Thanks again to maeidesign.com for coming up with the perfect cover!
Here is an excerpt from the book - note- it's told in third person. I did something different with this book, putting the first half of it in third person and the second half in first person. It's not very common, but with so many characters and things going on, I wanted to capture what was happening in the other character's lives without doing them in first person (For me, it just didn't feel right doing first-person for anyone but the main character).
Excerpt -
His
head hurt.
A
lot.
He
opened his eyes and stared blankly at the gravel in front of his face.
Clenching his teeth against the throbbing pain, he sat up and brushed away the
tiny pebbles of sand from his cheek.
Where the hell am I?
It wasn’t every day
that he woke up in an alley, sprawled out in the dirt. Nothing looked familiar
and the silence was deafening. It was eerie how quiet it was; there weren’t any
sounds from traffic, no hums from any of the nearby air conditioning units, not
even a single bird chirping from the trees. He felt like he was in an old black
and white episode of the Twilight Zone.
He
looked around, relieved to be alone in such a state of mind. Scratch that – there
was a crow picking at a headless body nearby, and three zombies, about fifty
feet away, staggering towards him.
What the fuck?!
He
stumbled to his feet, watching incredulously as the figures, along with their
pungent smell, edged closer.
So maybe he’d lost his freakin’ mind?
His
mind was foggy; in fact, he couldn’t
remember anything – not why he’d been unconscious, why a headless man was lying
next to him, why dead people were walking above ground. Most importantly, he
couldn’t even remember who the hell he was. From the pain in his head, he’d
obviously been hit in the melon and it was making him forget all of the
important details.
The
nasty stench drifted closer – a mixture of rotten eggs and fresh dog shit. Yes,
he could definitely smell, which meant he wasn’t dreaming, and from the look of
things, kind of screwed.
One
of the zombies moaned its excitement and it sent a chill up his spine. The damn
thing was staring at him as if he was a succulent piece of Kobe steak, served
extra-rare.
He
grunted.
I don’t think so, buddy.
As
the distance between them closed, its face twisted into a sickly grin. From the
hungry stares of all three zombies,
and their outstretched arms, they definitely wanted more than a hug.
He
shook his head and smiled humorlessly. The
walking fucking dead…
Well,
the two men and one female were beyond dead with their rotted flesh, missing appendages,
grayish skin, and bloodshot eyes. But their hunger was alive and obviously not sated.
Sighing,
he looked around for something to defend himself with. What he found was
nothing short of a miracle – an ax, leaning up against one of the garage doors.
He walked over, picked it up, and moved towards the zombies.
