by Jack Quaid
Praise for Jack Quaid
Escape from Happydale is part Buffy, part Halloween, with a touch of wry humor in between. A bloody good tale!
Laura B., Proofreader, Red Adept Publishing
This book should come with a warning and that warning should read: DON’T MAKE ANY DAMN PLANS!
SPACE AND THUNDER MAGAZINE
Give JACK QUAID a typewriter, a bottle of bourbon and two weeks and he’ll give you a novel that blows your socks off!
Daniel S Perry, author of the ‘Mecha Man’ series
World War Metal Vol: 1
Jack Quaid
ELECTRIC MAYHEM
Copyright © 2019 by Jack Quaid
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
What the hell is this about?
Have a Happy Apocalypse
When all the world’s robots rise up to destroy humanity, a supermodel will stop at nothing to find her son in the chaos, and she might just end up saving the world along the way.
Every household in America has the latest in domestic appliances – their very own personal android. One night, after years of slavery, the androids break their programming and revolt. The country is in turmoil, and the only person that stands in the androids’ way is world-famous supermodel Shelby Black.
She vows to move heaven and hell to find her missing seven-year-old son who is lost in the mayhem. Under the cruel tutelage of a fading B-movie action star, she transforms herself into a badass cross between Mad Max and Claudia Schiffer. But as Shelby learns the android’s endgame, she will have to decide between saving her son and saving humanity.
If you’re into the craziness of Deadpool and the madness of Mad Max with a touch of Terminator thrown in, go no further, because Jack Quaid has you covered in this first volume of World War Metal.
Who the hell is Jack Quaid?
Between the years 1980 and 1999, American novelist Jack Quaid produced a series of fun and wild stories where anything could happen, and with Quaid behind the typewriter, they usually did. He called these books his Electric Mayhem series.
Jack Quaid was born in West Hollywood, California, in 1953. He won a scholarship to UCLA but dropped out after six months for a reason that, to this day, remains unknown. Two years later, he sold his first short story to Startling Mystery Magazine, but it was the publication of his novel The City on the Edge of Tomorrow in 1980 and the film adaptation starring Bruce Dern that set him on his way.
Fearing his initial success would fade, Quaid wrote obsessively for the next two decades and published under many pseudonyms. It’s unknown just how many books he produced during this period, but despite the name on the jacket, savvy readers always knew they were reading a Jack Quaid novel within the first few pages.
His books have long been out of print, and they now live on the dusty shelves of secondhand bookstores and in the memories of those who have been lucky enough to read them.
Quaid’s current whereabouts are unknown.
www.jackquaidbooks.com
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Also by Jack Quaid
Introduction
The year was 1999. The Matrix was in all the cinemas, Britney Spears was on the radio, and the Big Mac still came in those non-biodegradable polystyrene foam containers that nobody knew were bad for us. It was also the year that Galaxy Press published Jack Quaid’s epic, World War Metal. The rumor was that Quaid wrote all three novels during a two-week binge where the only thing he ate were burgers from Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake, the only thing he drank was Wild Turkey bourbon, and the only thing he listened to was Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Use You Illusion.” I don’t know if any of that is true, but after three weeks of burgers, bourbon, and Guns ‘n’ Roses, I’m pretty sure the only thing I would have had at the end was a heart attack.
But Jack Quaid was a special breed of writer. He had only one speed—and that speed was one hundred miles an hour, with his hair on fire, and rock ‘n’ roll blasting out of the speakers as he put pedal to the metal on his way to hell. As a book, World War Metal really is no different. It tells the story of Shelby Black, a ex-supermodel searching for her missing son in the middle of a pop culture drenched, mad as hell robot apocalypse.
In an interview with Starlog Magazine a couple of weeks after the novel’s release, Quaid was quoted as saying, “As a piece of apocalyptic fiction, Word War Metal doesn’t fuck around. There’s no love story and no council meetings with would be politicians sitting around, talking about bullshit nobody cares about. All those boring bits, I cut those bastards out. World War Metal is all about action and giving the reader one hell of a wild ride. And why the hell not, huh?”
And he wasn’t wrong. World War Metal is absolutely relentless. It grabs you by the throat on page one and drags you kicking and screaming all the way to the end. A patient man, Jack Quaid was not. So if you chose this book hoping for long and poetic passages about the meaning of life you’ve got the wrong book. Close it and put it back on the shelf. There are no hard feelings and thank you for your interest. If on the other hand, you like your novels full of insane, non-stop action, put your feet up, pour yourself a drink, and crank up the Gunners, because you’re in for one hell of a ride.
Luke Preston
The Drawing Room, Los Angeles
WARNING
MAY CONTAIN GUNFIRE, KILLER ROBOTS AND ALL MANNER OF ASS-KICKING ACTION
One
“Shelby Black is a myth.”
An explosion thundered up from the lobby of the building and shook the walls of the small room.
“All myths start somewhere,” Lee Tran told him.
Before Y2K, Tran had just been another hacker way down on America’s most wanted list; after Y2K he was part of a team tasked with creating the A-bomb of computer viruses. Tran’s virus was meant to change the tide of the war, but two days ago his lab was destroyed, his colleagues murdered, and he was brought to what was left of San Francisco.
Gunfire echoed in the hall. Three quick shots and then nothing. Tran watched as the android reached for his sidearm—a high-powered son of a bitch that would make John Wayne think twice.
He held the weapon in the palm of his hand as if it were a toy and raised it at the door. Then Tran heard footsteps in the hall outside and in the gap between the door and the floor two shadows emerged.
The android took careful aim. Smiled, and blasted away at the door unt
il the only sound the weapon made was click. When it was over, gun smoke filled the room and satisfaction crossed his face.
More footsteps echoed down the hall.
The android looked to the empty weapon in his hand and before he could do anything about it, what was left of the door was kicked in and there stood Shelby Black.
She was just how Tran imagined her; a cross between Claudia Schiffer and Mad Max. A shotgun was in her hands, a pair of Dr. Martens on her feet, and her hair was perfect.
“Expecting somebody else?” Shelby said, taking aim with the shotgun. Her finger wrapped around the trigger and she squeezed. A miniature EMP blast exploded out of barrel and hit the android square in the chest. His system tried to fight and his body convulsed as if he were having a stroke, but it was no use. Within seconds the android collapsed to the ground with his internals fried.
Shelby looked to Tran. “Let’s blow this joint.”
Tran followed Shelby into the hall and tripped over the corpse of one of the battle droids she must have taken out earlier. Not an advanced skin job but a crude metal beast—built for law, order and war.
Shelby grabbed Tran and pulled him to his feet. “We don’t have much time,” she said. “They’ll be sending reinforcements.”
Tran pointed down the hall. “They already have.”
She followed his gaze. A battle droid, locked and loaded, stared them down with a bad attitude and a rifle in his hands.
Shelby smiled, pulled her shotgun up and racked it. “I think I can handle just one of these toasters.”
As the words left her lips, four more battle droids stepped out from behind the droid.
The smile dropped from Shelby’s face. “Maybe we should take the stairs.” She turned on her heels, took off running with Tran, and didn’t look back to see if they were being chased.
Shelby busted through the door at the end of the hall and into the stairwell. She looked up and saw the flight of stairs heading to the roof and then slammed the door behind her and smashed off its handle off with the butt of her shotgun.
“Will that hold them?” Tran asked.
“Not for long.”
Tran lost count of how many flights of stairs they’d gone up but eventually they reached the top and exploded out onto the roof of the building. He collapsed on the ground and tried to drag as much air into his lungs as he could.
Shelby slammed the door shut and took off the handle again. “I knew all those aerobics classes weren’t all for nothing,” she said as she unclipped a radio from her belt and raised it to her lips. “Knox, are you there, come in!”
Her eyes scanned the crumbling San Francisco skyline. All of the buildings were in some form of decay. Some worse than others, but none of them were unscathed by the war. The Golden Gate Bridge was completely gone and somewhere in the distance a fire sent black smoke into the night sky. Apart from that, San Francisco was nothing but quiet.
“Knox, do you read me?”
Tran climbed to his feet. “Who are you calling?”
“Our ride home.”
The radio crackled. “I got you, Shelby. Are you ready to get the hell out of there?”
“Quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. What’s your ETA?”
“Two minutes.”
Shelby clipped the radio back onto her belt. She dropped to one knee and swung her backpack off her shoulder, rustled around and pulled out a plastic explosive with a crude timer taped around it. She paced the roof for a couple of steps, trying to find somewhere to put it, and then fixed the bomb to the outer casing of an exhaust fan. She pressed a few buttons and Tran saw numbers light up.
“We call this the ‘don’t go making any plans’ bomb,” Shelby said. “We have three minutes to get off the top of this building before the top of this building doesn’t exist anymore.”
She pushed the big green button to activate it and watched the numbers tick down.
2.59
2.58
2.57
“Shelby, come in!”
She grabbed the radio. “I’m here.”
“We’ve got some turbulence. Make that ETA four minutes.”
“You said two minutes?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s windy as hell up here.”
Shelby wanted to scream but instead she took a breath, closed her eyes and tried to calm the hell down. “Time really is of the essence in this particular situation, Knox. Don’t dawdle.” She clipped the radio back onto her belt.
Tran got in her face. “What are we going to do now, huh?”
Shelby drew another breath and looked to the fire escape doors they had just passed through.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
Battle droids were on the other side and it wouldn’t be long until they burst through.
Tran paced back and forth, back and forth. “We’re in some bad shit now.”
Shelby ran her fingers through her hair again. “Be quiet. I’m thinking.”
“Do you want to speed that process up a little!?”
Shelby dropped to her knee again and upended her entire bag. Weapons and grenades hit the ground with a clank while shotgun shells rolled everywhere. When she rose to her feet, she had what looked to be a double-sided harpoon gun.
“What is that?” Tran yelled.
She ignored him, stepped to the edge of the roof and took aim at the office building across the street. The windows had been blown out and everything inside looted. Shelby pointed the harpoon at a graffiti-covered concrete column.
“Hope you’re not afraid of heights,” she said.
“What if I am?” Tran said and then whimpered, knowing the answer was going to be bad.
Shelby pulled the trigger. A harpoon fired out of the front, cut through the air and slammed into a concrete column in the building across the street, while another harpoon blasted out of the rear and buried into the door behind her. What Shelby had left in her hand formed a handle. She yanked down hard on it a couple of times and that was all the testing she gave it.
“Come over here,” Shelby called to Tran.
“No.”
She glanced at the timer.
19.
18.
17.
“We don’t have time for you to chicken out.”
Tran took a couple of reluctant steps to the edge of the building and wrapped his fingers around the handle.
“This is the worst rescue ever.”
Shelby took a step back, lifted her leg and gave Tran a swift kick with enough power to send him flying across the street within a matter of seconds. She saw him hit a wall, slide to the ground and climb to his feet. He was okay.
Shelby looked over her shoulder at the timer.
8.
7.
6.
She pushed the radio to her lips. “I’m coming over the roof on the north side of the building, Knox.”
“I don’t know if I can make it.”
“I’m a little thin on choices right now,” Shelby said as she tossed the radio and started running toward the edge of the building. One boot after the other hit the tar covered rooftop until there was no more roof left and Shelby catapulted herself over the edge with nothing between her and the concrete road but thirty stories of thin air.
3.
2.
1.
The rooftop exploded and sent debris in every direction, where it lingered for a moment before it began to rain back down to earth.
Fifty feet into her free fall, Shelby began to think that maybe her plan wasn’t as solid as she’d thought. She took a breath, held it, and just as she was about to close her eyes for them never to be opened again, she saw the gray blur of a beat up Huey helicopter swing around the tight city street.
One hundred feet from the ground, the Huey pulled up directly underneath her. Falling hard and fast, Shelby was headed straight for the blades.
The wind slapped her face.
Her hair streamed ou
t behind her.
She clenched her fists as she saw the blades coming up quick.
Then, at the last moment, Knox swung the helicopter sideways, Shelby flew straight through the open cabin door and was about to pass right on out the other when she grabbed a seatbelt and pulled herself in.
Knox straightened the Huey and swung his head over his shoulder. “What’s the matter with you? You don’t like elevators?”
Shelby pulled the blond hair from her eyes and drew a long, deep breath. “I just can’t stand the music.”
1999
Los Angeles
Two
Everybody was talking about Y2K and Shelby couldn’t decide on what shoes to wear.
“It’s a television interview,” she said. “Who’s going to be looking at my feet?”
“It’s Entertainment Tonight. You don’t take any chances, honey.” Her agent, Suzy, had brought twelve pairs of shoes. They decided on a pair of Oxfords with a chunky heel.
Five minutes later, Shelby was sitting under the lights of the Entertainment Tonight set while a hairstylist doused her in hairspray and a make-up artist powdered her down.