by Bobby Adair
Our war has begun.
Freedom!
THE BATTLE CONTINUES…
Freedom’s Fury, Book 2 available now!
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But wait…there’s a little more to the story.
“Dude,” says Brice. “Do you feel that?”
“What?”
“That?”
“Are you high?” I ask. “Drunk? Too much Suit Juice? Brain tumor from too much solar radiation?”
“No,” answers Brice. “Look around. Things are different.”
I do look around. “Holy shit! Where’d everything go?”
“I think we transcended.”
“We’re dead?” I can’t believe it. “After all the shit we just went through, now we’re dead?”
“No” Brice is awed. “It’s a weird limbo state. Purgatory. Not dead, but not alive.”
“You’re freakin’ me out, man.”
Brice closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “You feel that?”
“Are you asking me to touch...”
“No, dumbass.” Brice points into the air at nothing I can see, just dark that’s not really dark, gray that isn’t gray, light that doesn’t glow.
I shiver. “This place gives me the fuckin’ creeps.”
“Close your eyes,” urges Brice. “Feel it.”
“Fine.” I do because I know how hardheaded he can be. I wait. I breathe. I do feel it.
“Holy shit!”
Brice grins. “See what I mean?”
“What the hell is that?” I’m looking around. “It feels like somebody’s spying on me only I can’t figure out where they are.”
“You know what that is?”
If I did, I’d have guessed already. “Why don’t you quit being cryptic and just tell me?”
“That’s the reader.”
“Fuck you.” I roll my eyes. “There’s no such thing as readers.”
“Man,” says Brice. “How can you not believe in readers? Our whole existence depends on readers. In fact, they say that every instance of existence in our great two-dimensional plane proceeds at the whim of a reader sitting on some great cosmic couch, turning pages, sipping wine, and ignoring his kids in the other room.”
I make a jerk-off motion, exaggerating as I always do the size of my invisible tool.
“I’m totally serious,” says Brice, he’s getting excited, like maybe Santa Clause is nearby with a bag of surplus Christmas toys. “Here’s the kicker, the reader controls time itself. Our moments flow from one to the next when she turns a page. When she’s not turning, we’re not—”
“Not what?” I interrupt. “Not alive?”
“Not that exactly.” Brice says it calmly, not rising to my argument. “We’re in a gooey nothing limbo land. Like this place. Not existing, really, just waiting for something to happen.”
“That sounds like a shitty metaphysical system.”
“Dude, you can’t talk that way.” Brice is mortified. “You’ll offend people. They might put the book down and never pick it up again, and then you’ll cease to exist.”
“I did say, shitty, right?” I huff. “Shitty! I mean who wants to live in a world where they have no control over whether they live or die? Not me. I don’t want anyone controlling my life any more than I want those damn Grays running it.”
“Oh, it’s worse than you think,” Brice tells me.
“How could it be?”
“There’s also an author?”
It all sounds like hokum to me. I try to come up with a gesture that’ll express my derision more forcefully than that last juvenile hand motion.
“He’s like a middleman between our world and the reader’s world.”
I sigh.
“Really. I’m serious.”
Looking for a way to get through to Brice’s rational side, I suggest, “Fine. Let’s go talk to him.”
“We can’t.”
“Of course.” I laugh. It’s mean. I want it to hurt. I want to embarrass Brice back to reality.
He doesn’t take the bait. “The thing you need to know about authors is they tend to be antisocial. They hide in dark rooms and make shit up all day. And they don’t like being around other people. So if they see you coming, they’ll run away.”
“Poplar at parties, I’ll bet.” I’m getting exasperated. “Why don’t we make an appointment, or send this author dude an email or something?”
“That’s the other thing,” says Brice. “We can’t. He lives in the three-dimensional world with the readers and exists in a separate temporal space.”
I look around again at the ambiguous nothing of where we’re floating and realize, not only is everything around me undefined, but I am too. I have no body. I’m just a disembodied voice. That scares me.
Brice senses my fear. “You’re finally looking. You’re feeling it, aren’t you?”
I don’t want to admit it, but the words slip out. “I’m worried.”
“So you finally see what I’m talking about.”
“Not really,” I admit. “I don’t like this place. Maybe the Grays and Trogs weren’t so bad. I want to get back to our universe?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” says Brice. “We’re not in control. It’s the author and the reader. Lots and lots of readers that control our fate.”
“Can’t we get off this shit?” I argue, “Do you really believe that we float here in the gray nothing until some reader comes along? We can’t do anything to change our fate?”
“Well,” says Brice. “There are theories.”
“Lay them on me, man.” The nothingness is getting to me. I’m willing to listen to any ideas.
“First off, the author is probably living under a bridge, eating rat-flavored ramen from the clearance bin, and drinking coffee brewed from used grounds filtered through a hobo’s underwear. Life as an author is hard.”
I shrug. “Sucks for him out there in three-dimensional-land. What’s that got to do with us?”
“The only way the author’s life can improve,” says Brice, “the only way he can write more books is if readers take an active role in his welfare.”
“This sounds like the beginning of a multi-level-marketing pitch. I’m out.”
Brice laughs.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You said you were out. But you’re still here, stuck in the limbo with me.”
“Shit.”
“Listen to me,” says Brice. “It’s not an MLM. All a reader has to do to make our lives full, and long, and eternal, is read the book and then go to a party, get drunk and dance on a table while shouting to everyone who can hear that this is the greatest book they ever read.”
“Sounds like a commitment,” I grumble. “Nobody’s going to do that. Is there anything easier?”
“Well, they could tell their friends, I suppose. Maybe on Facebook or social media or something?”
“Facebook?” I ask. “What’s social media?”
“It’s what people do on the internet when they’re stuck in a line somewhere and bored or when they’re at home and they’re tired of trying to play smoochy-smoochy with the wife.”
“Ah,” I say “So that’s it. We’re afterthoughts to their sex lives.”
“Well, they could leave a review where the bought the book, just tick some stars and save it, or even say a few kind words, you know, like ‘This book was a tolerable string of syllables that kept me distracted while I was waiting in the dentist’s office. But seriously, buy it. It ROCKS!’”
CLICK HERE TO LEAVE A REVIEW (P.S. GOOD KARMA!)
“Okay. Is that it?”
“Not really?”
“What else?”
“Well,” says Brice, “there’s the email list. If readers sign up, the author can spam them from time to time when he as a new book out. Or maybe when his friend (or anybody who buys him lunch) has a new book out.”
“Eh, I’m not sure I’d give up my email address just for a notification about a book.”
“It’s not just that,” says Brice. “There’s a free book in it.”
CLICK HERE FOR A FREE PREQUEL, FREEDOM’S SIEGE!
“Tell me more,” I’m interested. “Are we in it?”
“No,” says Brice. “It’s about the Grays’ siege of the earth before we were born. Your dad’s in it.”
“My dad?” I ask. “He died in a mining accident before I was born.”
“That’s what you think,” Brice reveals. “He was a sergeant in the assault force earth sent to attack the Grays on the moon.”
“I thought they were all blown out of the sky.”
Brice shakes his head. “That’s what the MSS wants you to believe, dumbass. You can’t trust those bastards.”
“So, it’s the story of my dad.” I’m having a hard time believing it. “I’d like to read that.”
“Sign up for the email list,” Brice tells me. “And leave a review and tell your friends so the author can stop drinking hobo coffee and write some more books.”
AND OH, WHAT THE HECK…COME JOIN THE FUN ON FACEBOOK!
THE END
Amazing people who made this happen…
Cover Design
Alex Saskalidis, a.k.a. 187designz
Cover Illustration
Illustration © Tom Edwards
TomEdwardsDesign.com
Editing, Proofreading, Book Formatting
Kat Kramer Adair
Super Special Thanks
Mike Kramer
More about Bobby’s other writing…
Slow Burn Series (9 books), a best-seller!
Slow Burn is Bobby’s flagship post-apocalyptic zombie series, but so much more than a zombie book. Follow the adventures of Zed as he wakes up one morning to find that something’s a little different in the world. As the world is going to shit, Zed meets up with Murphy, and they try to navigate their new reality through a world of the “slow burns” before they are completely consumed by the virus. Great reviews, with over a million books sold, readers LOVE this one.
The Last Survivors Series (6 books)
A collaborative series with fellow zombie author T.W. Piperbrook, this series has a little more of a Sci-Fi feel, popular with folks who like Game of Thrones. It explores what happens 300 years in the future after the apocalypse, when man has rebuilt and gone back to an almost medieval society.
Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller (trilogy)
A really great terrorism thriller with awesome reviews. It focuses on the devastating Ebola outbreak and the possibility of weaponized Ebola by terrorist organizations and nationalized resources like blood with Ebola antibodies. A more in-depth and complex observation of the real world. This series follows an American college student teaching in Uganda as the country comes under attack from the deadly virus as he tries to make his way back to the safety of his family back in the United States.
It’s also historically and medically accurate, so you’ll learn a little about the history of the disease as well…did you know that Ebola has been airborne in the US in the past? Or that it can survive in semen for 90 days or more after a person is declared “Ebola-free?” (This is Kat’s favorite!)
Black Rust, Black Virus (first two in a series)
A newer series from Bobby that also deals with a different post-apocalyptic reality. Christian Black is a bounty hunter charged with hunting down the infected…a “Regulator.” When caught in an unsanctioned kill, Christian sets about to clear his name. A fairly deep character, whose flaws are an important backstory to his adventurous life.
Dusty’s Diary: One Frustrated Man’s Zombie Apocalypse Story (first in a series)
Fun and crass…be careful if you’re easily offended! Has some great advice about what to pack in your post-apocalyptic bunker (don’t forget the porn!). Dusty’s Diary has an uncertain future…people like it, so I’ll probably write more in the future. This is a short story.
Text copyright © 2017, Bobby L. Adair & Beezle Media, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.