by Michael Todd
Or…was it taking her out of some sense of purpose? Was she now a specimen about to be studied? She went cold. The thought of that terrified her more than the thought of death.
Emma Kemp was not yet dead. But for the first time since she’d received that terrible diagnosis, she wished she was.
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
November 29, 2018
THANK YOU for not only reading this story but these Author Notes as well .
(I think I’ve been good with always opening with “thank you.” If not, I need to edit the other Author Notes!)
RANDOM (sometimes) THOUGHTS?
I’m writing these author notes before the first ZOO book (Birth of Heavy Metal Book 01) is released and I’m feeling anxious.
[ZMS Edit: The first Zoo Book was released on December 3rd, this is the first book in a new Zoo series.]
Is it going to work? Will the story (not my typical main character at all) resonate? Will readers go further into the book to see whether Salinger redeems himself?
Will he learn not to stick his foot in his mouth? (A big ‘if’ as he is a precocious 21 year old.)
As a father with three sons, two of them just about to hit 20 years old, it seems kids NEVER grow up and just ‘adult.’
Yet, I’m sure my father looked at me three decades ago and wondered, ‘Will that kid ever grow up?’
It took me fifteen years longer than you wanted, Dad. But yes, I did finally grow up.
HOW TO MARKET FOR BOOKS YOU LOVE
We are able to support our efforts with you reading our books, and we appreciate you doing this!
If you enjoyed this or ANY book by any author, especially Indie-published, we always appreciate if you make the time to review a book, since it lets other readers who might be on the fence to take a chance on it as well.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
One of the interesting (at least to me) aspects of my life is the ability to work from anywhere and at any time. In the future, I hope to re-read my own Author Notes and remember my life as a diary entry.
Today, I’m back in my condo in Vegas having just finished a conversation with collaborator Laurie Starkey talking about ZOO projects, Protected by the Damned projects and a whole new Universe we (mainly she) are releasing starting in January.
I’ve asked Judith for a sanity check on responses to Matia from Publishers Weekly and to pick out some photos from a photoshoot we did down in Cabo earlier this year.
Why Cabo? Because the photographer here in Vegas went (in my opinion) nuts after finding out who I was.
We asked, and received confirmation that we would be getting photography done where we would own the rights once the shoot was done, and what was the price etc. etc. She quoted us (I believe) around $600.
Then, we send her links about myself and the contract comes to us WAY higher than that amount, with re-use pricing and all sorts of stipulations. We point out this wasn’t what we asked for and she was adamant nothing would change.
Oh yes, something could change. Our choice of photographers could change.
So, we were going to Cabo anyway, and Judith found a photographer who could rent out the top level of a restaurant for the morning.
Now, I have headshots that are a bit unique.
AROUND THE WORLD I sincerely hope (and pray, and worry) that you are enjoying these books and the ZOO project overall. It is vastly different than some of my other work, and I hope to use the project to allow new authors (including those in other countries) access to a new Universe as they can bring fiction to life from a completely new perspective.
Imagine if a Spanish, or German author wrote a series using other encampments? Or Russian or Chinese? Or Israeli? I hope (one day) to meet authors from other countries who have written stories set in our ZOO Universe and have American readers who love it.
The ONLY way this will work, is if we please fans with what we have, and therefore…
As we say in America -The buck stops with me.
FAN PRICING
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Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Get Rich Or Die Trying
Apocalypse Paused Book Two
Prologue
This was probably the worst jungle that Lance Corporal Scott Westfield had ever served in, and he could not sleep. There was the low-level fear of course, and the obvious danger. He was as used to the threat of death as any man could be, however, and so far, the place didn’t have any fucking mosquitoes, at least.
No, what bothered him was the knowledge that this particular jungle was never meant to exist on God’s Earth. It was not natural. That, and the fact that the bunch of bounty hunters around him were some of the dumbest, least-disciplined bastards he’d ever worked with.
And he was pretty sure something was hunting them. He hadn’t seen anything. It was purely…instinct.
A chainsaw snore sounded in Westfield’s ear and he sat upright. No use trying or even pretending to sleep with that racket. He had to drain the old lizard anyway.
“What are you doing?” The flash of white teeth was the only visible part of the speaker. It could only be one man.
The Haitian. Westfield groaned inwardly. The man was forever asking redundant questions and was incapable of relaxation. He constantly stared into the green shadows with his bulging eyes and clutched his rifle like a beloved Pomeranian.
“Releasing excess urine from my bladder,” Westfield said. “Why don’t you try closing your eyes and getting some bloody sleep? I’m certainly not going to sleep with another man staring at me all night. I didn’t think you people approved of poofs.”
The Haitian muttered something in garbled French. Westfield ignored it and crossed to the northeast side of the camp. There was a nice big tree there, but otherwise, the foliage was lower-density, so he’d be able to watch out for whatever new hellspawn this place might have in store.
He passed a couple attempting to shag discreetly under a blanket, although the humping motions and faint moans were obvious enough. Probably Mendel and that Pakistani bitch. What would their response time be, Westfield wondered, if the local monstrosities were to attack at this very moment?
Next, he passed the sentry. The man was overweight and had dozed at his post with a mostly-empty flask of vodka by his side. He tensed up and returned to semi-attention as Westfield passed.
“Fools,” Westfield muttered under his breath. “Bloody useless fools.” Oh, how he longed for the days when the late Prince Phillip would have had choice words for people like this.
He passed the tree and scanned the area to ensure it was safe. He kept his hand on his sidearm when he noticed one of the fat green vines—the ones that squirmed in place—running across the forest floor and up a few other trees in the canopy. An open patch of high grass and weeds lay to the left. To the right lay the lumpy silhouette of what looked like a tree trunk, fallen branches, and some overgrowth. All was still and silent.
Westfield nodded to himself and stood clear of the vines, then unbuttoned the pants of his fatigues and relieved himself near the patch. The sound of his urine hitting the forest floor was almost inaudible under the faint breathing of the forest itself. God, that disturbed him. It was like something out of Lovecraft.
Just as he finished, the silhouette to the right suddenly exhaled. Its breath and saliva struck the soldier square in the face as its limbs writhed.
“What the f—” he started. His hand snapped to his pistol.
It grabbed him. Things—all sorts of parts—like roots and decaying tendrils. A thick cluster that looked like a mutant potato shoved its way into his mouth to gag him. Soon, the soldier was firmly coiled by the roots. The rest of the camp didn’t even notice at fi
rst. Beneath the jungle’s breathing there was only the faintest sound of something large moving through the black shadows of the underbrush, dragging a gently-squirming form behind it. No one could hear the blood dripping behind as it watered the moist earth and was absorbed almost too quickly into the dark green fold of the Zoo.
1
Dr. Christopher Lin stared his opponent down across the stainless-steel table with a slanted squint. Private First-Class Gunnar Åkerlund stared back. Chris’ eyes were black, Gunnar’s gray. The unspoken conflict between the strength of each man’s gaze was reflected in the actual conflict playing out between them. Long hours of strife, Machiavellian maneuvering, dirty tricks, furtive attacks, and veiled threats had brought them to this inevitable showdown.
Private Monica Pérez sat a few feet to Chris’ right. She was involved in this too as a neutral third party. Her young face pouted, and she watched them with half-lidded chocolate-brown eyes.
“Shit just got real, I see…” a lanky scientist remarked uncomfortably as he wandered into the hall for his afternoon meal.
“Quiet,” a heavyset Corporal ordered.
No one else spoke for the next minute. Then Chris broke the silence.
“You think you’re tough,” he began. “You think your position has been secure all this time, hiding behind all those soldiers. The nerdy Asian scientist couldn’t possibly wipe you out of existence. Well, my friend…”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Gunnar replied in his drawling voice. His mouth tightened, emphasizing the taut bone structure on his long face. “All I’ve done is watch my own back. I turn my back once, trying to keep my shit wired tight, and you come starting this—”
“Oh, I’m not starting this,” said Chris. A killer’s grin formed on his face. “I’m finishing it.” He reached out his hand.
Pérez flinched.
Chris’ hand descended on India. From there, he pushed several of the yellow plastic cavalry and artillery units—plus a few stray infantry—under his command right up to the border of the Middle East, where a single blue cavalryman and two infantrymen guarded Europe. They were all that stood against Chris’ total domination of Asia. “Ha, ha, ha,” he said in a slow, deliberate drawl and rolled three red dice.
“Damn.” Gunnar sighed and rolled the defensive dice.
The lanky scientist who’d wandered into the camp’s mess tent shook his head as Gunnar’s troops picked off a few of Chris’ legion of doom. But anyone could see it was hopeless. He turned away from the slaughter to find a jug of water and carried it back outside.
Soon, the battle was over and Chris moved his horde into the Middle East. The last of Gunnar’s blue forces had been completely steamrolled. Now Asia, with its seven new troops per turn, was his. He already owned North America with five troops per turn for that—not too shabby. With twelve on top of the bonus for all the territories he owned, he’d be able to execute a pincer attack on Gunnar’s main stronghold in Europe to wipe him out altogether, leaving only a few territories in South America, but nobody cared about those. Then, he turned his attention to Pérez, who held Africa and most of Australia/Oceania.
“Yessir.” Chris cracked his knuckles. “You military types might be good at things like ‘kicking ass’ and ‘survival,’ but this is a board game. You had no chance against someone like me. These games are my bread and butter. Do you have any idea how many old Yu-Gi-Oh cards I still have?” Assuming his parents back in Charlotte hadn’t thrown them out by now. They weren’t fond of “that Japanese trash” as they called it.
“Well,” Gunnar said, “I guess I shouldn’t have reinforced Southern Europe at the expense of the Middle East. Most people ain’t bold enough to try and hold Asia.”
“This reminds me of when Genghis Khan killed one-fourth of the entire human population,” Pérez said in her relatively flat voice. Its inflection drooped down at the end of every phrase. “That’s three-quarters of humanity he left to continue suffering. The bastard.”
“Thank you for that glorious insight, Private Peppy,” Chris said. “We appreciate every glorious ray of sunshine you provide.” He took a card and ended his turn. His borders were well-defended against anything but an all-out, suicidal attack. Soon, world domination would be his. The corporal couldn’t bear to watch. They all knew how the game would end now. It was inevitable.
“Man,” one of the spectators mumbled, “I actually thought Gunnar might win. Son of a bitch said he’s played over two hundred hours of D&D.”
Then it was Private Peppy’s turn. She looked gravely at the game board, then sharply up at Chris. Gunnar sat back, his morose face now underlit with the suggestion of a sly smile.
“We’re basically all doomed no matter what,” she said. Of course, she’d said similar things many times before. “But no way am I letting Yellow Fever spread across the whole planet without a fight. If any disease has the right to kill everybody, it’s the Black Plague.” She picked up her bonus troops from her container of black pieces.
“Hah!” Chris blustered. “You’re not in any position to win at this point.”
“I didn’t say I would try to win,” Peppy responded with a wicked sneer. And then she attacked.
To Chris’ dismay, the black army’s offensive succeeded in hamstringing him and generally making his life difficult. Pérez took back the Middle East from her stronghold in East Africa and pressed northeast into Afghanistan for good measure. Worse, she rolled out of Australia, reclaiming the whole of that continent and also taking Southeast Asia. Chris had just lost the seven bonus troops he’d counted on and would have to expend his troops to regain it. That didn’t even take Gunnar’s turn into account. A sudden dread seized Chris’ stomach.
Gunnar leaned back in the chair with his hands folded behind his head and watched the proceedings with deadpan amusement. “Well,” he said, “it just so happens I got a wild card…” He showed them his two matching cards, plus the wild. “That means I get twenty-five bonus troops.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Chris said, pointing his finger. “You lured me into attacking the Middle East, didn’t you?”
Gunnar produced a lit cigarette seemingly from out of nowhere and toked. “Like I said,” he began, “most people aren’t bold enough to go for Asia. Anyone who does is a threat to everyone else on the board. I simply needed to make sure Private Peppy there got that message, so she could do my dirty work for me while I waited for the comeback.” He then returned the cigarette to wherever it was he hid the things. “You bragging like you did certainly helped.” The army of blue figurines on his border swelled as he counted them out.
“Dirty work. Yes. That’s what I’m here for, to lead all these men on hopeless ventures. Then again, in this era, any venture was hopeless. Just imagine all the dysentery shits they had to take,” Pérez said.
“Did you have to say that?” someone groaned.
Pérez shrugged in response.
Chris gritted his teeth as Gunnar swept across Siberia and finally ran out of steam as he reached Kamchatka. He could probably assault Chris’ stronghold of North America on his next turn, and he and Peppy would likely end up splitting Asia. Chris might still make a comeback of his own when he got a match on his cards, but the game was back in play now—almost a three-way tie. At this rate, they might have to photograph the board and resume tomorrow.
“Well, I have to admit,” Chris said, “that was a clever strategy. Meta-gaming, though, since you actually said the thing about Asia out loud. Still, not bad for a gun jockey. I mean, it does seem like you guys have a lot of downtime to play games anyway, whereas us nerds are always busy programming things or writing up—”
The alarm went off.
“Shit!” someone exclaimed. The whole tent exploded into motion. Men and women ran with guns clacking. Low voices muttered, and louder voices shouted. Someone jostled the table and half the Risk pieces fell out of place. It didn’t matter anymore.
Chris snatched up his pistol and strapped it to
his side. He wasn’t technically supposed to fight but was supposed to “observe” whenever this happened. As the alarm continued its shrill and panicked cry, they all knew exactly what was happening. The wall was under attack again.
2
The sides of the mess tent buckled and flapped in the sudden wind. Chris allowed most of the commotion to pass him by, but he fell in close behind. He’d need to see what was going on. Someone had to figure out what exactly they’d been dealing with these last couple weeks.
“Is it the Chimera?” Chris shouted. No one heard him over the din. Outside the tent was the rest of the camp that had grown up outside Wall One, the partly-ruined, forever-incomplete first line of defense against the alien-spawned jungle known as the Zoo. It had grown in the southern Sahara Desert on the border between Niger and Algeria from a tantalizing experiment to a deadly and overwhelming force. Chris had been called in for research, but at present, the mission was mainly about containment.
Chris had lost sight of Gunnar, Private Peppy, and everyone else he knew. It was about 23:00 in the evening. Darkness had fallen hours ago, and even with the assistance of massive white stadium-style lights, the clustering shadows made it difficult to identify soldiers.
Gunfire cracked to the southeast. Muzzle flashes revealed silhouettes of men firing their M-92 automatic rifles. Bigger reports were accompanied by bright flashes of light from the mounted machine gun turrets. Chris could barely make out a swarm of darker black shapes moving toward them against the blue-black sky.
“Locusts?” he asked the nearest grunt during a lull in the noise.
“Yeah,” the man said in a hoarse voice as he shoved past Chris to join the fight.
That was odd. Lately, their main concern had been the creature which everyone had dubbed the Chimera. And yet, as terrifying and enigmatic as that…thing was, a locust swarm was, in some ways, worse. There was, after all, only one Chimera. The Zoo produced an apparently limitless number of the mutant insects from hell.