Today we have a new Zombie Apocalypse novel from ID Locke:
Tracey Hedgewood has planned for years with other ZA survivalists what to do in the very unlikely instance of the dead walking. He is the man with a plan now that the ZA has become a frightening reality of the world. Guy Thibaudeau has managed to survive the first week of the ZA through sheer luck and knows that he needs a plan, and soon, if he wants to stay off the zombie menu. Tracey and Guy meet while both foraging in the same store for supplies. Casual and flirty acquaintances for six months before the dead rose to snack on the living, they decide to team up to increase their survival chances as well as see where the strong mutual attraction will lead.
As the men make their way to what they hope is safety following The Plan Tracey has been refining for years, Tracey’s every-man-for-himself Plan slowly morphs into a scheme to make their safe haven on the Toronto Islands a zombie-free zone for themselves as well as the people still living there. While guiding their new group into making their location safe for everyone, the men explore their mutual desires and kinks, finding that they not only work well as a zombie killing team but as lovers, too. Tracey and Guy soon discover that even in the horror of the dead hunting the living, incredible good can come from a hopelessly bad situation.
Excerpt
Guy grinned at me. “You know, I don’t think there’s anyone I’d rather be facing the zombie apocalypse with. Not only do you have a good plan that’s flexible, but you can roll with the wild punches and don’t whine about how dangerous something is when it needs to be done.”
Guy walked over to me, slipped his hand behind my head and kissed me hard. I wanted the kiss to last longer, but the sound of more breaking glass had us pulling apart quickly. I pushed the cart to the car and opened the passenger door. I threw in our survival bags and struggled to heave the duffle with all the ammo on top of them. I removed the pack with Precious in it and nestled that in a corner where I didn’t think she’d get squished if things shifted around when we left. Guy came over and dropped a metal tool box onto the floor of the car with a clang. He had a screwdriver, a pair of pliers and a roll of duct tape in his other hand and I assumed those were for doing whatever he needed to do to hot-wire the car.
“Okay, let me get this set up first before you start lifting the door just in case there’s some other fuckery that wants to mess with us. I do not want to be fumbling to get things together while you’re clearing our escape route and zombies are approaching.”
I nodded and headed to the chains for manually opening the overhead door. I certainly didn’t want Guy struggling to hot-wire the car and shouting that he needed more time as zombies shuffled into the garage through a door I’d just opened. In literally under a minute, Guy gave me the thumbs up to start opening the door. I said a silent prayer that there were no zombies wandering around the door and began hauling on the chain beside the door as fast as I could.
The sound of the chain rattling through the winch sounded hideously loud to me and I was almost positive that I saw Guy wince from the corner of my eye. I couldn’t help the noise, so I pulled even faster in an effort to get the door up quicker than I hoped any zombies could react to the noise. I jumped when I heard the car roar to life and yanked on the chains with everything I had. Guy’s shout that it was high enough seemed to take both forever to come and only seconds after he started the car. I wrapped the chain around the cleat to hold the door in position and bolted for the car.
I dove inside, smacking my head into Guy’s shoulder and banging my knee hard into the dashboard. True to plan, Guy gunned the engine as I twisted wildly in my seat trying to get all of me into the car. The door slammed shut just as we shot out of the garage. We clipped a zombie with the front fender on my side of the car, sending the undead spinning into the wall of the building where it left a large splatter of blood and brains before sliding to the sparse grass at the edge of the building and remaining still.
“Maudit Tabarnac!” Guy swore as he yanked the steering wheel to turn the car onto the paved laneway behind the store so we didn’t drive straight into the ditch at the back of the building.
“Shit,” I breathed as I saw at least a dozen zombies had turned from the employee entrance where my e-bike was parked to head for the now open garage door.
“Might want to buckle up,” Guy said grimly as he shifted and mashed the accelerator to the floor.
I fumbled for the seatbelt and clicked it into place just as Guy mowed down the first zombie blocking our path. The little car bounced over the corpse, and the sound of crunching bones was horrible to hear. Guy steered the car down the road, avoiding the zombies when he could but still hitting a few that were unavoidable. I couldn’t help the ewww that escaped me when a zombie’s head hit the mirror on my side before it bounced off my window, leaving a disgusting smear of black-red fluid on the glass and a faint cracks in the glass.
We zipped around the corner of the building, tires squealing as they fought for purchase. A large number of the zombies that had been at the front of the store were now staggering in our direction. Guy ignored them and headed for the road. My heart pounded triple time, and I turned in my seat to see far more zombies than I’d expected around the store. A giddy sense of relief washed through me when I realized that we’d actually done it and gotten away free and clear from the undead with all our supplies.
“Fuck yeah!” I shouted.
Guy flashed a grin at me, his dimples showing, and gave my knee a quick squeeze before putting both hands back on the wheel and concentrating on driving around the few abandoned cars and the odd zombie shambling in the street. Lake Shore Boulevard was fairly clear of snarled traffic near the Canadian Tire but I expected the ramps to the Gardiner to be an unholy mess of stalled traffic. I only lived a five minute drive from work and had taken side streets to get back to the store, but those had had a surprising number of abandoned cars, too. Even if we needed to detour around the ramps and slow for the shit blocking our way, we could probably be at the Harbourfront in less than fifteen minutes given that we were probably the only traffic on the streets and didn’t need to obey any of the rules of the road.
We were damn near home free.
Buy Links
Torquere Press: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=97&products_id=4317
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/ZA-And-Dead-Shall-Rise-ebook/dp/B00PUYFM0Y
Author Bio
ID Locke is an obsessive/compulsive writer who often ignores things like the need to eat and the fact she’ll be even later for work if that document isn’t closed right this minute. Writing has been a life-long obsession for her, and people have commented that she appears to get twitchy if she doesn’t do it on a regular basis.
ID Locke has been married for almost twenty years and has a grown son. She has an exceptionally dirty mind filled with kinky possibilities and enjoys writing hot man-on-man sex (with Plot no less) for her own amusement and the entertainment of others. She works, writes, and knits, squeezing reading and some anime/TV watching in there somewhere. She has a green-eyed, all white cat named Kizmet who’s hard of hearing. She’s blunt, sarcastic, and not afraid to speak her mind. Music is one of her loves, and she often listens to her rather eclectic collection while writing to help the creative juices flow.