The Big One

Daddy's coming home.

That's the promise Hank, a widowed ambulance driver finishing up his shift in San Francisco, makes to his two kids who are trapped in the ruins of their destroyed apartment building across the Bay in Oakland, after the mother of all earthquakes-the fabled Big One-hits California.

Hank and two of his fellow EMTs commandeer the rescue vehicle, racing through the decimated streets in search of a way across the water to save his kids. But as the journey through the disaster's aftermath continues, the first responders come face-to-face with unsettling and disturbing occurrences beyond the expected aftershocks. Suicidal cultists and outbreaks of ultra-violence give way to squirming masses of giant tentacles rising through the ruined roadways, while mutant creatures break into fleeing vehicles in search of human flesh.

All the while, something massive rises from a millennia-long sleep inside the Earth, something gargantuan in stature, something that existed long before the known universe was born. While the world goes mad outside of and inside his ambulance, Hank remains determined to keep his promise.

But when facing unfathomable cosmic evil do love, determination, and bold action even stand a chance of saving the day?

With The Big One, the over-the-top, macho heroics of a Michael Bay action film are pitted against the ancient, maddening cosmic antagonists of Lovecraftian horror and you've got a front row seat for the battle.

It's got tentacles.

It's got explosions.

It's got exploding tentacles.

Patrick Barb's The Big One is an apocalyptic romp through the Bay Area, conjuring comparisons to Michael Bay's Ambulance and John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. Expect white-knuckle action, blood-soaked crazies, and tentacles to spare, all brought to maddening life by Barb's lightning pace and talent for characterization.

Carson Winter, author of Portraits of Decay