Once we make it a good distance away from the building and the rest of the straggling raiders, we stop to gather ourselves.
“So, what’s the plan, Wolf?” I ask. Tank sits down heavily on the ground, and I resist the urge to join him. If I sit now, it’ll just be ten times harder to get myself back up. Dolly stands next to me, quietly sorting through her various new weapons.
“Well…” Wolf spits on the ground and looks around. Outside of Saint’s grounds, there’s nothing but the same old wastelands. In the distance I can see a few of the other raider crews, some on foot and some in vehicles, gradually vanishing into the wastes. “It’s gonna be a shitfest around here with all these other crews heading out again, but I’ve got a whole lot of killin’, lootin’, and eatin’ to get out of my system after that whole mess.” He shakes his head, his face sour. “Can’t believe we turned out to be the goddamn good guys. What a fuckin’ embarrassment.”
No more vehicle, no more goal, and possibly not even enough supplies to make it to the next town, wherever that might be. Sounds about right. Maybe the thought should be daunting, but a grin spreads across my face.
“Well, no point hanging around doing nothing,” I say. “Let’s go!”
So we carry on.
Acknowledgments
There are some people without whom this book would’ve never existed, so I’m going to try my best to articulate how much they mean to me. Many thanks to:
Matthew Scrivener, the best teacher I ever had, and the first person who made me truly believe in my writing.
My agent, Emmanuelle Morgen, for having faith in Bite ever since it was just a messy draft, and being incredible every step of the way.
Jess Rosen, for being awesome and boundlessly enthusiastic.
Susan Barnes, my fantastic editor, who fought for this book and pushed to make it the best it could be. Lindsey Hall, for being so helpful throughout the publishing process and putting up with how bad I am at answering e-mails (sorry Lindsey!). Lauren Panepinto, who designed the super kickass cover. And the rest of the amazing team at Orbit: Thank you all for working so hard to make this book a reality.
And, of course, my family. Gramma, Memere, and Pepere, who hopefully weren’t too scarred by this book, for endless love and support. My mom, who made me fall in love with reading and always encouraged me to pursue my passion. My dad, to whom I suspect I owe much of my weird sense of humor. And my brothers, Todd and Lucas, whose quick wit keeps me constantly on my toes. You make my life interesting. Love you all.
extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Mauri Mobray
Debut author K. S. MERBETH is obsessed with SFF, food, video games, and her cat, and resides in Tucson, Arizona. You can find her on Twitter @ksmerbeth.
interview
When did you first start writing?
Writing has always been my passion, and I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been carrying around notebooks, dreaming up new stories, scribbling ideas in the margins of my notes for class. When I was young I wasn’t dedicated enough to sit down and write daily, but I didn’t go a single day without thinking about whatever story I was working on. Really, I don’t think I’ve ever had any choice but to write. If I didn’t, my head would probably explode from all of the ideas rolling around in there.
Where did the idea for Bite come from?
It’s a common theme in postapocalyptic stories that when everything goes to shit, people lose their humanity. Many of these worlds are overrun by groups of killers who are so vicious and violent that they might as well be monsters. And yet they’re not monsters; they’re still human, and therefore should still have backgrounds, feelings, and motivations. I became very interested in writing about these types of characters, finding out more about who they are and how their lives led to this point. So, I came up with the idea of writing a postapocalyptic story with typical “bad guys” as the main characters.
In postapocalyptic worlds, there are often zombies or monsters hungering for human flesh. Bite turns that idea on its head. When did you first know you wanted to write a book featuring cannibals?
After seeing a few films featuring cannibals as villains, I found myself fascinated by the idea. Cannibalism is such a taboo, and people tend to have such an intense disgust and discomfort toward it. I was intrigued by the idea of a world in which people would be forced to commit such an act to survive. Even further, I was interested in the challenge of creating sympathetic characters who also happen to be cannibals. I first explored the idea in a creative writing class in high school, where I wrote a short story called “Love Bites” about two cannibals falling in love in a postapocalyptic world. The idea was so fun to write, and garnered such a strong reaction from my classmates, that I knew I had to explore it further.
Did you have to do any research in preparation for writing Bite?
I’m sure there are a number of weird Google searches in my browser history, like “severing a finger” and “long-term effects of cannibalism” and “what does human flesh taste like.” I also looked into guns and ammo, grenades, etc., but most of my research went into finding realistic challenges that Kid and the crew would face while trying to survive in the wastelands. I browsed a lot of survivalist Web sites and looked into things like heat-stroke, dehydration, water purification, and what kinds of canned food would still be edible.
There was a wide-ranging cast in Bite. Who is your favorite character?
I adore the whole cast of Bite, and more than any one character in particular, I love the crew’s dynamic together. I really love Kid, of course, and I enjoyed writing her journey and her growth. If I have to pick a favorite, though, it’s Dolly. I love every aspect of her: her elegant badassery in fight scenes, her total awkwardness in social situations, her wholehearted dedication to Wolf, her maternal protectiveness over Kid. She’s a very odd character, and that made her entertaining to write about in every situation.
What is one piece of information that you know about the story or characters that you loved but couldn’t fit into the book?
Early in the book, Tank mentions that Dolly once broke Pretty Boy’s nose, but nobody ever explains why. The story is, when Pretty Boy initially learned that Dolly was once a prostitute, he attempted to proposition her by offering her a nice gun. She punched him in the face and took the gun. He never tried to make a move on her again.
Lastly, we have to ask: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
I have to go with telekinesis. It’s super cool and I could definitely kick some ass with it. Realistically, though, I’m not really sure whose ass I’d kick… I doubt gaining a superpower would actually give me the motivation to become a superhero or villain. But at least I could use my power for things like getting food out of the fridge without leaving my computer desk.
introducing
If you enjoyed
BITE,
look out for
FEED
The Newsflesh Trilogy: Book 1
by Mira Grant
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one unstoppable command: FEED.
Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives—the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.
Everyone has someone on the Wall.
No matter how remote you may think you are from the events that changed the world during the brutal summer of 2014, you have someone on the Wall. Maybe they’re a cousin, maybe they’re an old family friend, or maybe they’re just somebody you saw on TV once, but they’re yours. They belong to you. They died to make sure that you could sit in your safe little house behind your safe little walls, watching the words of one jaded twenty-two-year-old journalist go scrolling
across your computer screen. Think about that for a moment. They died for you.
Now take a good look at the life you’re living and tell me: Did they do the right thing?
—From Images May Disturb You, the blog of Georgia Mason, May 16, 2039
ONE
Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot—in this case, my brother Shaun—deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens. As if we didn’t already know what happens when you mess with a zombie: The zombie turns around and bites you, and you become the thing you poked. This isn’t a surprise. It hasn’t been a surprise for more than twenty years, and if you want to get technical, it wasn’t a surprise then.
When the infected first appeared—heralded by screams that the dead were rising and judgment day was at hand—they behaved just like the horror movies had been telling us for decades that they would behave. The only surprise was that this time, it was really happening.
There was no warning before the outbreaks began. One day, things were normal; the next, people who were supposedly dead were getting up and attacking anything that came into range. This was upsetting for everyone involved, except for the infected, who were past being upset about that sort of thing. The initial shock was followed by running and screaming, which eventually devolved into more infection and attacking, that being the way of things. So what do we have now, in this enlightened age twenty-six years after the Rising? We have idiots prodding zombies with sticks, which brings us full circle to my brother and why he probably won’t live a long and fulfilling life.
“Hey, George, check this out!” he shouted, giving the zombie another poke in the chest with his hockey stick. The zombie gave a low moan, swiping at him ineffectually. It had obviously been in a state of full viral amplification for some time and didn’t have the strength or physical dexterity left to knock the stick out of Shaun’s hands. I’ll give Shaun this much: He knows not to bother the fresh ones at close range. “We’re playing patty-cake!”
“Stop antagonizing the locals and get back on the bike,” I said, glaring from behind my sunglasses. His current buddy might be sick enough to be nearing its second, final death, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a healthier pack roaming the area. Santa Cruz is zombie territory. You don’t go there unless you’re suicidal, stupid, or both. There are times when even I can’t guess which of those options applies to Shaun.
“Can’t talk right now! I’m busy making friends with the locals!”
“Shaun Phillip Mason, you get back on this bike right now, or I swear to God, I am going to drive away and leave you here.”
Shaun looked around, eyes bright with sudden interest as he planted the end of his hockey stick at the center of the zombie’s chest to keep it at a safe distance. “Really? You’d do that for me? Because ‘My Sister Abandoned Me in Zombie Country Without a Vehicle’ would make a great article.”
“A posthumous one, maybe,” I snapped. “Get back on the goddamn bike!”
“In a minute!” he said, laughing, and turned back toward his moaning friend.
In retrospect, that’s when everything started going wrong.
The pack had probably been stalking us since before we hit the city limits, gathering reinforcements from all over the county as they approached. Packs of infected get smarter and more dangerous the larger they become. Groups of four or less are barely a threat unless they can corner you, but a pack of twenty or more stands a good chance of breaching any barrier the uninfected try to put up. You get enough of the infected together and they’ll start displaying pack hunting techniques; they’ll start using actual tactics. It’s like the virus that’s taken them over starts to reason when it gets enough hosts in the same place. It’s scary as hell, and it’s just about the worst nightmare of anyone who regularly goes into zombie territory—getting cornered by a large group that knows the land better than you do.
These zombies knew the land better than we did, and even the most malnourished and virus-ridden pack knows how to lay an ambush. A low moan echoed from all sides, and then they were shambling into the open, some moving with the slow lurch of the long infected, others moving at something close to a run. The runners led the pack, cutting off three of the remaining methods of escape before there was time to do more than stare. I looked at them and shuddered.
Fresh infected—really fresh ones—still look almost like the people that they used to be. Their faces show emotion, and they move with a jerkiness that could just mean they slept wrong the night before. It’s harder to kill something that still looks like a person, and worst of all, the bastards are fast. The only thing more dangerous than a fresh zombie is a pack of them, and I counted at least eighteen before I realized that it didn’t matter, and stopped bothering.
I grabbed my helmet and shoved it on without fastening the strap. If the bike went down, dying because my helmet didn’t stay on would be one of the better options. I’d reanimate, but at least I wouldn’t be aware of it. “Shaun!”
Shaun whipped around, staring at the emerging zombies. “Whoa.”
Unfortunately for Shaun, the addition of that many zombies had turned his buddy from a stupid solo into part of a thinking mob. The zombie grabbed the hockey stick as soon as Shaun’s attention was focused elsewhere, yanking it out of his hands. Shaun staggered forward and the zombie latched onto his cardigan, withered fingers locking down with deceptive strength. It hissed. I screamed, images of my inevitable future as an only child filling my mind.
“Shaun!” One bite and things would get a lot worse. There’s not much worse than being cornered by a pack of zombies in downtown Santa Cruz. Losing Shaun would qualify.
The fact that my brother convinced me to take a dirt bike into zombie territory doesn’t make me an idiot. I was wearing full off-road body armor, including a leather jacket with steel armor joints attached at the elbows and shoulders, a Kevlar vest, motorcycling pants with hip and knee protectors, and calf-high riding boots. It’s bulky as hell, and I don’t care, because once you factor in my gloves, my throat’s the only target I present in the field.
Shaun, on the other hand, is a moron and had gone zombie baiting in nothing more defensive than a cardigan, a Kevlar vest, and cargo pants. He won’t even wear goggles—he says they “spoil the effect.” Unprotected mucous membranes can spoil a hell of a lot more than that, but I practically have to blackmail him to get him into the Kevlar. Goggles are a nonstarter.
There’s one advantage to wearing a sweater in the field, no matter how idiotic I think it is: wool tears. Shaun ripped himself free and turned, running for the motorcycle with great speed, which is really the only effective weapon we have against the infected. Not even the fresh ones can keep up with an uninfected human over a short sprint. We have speed, and we have bullets. Everything else about this fight is in their favor.
“Shit, George, we’ve got company!” There was a perverse mixture of horror and delight in his tone. “Look at ’em all!”
“I’m looking! Now get on!”
I kicked us free as soon as he had his leg over the back of the bike and his arm around my waist. The bike leapt forward, tires bouncing and shuddering across the broken ground as I steered us into a wide curve. We needed to get out of there, or all the protective gear in the world wouldn’t do us a damn bit of good. I might live if the zombies caught up with us, but my brother would be dragged into the mob. I gunned the throttle, praying that God had time to preserve the life of the clinically suicidal.
We hit the last open route out of the square at twenty miles an hour, still gathering speed. Whooping, Shaun locked one arm around my waist and twisted to face the zombies, waving and blowing kisses in their direction. If it were possible to enrage a mob of the infected, he’d have managed it. As it was, they just moaned and kept following, arms extended toward the promise of fresh meat.
The road was pitted from years of weather damage without maintenance. I fo
ught to keep control as we bounced from pothole to pothole. “Hold on, you idiot!”
“I’m holding on!” Shaun called back, seeming happy as a clam and oblivious to the fact that people who don’t follow proper safety procedures around zombies—like not winding up around zombies in the first place—tend to wind up in the obituaries.
“Hold on with both arms!” The moaning was only coming from three sides now, but it didn’t mean anything; a pack this size was almost certainly smart enough to establish an ambush. I could be driving straight to the site of greatest concentration. They’d moan in the end, once we were right on top of them. No zombie can resist a good moan when dinner’s at hand. The fact that I could hear them over the engine meant that there were too many, too close. If we were lucky, it wasn’t already too late to get away.
Of course, if we were lucky, we wouldn’t be getting chased by an army of zombies through the quarantine area that used to be downtown Santa Cruz. We’d be somewhere safer, like Bikini Atoll just before the bomb testing kicked off. Once you decide to ignore the hazard rating and the signs saying Danger: Infection, you’re on your own.
Shaun grudgingly slid his other arm around my waist and linked his hands at the pit of my stomach, shouting, “Spoilsport,” as he settled.
I snorted and hit the gas again, aiming for a nearby hill. When you’re being chased by zombies, hills are either your best friends or your burial ground. The slope slows them down, which is great, unless you hit the peak and find out that you’re surrounded, with nowhere left to run to.
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