Seriously, this is the most fucked up book I’ve ever written.

Seriously, this is the most fucked up book I’ve ever written.

Zombies Ate My Homework came out this week, and here’s a sample of the book. NSFW, NSFC, NSFAnything. If you aren’t familiar with the Shingles series or Authors & Dragons, you should check those out too. If you dig the sample, buy the book

Chapter Four

Todd watched the woman stagger toward the bus. She never got any faster, just kept limping along. As she got closer, Todd saw that her left leg wasn’t working quite right, like she was dragging it more than walking on it. She came to another nasty pothole and just faceplanted right there in the road, not even putting her hands out to break her fall. 

“Ohhh!” came a shout from a few rows back. Todd peeked back over the seat and realized it was Hank, and he was watching the woman, too. 

She just lay there in the street for a few seconds, then started to crawl forward, pulling herself along with her arms. She crawled for a couple of yards, then slowly clambered to her feet and resumed her odd shuffling limp, this time with her jaw hanging off at an odd angle. She didn’t scream, didn’t seem to be crying—she just limped toward them like an old three-legged dog. 

“What’s wrong with her, Toddy?” Andy asked, and when Todd turned his face to his little brother, he saw tears welling up in his brother’s eyes. “Is that lady a zombie?” 

Todd laughed because what else do you do when your little brother asks you if the woman who just died in a Prius is now a zombie shambling toward the school bus where you’re both trapped? “No, buddy. Zombies aren’t real. She’s just hurt really bad, and we need to help her.” 

Todd turned to the front of the bus. “Hey, Skeevy! That lady’s hurt real bad. You oughta take the first aid kit out there and help her.” 

Skeevy didn’t even look up from his phone. Todd didn’t know what the driver could be looking at, since nobody had any service, but he was sure engrossed in something. “There’s literally zero chance I’m leaving you hooligans on this bus alone. I’d so totally lose my job for that.”

“Then can me and Tarik go help her? We both took first aid last summer,” Todd called back.

“Dude,” Tarik whispered. “I so flunked that class.” 

“I don’t care, man. We need to see what’s up with that lady. She doesn’t look right,” Todd said. 

“No way, Todd-zay,” Skeevy called out. “The doors to the bus stay shut up tight until the guys from maintenance get here.” 

“How do the guys from maintenance even know how to come find us?” Mikayla asked loudly. “Nobody’s cell phones work.” 

“They’ve got GPS on the buses. When we don’t get to the museum, Mr. Moore will call that in, the district will look up our location, and they’ll send help. No worries, little buddies. You just trust ol’ Skeevy.” It bothered Todd a little bit just how much Skeevy embraced his nickname, like it was a compliment or something. In Todd’s experience, nicknames were never a compliment. 

As if to prove him right, Hank called out from the back of the bus, “Go ahead, Toad. Go help the nice zombie lady. Maybe she’ll give you a kiss. God knows that’s the only way a girl will kiss you, if she’s already dead!” Hank’s cronies all laughed, and Todd felt his face turn crimson. The embarrassment was all the worse because sitting right there in front of Hank was Tiffany Tarleton, the prettiest girl in seventh grade, laughing just like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. And Mikayla was right. She was wearing a miniskirt. 

Todd looked back out the window, happy to see that an ambulance was pulling up to the crash scene and a paramedic was walking over to the woman. The man had his hands out, and Todd could see his lips moving, as if he were offering to help the woman. For a few seconds, she just kept shuffling toward the school bus like she didn’t hear the man, then she stopped in her tracks, whirled around, and leapt on the paramedic, knocking him to the ground. 

“Holy shit!” Andy whispered. 

Todd smacked him on the back of the head. “Dude, don’t cuss. Dad would kick your butt for that.” 

“Yeah, yeah, but look!” Andy pointed at the window, where the woman was sitting astride the paramedic, her face bent down to the man’s. Her hair fell over their faces, obscuring the action. “Todd, please tell me she’s real grateful and she’s giving that guy a kiss.” 

“I…” Todd didn’t even have time to get the lie out before the woman turned her face back to the bus and showed them all the gruesome truth. Blood streamed down her face, even down her messed-up jaw, coating the front of her neck all the way down her dress, where pink and white flowers bloomed here and there in a field of bright red. 

“Holy shit,” Andy repeated, and this time Todd didn’t smack him. When the little dude was right, he was right. 

A scream ripped through the bus, and every eye spun to Tiffany Tarleton, standing on her seat looking out the open window at the woman and all the paramedic blood pouring down her face. “It’s a zombie!” Tiffany screeched. 

The woman, as if to confirm the truth of what Tiffany said, lurched back to her feet and started to plod toward the bus again, zeroing in on the exact spot where Tiffany stood and screamed. 

“Tiffany, shut up!” Mikayla yelled, scrambling over Tarik and running back to where the terrified girl stood, her scream fading to a high-pitched keening. Mikayla spun the smaller girl around by her long blond curls, and slapped her across the face, her open palm making a crack life a rifle. 

Tiffany’s screams cut off like a light switch, and she was instantly returned to a pissy seventh-grader. “You slapped me!” she proclaimed, jamming her fists onto her hips. 

“I’ll do it again if you don’t put up that window, sit down, and shut the hell up!” Mikayla raised her voice to address the whole bus. “Everybody, listen to me! You know what’s going on. We’ve all seen enough episodes of The Walking Dead to not screw this up, right? Now put up all of those windows and get back in your seats. If they can’t smell us, or hear us, they won’t even know we’re here.” Mikayla looked around the bus, then called out, “Yes, Andy?” 

Todd turned to see his little brother turned completely around in their seat, up on his knees as he leaned over the back of the seat. “What if they’re fast zombies? What if they don’t work like they do in the movies?” 

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Mikayla said, sounding very adult for a girl who was still too short to ride all the rides at the amusement parks. “But we know about this stuff, so we’re not going to do the stupid crap we see people do in the movies, right?” 

Andy nodded and raised his window with a firm click. Then he pressed his face to the dirty glass and watched as the woman continued her slow march to the bus. After a few seconds, the paramedic sat up, then got to his feet, and Todd saw exactly how much damage had been done to the man. His throat was completely gone, and his uniform shirt was at least as covered in blood as the woman’s dress. He moved better, probably because he hadn’t broken half the bones in his body in a car crash when he died, but he still walked with that funny lurching limp that the woman had. And he was heading for the bus, too. 

Todd looked left and right, checking that all the students had their windows up, but when he looked back to the right, he saw Skeevy sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, his head leaned back so his ponytail dangled out the window, puffing on his vape pen and blowing cherry-scented smoke up toward the roof of the bus. 

“Skeevy!” Todd hissed, but the driver didn’t respond. “Skeevy!” Todd whispered louder, then noticed that the only adult on the bus had his feet on the lever that controlled the door, flipping it open and shut with a loud squeak every ten seconds or so, while his hair dangled down the side of the bus, twitching back and forth like a fishing lure for the undead, all the while jamming out to something on his candy-apple red BOOMer headphones. 

“Son of a…” Todd grumbled as he slid out into the aisle and ran to the front of the bus. He stopped right next to Skeevy, tapping him on the shoulder. Skeevy just slapped his hand away. Todd did it again, harder this time, and Skeevy slapped his hand away and flipped him the bird. 

Todd thought about just letting the zombies get the idiot bus driver but decided that no matter how much of a douche he was, he didn’t deserve to get his throat ripped out by the living dead. So, he reached out, grabbed the blond high school senior’s feet, and yanked them off the door lever. Skeevy’s feet dropped to the floor, which made him sit up, and he dropped his vape pen on the floor. When he bent down to pick it up, his ponytail slid back into the bus, just a few seconds before the woman hit the side of the big yellow torture chamber with a hollow thud. 

“Dude, what was that for?” Skeevy asked, looking a little pissed. 

“Close the window, Skeevy,” Todd said, very proud of himself for keeping calm so far. 

“Dude, you’re the passenger. I’m the licensed driver. That means that I make the decisions about what happens in the driver’s seat. So you don’t get to tell me to close the window, how fast to drive, or even where to pick you up. You got that? And you sure as…heck…don’t get to touch me. If you do it again, I’m going to have you suspended for a week. How would you like that, Mr. Assertive?” 

“Skeevy,” Todd started, trying to hold on to his calm in the face of the increasingly close thuds along the side of the bus as the female zombie, hearing Skeevy’s rant, moved closer and closer. “Skeevy, I’m sorry I touched you, but you really need to close your window. There’s something really weird going on out there, and it looks like…oh, screw this.” Todd finally got frustrated with staying calm and upon hearing a new thump at the back of the bus where the paramedic finally joined his maker, just clambered over Skeevy and slid the window shut, latching it just as the woman’s blood-covered fingers slapped the glass. 

“Dude! You do not get to invade the driver’s personal space like that. I’m sorry, Todd-o, but that’s going to be three days off the bus. Now what was so all-fired important that you had to get all up in my grill like that?” 

Todd, back on his feet and standing between Skeevy and the door of the bus, just stepped aside and pointed. “That.” 

Outside the door was a dead paramedic, nothing but a gaping wound where his throat used to be, slapping at the door trying to get in. He left bloody tracks wherever he touched the panes of glass in the door, and the streaks of red started to make seeing difficult. 

“And that,” Todd said, pointing to Skeevy’s window, where two female hands smacked the glass without rhythm, just tapping a crimson concerto of zombie hunger less than six inches from the tip of Skeevy’s beloved ponytail. 

“Dude…” Skeevy drew out the word, so it sounded more like “duuuuuuuuudddddde,” and Todd just nodded. 

“Dude,” Todd said, trying very hard to speak a language he knew the bus driver would understand. “There are zombies trying to catch a ride on the school bus. We have to be quiet so they will go away and leave us alone.” 

Skeevy nodded, moving his face almost all the way to the window to look at the ruin of the woman’s body who stood outside his bus, her once-environmentally conscious mind now full of nothing but hunger. The driver took it all in: the mindless face, the blood covering her jaw and dress, the hollow, empty eyes, and he turned back to Todd. 

“Dude, there are zombies outside my bus,” Skeevy whispered.

Todd just nodded, then whispered back, “We have to be very quiet, so they don’t want to get in.” 

Skeevy nodded, then split the air with a high-pitched scream that sounded more like a tortured cat than a terrified high school senior. When his resolve broke, fully half the bus cut loose with shrieks of terror and screams for help at the top of very well-developed young lungs. 

Then the real trouble started.

What’s on John’s Kindle this week?

What’s on John’s Kindle this week?

Here’s a quick rundown on what I’m reading this week (and maybe some of last week, because I forgot to do this post last week).

Currently I’m in the middle of (more like 3/4 of the way finished with) Jake Bible’s Salvage Merc One. I’ve had this on my e-reader for a while, I probably picked it up when it was on sale because I like Jake’s writing, and he’s a good friend. I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s mil-SF, but like most of the stuff I enjoy, and most of the stuff Jake writes, it’s got a fun snark to it, and a protagonist that isn’t a superhero. I like a hero that can (and does) take a beating, and the merc in this one certainly fits that bill! Light-hearted sci-fi with heart and plenty of explosions! Highly recommended!

I’m listening to Christopher Golden’s Ararat, which is old-school slow-burn horror, the kind of stuff that very few people are writing nowadays. Chris can really pull it off, and while I’m not too deep into the book, only 3-4 hours so far, it’s starting to pick up steam and I can already tell that this one will barrel to a hellacious conclusion. His Snowblind was one of my favorite books a few years ago, and this one looks to be a worthy successor.

There would be more, but my internet is being goofy as fuck, and isn’t wanting to pull up books on Amazon for me to link to, so go ahead and Google that shit. Buy the books I’ve listed above, and if you feel like picking up Fireheart or one of my other books while you’re over there, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings. 🙂

If you’re anywhere near Columbia, SC this weekend, come say hi to me, Matthew Saunders, Jim McDonald, Davey Beauchamp, and a bunch of other talented artists and folks at the Soda City Comic Con. We’ll be at the convention center in downtown Columbia Saturday and Sunday, so bring us your hard-earned money, and we’ll turn it into hard-earned books! Or art, in Davey’s case. But anyway, bring us your cash! I’ll be in Artist’s Alley in booth 61. Hope to see you there!

Oh, that picture to the left? Well…there might be a new Great-Grandpappy Beauregard collection releasing this Friday, 8/25. I’ll be back tomorrow with a preview!

Evolution – Naked by Alexandra Christian

Evolution – Naked by Alexandra Christian

Why A Spy Thriller Romance?

By Alexandra Christian

I never liked romance novels. My mother was crazy for them, though. As long as I can remember, my mother had hundreds of them piled on the nightstand that she went through like candy. Historicals, contemporaries, cowboys, ghost stories– you name it, she probably read it. Even more hilarious was that some of them were quite scandalous. Or so I thought as a young teenager. I loved the romantic parts. The love story between the main characters was always something that I sought in every book I read, but my mother’s bodice rippers were lacking the adventure that I craved from things like my beloved Stephen King and Anne Rice novels.

When I was in college, I started writing the kinds of stories that I wanted to read. While I loved horror novels and paranormal thrillers, I was missing the love story. Not sicky sweet love stories or anything, but the connection between the characters.

Remember that movie from the 80s, Romancing the Stone? Yeah, that to me is the perfect romance. Two people thrown together to defeat some dangerous foe and falling in love in the process. The hero and heroine get equal time to be badass. They work as a partnership rather than the girl always being saved by the swashbuckling guy with the codpiece. So when I got ready to write NAKED, I plotted out the adventure first and let the romance develop naturally. I want my readers to get pulled into this grand adventure with them instead of just reading from one hot steamy scene to the next. I’ve always described myself as an author who writes romance novels for people who hate romance novels.

I’m also a huge fan of James Bond and spy movies and/or books. Even the “realistic” ones like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (or any John LeCarre for that matter). Gadgets, super-technology, double-crossing, betrayal, secrets– how can you NOT love a good spy thriller? So I knew that I wanted to incorporate that world into my series. As the series goes on, you’ll learn more about Cage St. John and B.E.A.S.T., the spy organization that he works for. And at the center of it all, I promise you’ll find a smoldering love story.

BLURB:

NAKED (Phoenix Rising #1) by Alexandra Christian

Following a brutal act of vengeance, MI:6 agent Macijah St. John is left grieving for his slaughtered family and agrees to participate in a secret government experiment that gives him a magnificent and terrible power.? Now he’s a mercenary spy that solves problems for the right price.? His latest job puts him in the path of the greatest catastrophe yet—a librarian.

Phoebe Addison’s life is a disaster. Crippling debt, a non-existent social life, and being the town librarian is hardly the glamorous existence she’d always dreamed of. But when her sister Jessica, an interplanetary archeologist, gets herself involved with a psychotic billionaire bent on world domination, Phoe is about to get more excitement than she bargained for.

 

BUY LINKS:

Boroughs Publishing: http://boroughspublishinggroup.com/books/naked

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071CRSKV2

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/naked-alexandra-christian/1126242975?ean=2940154124833

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/naked-65

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/718364

Print: https://www.createspace.com/7094497

 

Evolution – Lawless Lands – Jeffrey Hall

Evolution – Lawless Lands – Jeffrey Hall

When I saw the request for submissions for Lawless Lands I couldn’t wait to try and write a story for it.

Westerns. Fantasy.  Two of my favorite genres all wrapped into one. My mind started to wander.  What made the west so iconic? What could fantasy do to make it different?

I started thinking about the unforgiving nature of the untamed frontier.  I started to wonder how individuals could have survived in such trying circumstances.  I imagined that the people that did survive it long enough would probably garner quite the reputation.  And though most would call it luck, I imagined that it was something more akin to uncanny perseverance and resolve that would allow someone to keep on going when the elements kept trying to do otherwise.

From there Lucky Liza Reynolds was born.

A woman who wanders a strange, harsh land, an even more unforgiving version of the American West, eking out an existence by way of a pistol and a horse, two of the most necessary tools for any good free-gun. After being called lucky for so long, after committing all the acts she had over the years to stay alive, it was becoming harder and harder her to believe she had gotten by on luck alone.

Once I knew the story would revolve around her, I wanted to throw her into a shootout that would truly test where luck ends and the power of a person begins.

After that, it was fleshing out the world she lived in.  I started to look at some of the most common sights and people throughout westerns and figured out how I could make them different. A gun that wounds the soul.  A tumbleweed that talks.  A tribe of centaurs who worshipped horses as gods.  A town built inside the hollowed husks of cactuses…  It was a blast (pun intended) to explore the west with such a weird lens and see how I could try and turn it into something new.  I called it the Spindlelands, a world woven  and knotted with a thousand different species and ideas, all trying to compete and make something beneath the relentless attack of nature.

I tried my best to tie it all together in the story, “Out of Luck.” A story I am extremely excited and grateful was able to be a part of the anthology, Lawless Lands.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. If you do, stay tuned to my website (www.hallwaytoelsewhere.com) for upcoming info about future stories set within this world.  Eventually there will be novels exploring Liza’s past and some of her adventures.  Eventually… Until then, my concentration goes into my dark fantasy stories set in the Chilongua universe, a world covered by jungle and the mayhem that persists when that many things are living atop of one another.

Thanks again to the wonderful editors of Lawless Lands, Emily Lavin, Misty Massey and Margaret McGraw, for giving this story a chance and their constant professionalism, and also to John Hartness and Falstaff Books for making this anthology happen!

I hope you have fun exploring the weird west!

Stay wandering,

Jeff

Evolution – Souls Collide – J.D. Blackrose

Evolution – Souls Collide – J.D. Blackrose

One of the best things about being a publisher is bringing projects to life for new writers, or writers that haven’t broken out as big as I think they should. The Soul Wars by J. D. Blackrose is one of those projects. It releases today, and I couldn’t be more proud to be associated with it. You should click on the big picture and check it out. 

The Soul Wars started with one question. I was reading one of the Jane Yellowrock books, I forget which one, and once again, there are gunshots, injuries, fire, and turmoil, all happening at night, naturally.

I stopped reading to ask myself: “What do the neighbors think?”

I know there aren’t neighbors right next door, like the suburbs of young families in cookie cutter houses, but there are people somewhat nearby. Wouldn’t they get sick and tired of all this mayhem?

I imagined a society lady, elderly, weak of body but strong in spirit, walking to the front door, rapping it with her cane and telling the vampire that, “This will not do. I need my rest. Keep it down, young man!”

Adelaide was born. I contacted Faith Hunter, the awesome author of the Jane Yellowrock series, and asked if she wanted to do something with this character. Maybe a short story we could write together? Faith laughed hysterically at the thought that I would believe she had any time to write anything that wasn’t required by a contract. She told me, “Write it yourself.” So, I did.

Kara is a Valkyrie, a warrior from Norse Mythology, whose job, like all Valkyries, was to choose those who died with honor on the battlefield and bring them Valhalla, the gods’ realm.

So what the hell is she doing on Earth, babysitting a vampire?

My characters are deeply flawed, and pride is one of their weaknesses. Kara thinks she knows everything, and Gaspard is a master vampire so he knows he knows everything. Such arrogance. This hurts them throughout, but also makes them face their own failings.

The overarching question is: Do vampires have souls? Some vampires behave badly, some are honorable. What would explain the difference? You have to read the series to find out, but one thing is certain…a war  is coming that could shake the Earth to its core.

The book is divided into four novellas, Souls Collide, Souls Fall, Souls Rise, and Souls Unite. The first two let you get to know Gaspard, Kara, and Adelaide, and at them and with them. The third is a prequel, and darker, in that it tells you about Gaspard’s past and why a Valkyrie, of all things, is in his service. The fourth wraps things up, but warning – because I have already gotten grief for this – there is a cliffhanger. That way, if y’all like it, I can write novellas five, six, seven, and eight. See my devious plan?

As an aside, I once complained to John Hartness when he left us off on a cliffhanger, and he told me, “Yeah, I’m a dick that way.”

I hope you will go on a journey with Kara, Gaspard and Adelaide, and meet the other characters that weave in and out of the stories. I will tell you up front that one of my favorite characters is Arnaud, and I’m hoping to tell more of his story.

Evolution – Daughters of Shadow and Blood Book III: Elizabeth by Matthew J. Saunders

You could blame it all on Bram Stoker. He invented the Brides of Dracula, though they’re never actually called that in the novel. They don’t even get names. I devoured Dracula over the course of two days at an impressionable age. I fell in love with the dark and brooding atmospherics, but it’s more than just a scary story. Dracula is a brilliant critique of Victorian society, commenting on sexual mores, class conflict, even British foreign policy toward Eastern Europe. My vampire trilogy Daughters of Shadow and Blood is in many ways an homage to Bram Stoker’s original and explores many of the same themes, including the dangers of obsession, the conflict between the desire for freedom and the constraints of society, and the redemptive power of love.

You could also blame a movie called Van Helsing. In my opinion, this is a very bad movie, despite the presence of Kate Beckinsale, but it sparked the idea for Daughters of Shadow and Blood. In the movie the Brides have names and distinctive costumes. One of them is even dressed as a Turkish harem girl, which got me to thinking. If Dracula is immortal, there’s no reason the Brides have to all come from the same time period, and the Balkan Peninsula is such a crossroads of cultures, they could be from anywhere, too. I decided I would give each Bride her due and let her tell her story.

Then again, you cold blame my obsession with Balkan history. They say truth is stranger than fiction. Balkan history plays that out.

There is a small mountain range in Greece called the Unwritten. It’s called that because when the Ottoman Turks conquered the area, the resident Greeks took to the high ground and waged guerrilla warfare on their would-be conquerors for the next five hundred years. Rather than embarrass the Sultan by showing him an area of his empire not entirely under his control, his cartographers simply left the entire mountain range off the official maps.

The mountain range that separates Albania from Kosovo is called the Accursed Mountains. Tell me that name wouldn’t be at home on a map of Middle Earth.

There’s also the story of the epic rivalry between the Karageorgevi? and Obrenovi? families for the throne of Serbia and later Yugoslavia, better than any soap opera.

Oh, and the word vampire comes from Serbian.

I included as many such weird little nuggets in Daughters of Shadow and Blood as I could, seemingly odd historical events that could have been the result of a vampire’s not-so-benevolent intervention. You can’t prove otherwise.

Follow these links to get the trilogy:

Book I: Yasamin https://www.amazon.com/Daughters-Shadow-Blood-Book-Yasamin-ebook/dp/B00T27F00W/

Book II: Elena https://www.amazon.com/Daughters-Shadow-Blood-Book-Elena-ebook/dp/B01D0UD0XA/

Book III: Elizabeth https://www.amazon.com/Daughters-Shadow-Blood-Book-Elizabeth-ebook/dp/B07257D727/

Follow me on twitter: @jmattsaunders