Stories about the end of the world as we know it have been popular…well, at least since John of Patmos wrote his little Apocalyptic story that Christians now call The Book of Revelation. Even before that, pre-literate cultures the world over loved to tell stories about how the world would end and what would happen after.
As for me, I love Apocalyptic and post-Apocalyptic stories, and I’m clearly not alone. It’s everywhere in our culture: books, movies, comics, and even music. We simply love to contemplate what will happen when our nice neat shit goes up in flames.
I have a good friend who is terrified of robots (or ro-butts, as we like to say). She can’t even stand to see posters for the upcoming 4th Terminator film. If she were faced with a robot Apocalypse, she would probably throw herself off the nearest tall building. And her fear of androids is even more profound. You can’t even mention the Phillip K. Dick book around her.
Pet Zombie!
One of my online writing buddies and one of my college buddies both have full-blown zombie-phobia. College buddy hyperventilated about fifteen minutes into the nouveau-zombie film 28 Days Later.
As for me, I’m one of those people who’s sure that Sartre was right: l’enfer c’est les autres. Hell is other people. For me, neither zombies nor robots are as scary as my fellow humans. I could only read The Road in broad daylight and I won’t be going to see the movie.
So that’s my question for today: when you think about some hypothetical “End Times,” what scares you most? Which of the four horsemen haunt your dreams: death, war, famine, pestilence?
Bryn Greenwood 
Definitely fellow humans. As enemies go, they’re far less predictable than the other two, and far more vicious.
Or it could be Monday, when my faith in my fellow man is at its lowest…
All of the above. lol.
Well, I enjoy the whole zombie mythos the most, but what I find frightening is the thought of nuclear devastation or nasty diseases that leave just enough people to start REALLY acting like assholes and trying to take over the world.
I see a lot of people share my fear of post-Apocalyptic humans. We’re such crazy jerks even when our world isn’t falling down around our ears. What are the odds the End Times would bring about the best in us?
A plague of some kind is my fear. Something that would linger for years and years before killing everyone.
The extinction of civilization is always interesting. Lord of the Flies and such clearly shows humans would be the biggest enemy. Law and order and morality would soon disappear I fear if organized society was anniliated.
I too love these types of books because they make you think. Have you read The Road by Cormac McCarthy? I highly recommend it. A movie is coming later this year.
Steve B. Davis
Steve, it always pays to read all the way through a blog post. 😉
Other people. Definitely other people.
I vote for “other people.” And pestilence.
Other people, certainly. For one thing, they’re already here.
Pat: that wins as the most pragmatic response. Humans behaving in evil ways is thoroughly documented, unlike homicidal robots and zombies.