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.

Excerpt

The Black Parade
Ilana Lindsey © 2026
All Rights Reserved

Lysander

Lysander saw his death in the distance, waiting for him like a dull-eyed lizard with sharp grey teeth. He had a week left. Maybe two. He’d survive the Dust, but once Mum died, the loneliness would kill him even before his food and water ran out.

The chemist’s door gaped open, revealing its gloom-drenched interior. A song about the end of the world drummed in his head as he crept inside; its lyrics listed historical events escalating like a brewing explosion. In reality, the end of the world had been much more whimper than bang. That’s how he’d go out too: with a limp, ethereal fade, rather than anything more dramatic.

He wouldn’t think about that right now. He’d think about it tomorrow. The chemist’s shelves held little more than snide shadows, but there had to be something left, even if it only soothed her pain for an hour or two. An assortment of pills speckled the floor—broken, leaking capsules and tablets crushed into powder. The air stank of rot, perfume, and spilled medicine. He stepped over an overturned leaflet carousel and spotted a box of ibuprofen embedded in a puddle of cough syrup. The cardboard ripped as he plucked it from the sticky linoleum. Empty. The looters had taken everything useful and destroyed the rest. He pressed his fists to his temples and waited for the anxiety to subside.

Someone had wrenched a pair of hair tongs in half and tossed them on the shards of a ceramic soap dish. The wilful destruction agitated him, which was ridiculous, because what did it matter at this point? No one would have used the broken things. It was the symbolic waste of it. That was what upset him. There was no need to make things even uglier than they already were.

He kept searching: bath salts, condoms, nicotine gum. He knocked a bottle of diet pills off the shelf and kicked it across the floor.

The Dust consumed more of Mum every day. She’d been sick in the night and hadn’t eaten anything that morning. Her skin too pale and the bones of her wrists too sharp, she’d leaned trembling against the kitchen table. She’d smiled and teased him as usual, but he’d sensed the dread beneath her performance. They both knew she was dying.

Footsteps thumped the pavement outside. Lysander froze.

A middle-aged man in wrinkled trousers and a dirty Oxford shirt stepped through the doorway. He spotted Lysander and halted, sizing him up.

Lysander returned the favour, wrinkling his nose at the stranger’s body odour. Oxford looked a conventional sort, with cropped hair and a soft, fleshy face. He might have been a bank manager or estate agent. He appeared harmless, but you never knew.

Lysander crossed his arms. “There’s nothing here.”

“You sure?” The man wiped sweat off his forehead. “Mary…my missus. She’s in a bad way.”

Oxford wasn’t doing too well either, from the look of him. His voice rasped, and the rash covered his arms from wrist to elbow. Lysander fought off nausea. When had he last met anyone who wasn’t dying?

“I’m here for my mum,” he said, and backed up as the man strode forwards. Lysander was taller, but Oxford had more bulk. Best to leave. He turned to do so and spotted the corner of a box poking from beneath a shelf. Blue cardboard. Paracetamol.

Lysander tried to hide the rush of excitement. He peeked at Oxford to see if he’d succeeded and saw the man’s face brighten with greed.

Lysander was closer. He dived. Haste made him clumsy, and the box glanced off his fingertips. As he scrambled for it, Oxford grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back. Lysander didn’t want to fight. He jerked free and shoved the man away. Eyes wild, Oxford threw him against the wall. Vitamin bottles fell, bouncing and rattling.

The box skittered to the centre of the aisle. They both lunged at once and struggled, smashing into shelves, a wrangle of bared teeth and thrashing limbs. The man punched him, and as Lysander cried out and tried to cover his face, Oxford slid forward, and that was it.

Panting, the man lumbered to his feet. He squeezed the box of paracetamol, gripping it tight. Sweat beaded his hairline.

Lysander gaped at him. He touched his stinging jaw.

“S-sorry,” said the man. “I’m sorry. Mary. She needs it.”

“My mum needs it too.” Lysander stood up on shaky legs. “She’s all I have.” He felt dizzy.

“You can look after yourself. You’re old enough.” The man peered, taking in Lysander’s bare arms, his face. “You’re not even sick.”

“I was issued an antidote.”

“Were you, now?” said Oxford, curling his lip. “Posh little prick.”

“I suppose I should have volunteered to die along with everyone else.” Lysander tightened his hands into fists. “Would that help? If I promised to kill myself?”

“Think it’s funny, do you?”

“No.” It was a mistake to antagonise him. “I don’t think it’s at all funny.” Maybe he could convince him to share. He grabbed a shelf to keep his balance. “I was fortunate. I got an antidote. My mum didn’t, and she’s as ill as you are.” Cold seeped through his limbs as he pictured her alone in their house. “She’s all I have,” he repeated.

The man didn’t respond. Lysander waited, but Oxford just stared, lips pressed together, radiating hate and pity.

Something scuffled in the corner, and they both jumped. A tiny, grey mouse rooted through the rubbish, nibbling crumbs left in a cereal bar wrapper. The end of the world meant nothing to it. Lucky thing. It crawled to the centre of the aisle and sniffed the floor. The spilled medication would kill it if the mouse licked it up. Lysander blinked until his eyes stopped filling. He stomped his foot, and the mouse darted away.

Oxford cringed and rubbed his temple, examining the paracetamol box. “For fuck’s sake.” With a shake of his head, he said, “Look. I heard a rumour, but it’s probably rubbish.”

“A rumour?”

He nodded. “There’s this bloke at St Thomas’. They’re saying he’s got a cure.”

“That’s a lie.”

He had to get that paracetamol. If he brought Mum’s fever down, she might eat something. He angled his body to block the man’s view and reached back. There wasn’t any choice. He wrapped his fingers around a plastic spray bottle.

“Could well be,” said Oxford. “I can’t… Mary’s too sick for me to leave her on her own, so I can’t go chasing after what’s likely nothing. But you could go.”

“Where did you hear this?”

“Bloke I passed on the road the other day. Whole family with him. Seemed healthy.” He coughed. His eyes were red around the edges. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.” No. He should have lied and said he was younger; it might have drawn out some sympathy.

“It’s just you and your mum?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m not taking the piss. If you can leave her for a few hours, check out St Thomas’.”

Lysander thrust out his arm and yanked the bottle’s trigger. Oxford staggered and yelled as surface cleaner showered his face. As he raised his hands, Lysander snatched the paracetamol.

“No!” The man lurched forward, his eyes half-closed, flailing at the air.

Heart pounding, Lysander retreated. The box’s corners dug into his palm. He could taste cleaning fluid on the roof of his mouth. His foot landed on a vitamin bottle, and he stumbled.

Oxford slumped to his knees—a big, soft man in filthy clothes. His shoulders heaved as he sobbed.

Stinging with shame, Lysander shoved past him.

The man reached out. “Stop. For God’s sake. Please.”

Lysander halted in the doorway, clenching his jaw—it pulsed hot where Oxford had hit him. With numb fingers, he fumbled the box open and pulled out one of the two blister packs. He threw it into the shop and ran.

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Meet the Author

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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