to David’s grasp, feeling it the safest course of action, and closed his eyes, waiting for it to be over. The bricks vibrated against his back, and David’s fingers dug into his shoulder, clenching and unclenching. Lysander breathed in the scent of baby wipes as sweat rolled down the back of his neck.

When the final truck trundled overhead and passed on to who knew where, it left them in silence broken only by David’s ragged breathing. Lysander shoved him away.

“When I tell you to shut up, you shut up,” said David. He still looked jumpy. He knelt over his pack, slid out his water bottle, and drank.

“I’ll do what I choose,” said Lysander.

David handed him the bottle. Lysander dried the spout with the bottom of his shirt and took a few swallows. “What happened? What did they do to you?”

“I explained that.”

“You told me you were involved in an experiment.” He handed the water back.

“Yeah. They took us.” He slipped the bottle into a side pocket of his pack.

Lysander wanted more water. What would they do when they ran out? “What do you mean, took you?”

David gave him that steady, burning gaze. “I mean, they grabbed Sunita, my girlfriend, and me off the street and forced us into a van at gunpoint.”

“Oh.” Well, now Lysander was entirely wrong-footed. “You didn’t tell me they forced you into it.”

“You think I volunteered to be used as their guinea pig?”

“I don’t know. You’ve barely told me anything. If you’d been clearer earlier on, I wouldn’t have argued with you. Pardon me if I’m having trouble accepting that our own government got up to such things. It’s a bit upsetting.”

“Upsetting, is it?” David rose to his feet. “Ever seen a refugee detention centre? You think a government who keeps human beings in cages would be squeamish about killing off undesirables? Exactly how much lack of concern for human life do you need as evidence? This has been going on for years. For decades. You’ve had the privilege to ignore it, but—”

“That’s quite enough. My life hasn’t been perfect, you know.” He would not tolerate this. “I’ve had my share of…of challenges.”

“Maybe,” said David. “But you had the resources to handle them. Right? Try getting help if you’re mentally ill but not filthy rich.”

“I—” No. He didn’t want to say that. David was confusing him. “You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know what—”

“Whatever it was, you had the money to fix it. Genuine help, not the crumbs offered by the NHS after they sold it for parts.”

Lysander refused to feel guilty for things he hadn’t chosen or take responsibility for things he hadn’t done. “Have you many of these little rants preprepared?”

“Here, have five minutes of talking therapy. That’s your lot,” said David. “Have a handful of drugs. Now fuck off. You’ve no idea what it’s like in the real world.”

Lysander got a flash of the way his father used to smirk at him as he said things like that. Real world. With a serpentine itch to provoke, he said, “Are you referring to yourself?”

David stiffened.

Yes. That was the right tack. Lysander smiled.

“I told you,” said David. “I’m not mad.”

“Bit of a sensitive subject though.” He wanted to make David explode. “Are you certain?”

“Lysander…”

“It’s just that you seem a bit mad now and then. And I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

David lifted his face to the sky.

Lysander tried again. “They do say the craziest people don’t know they’re crazy. Maybe that’s the case with you. Have you considered?” He slid a finger between his bracelets and scratched at his skin. The heat rash had grown red and blotchy.

“Yeah,” said David. “I have considered. My mother suffered with mental illness. I consider it every fucking day.”

Right. Well. That’s why it was a sensitive subject. Lysander lost his pleasure in the game. He was meant to apologise now. Instead, he said, “Marvellous.”

David laughed. “I’ll let you know if I start seeing things or hearing voices. Give you a head’s up.”

“Very kind of you. I’d appreciate it.” Lysander hesitated and figured, why not? “Although, you wouldn’t be the most reliable witness as to whether the things you’re seeing are really there, would you? For all you know, I could be a hallucination.”

“I should be so lucky. Maybe I’m a hallucination too. Maybe I’m hallucinating myself.”

“You’re getting metaphysical now.”

“Am I?”

Lysander adjusted his feet to take some of the pressure off his blisters. His pique had dimmed. “That’s a shame about your mother, Wolfie.”

“Are you going to keep calling me that?”

“Yes.”

David whistled out a breath. “I’ll call you annoying little shit, then.”

“We both have nicknames for each other already.” He poked David on the shoulder. “Isn’t that cute?”

“Adorable.” David glanced at the bridge. The sound of the trucks had faded away. “I think we should get out of the open. It’ll be safer.”

“Fine.”

They set off again.

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Ilana M. Lindsey is an American expat living in South London. She has a BA in Philosophy and thinks way too much. She loves tigers, forests, alt-rock, and dark stories that dig into the depths of human experience and emerge with a beacon of hope. The angst and beauty of growing up neurodivergent in a Jewish family is woven through her work.

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