My New Book: Crumbling World: Book 1

[Crumbling World]

Hi.

I just had my zombie apocalypse book published(finally!!!) and it is available on Amazon in ebook and paperbook formats.

The story begins near Washington DC, in a lab at Ft. Detrick, where a lethal virus is unleashed and quickly spreads throughout the area. The book then follows several characters as they deal with the collapsing order around them.

I am planning on making this at least a trilogy, with a spin off book here and there.

Please check it out and tell me what you think.

Thanks!!

http://www.amazon.com/Crumbling-World-B ... ling+world

http://www.amazon.com/Crumbling-World-V ... ling+world

[TacAir]

Since you have it as an ebook, why not post a sample chapter or two?

BTW - welcome to the board.

[mclary2220]

Good for you! i would add a bit more to the description. the cover image and description are all you really have to seperate your book from other books! best of luck to you!

[Acey]

Now wanna buy it in paper to have a nice time on our camping

[Crumbling World]

Chapter 6

News Report


"This is Michelle Spenser, Channel 4 News, live from Holy Cross Hospital. As you can see behind me, there is a heavy police presence, set up at the emergency entrance, investigating reports of several patients becoming extremely violent and attacking hospital staff. Montgomery County Police, as well as several units of the Maryland State Police arrived here about 20 minutes ago and several teams of officers, accompanied by hospital security, just entered the hospital.
We've only learned a few details from Montgomery County police spokeswoman Sharon Gainer, who arrived just minutes before News 4, that the patients in question were brought in as a result of a domestic dispute. She also confirmed that both medical techs had been injured during the initial response and were also taken into the emergency room for treatment."

The camera zooms past the reporter and focuses on an ambulance sitting under the awning by the emergency entrance. A smeared handprint is visible on one door. It looks like blood. The camera re-focuses on the reporter.

"We have also spoken with a hospital administrator who said that the hospital has gone to a condition red, which means that all entrances and exits have been secured by hospital staff. This administrator also confirmed that the emergency wing has been isolated from the rest of the hospital and the other patients."

There are several muffled bangs from inside the emergency wing. The reporter spins quickly. A sudden flurry of police officers rush into the scene, heading towards the emergency doors. The reporter motions to the cameraman and starts to follow. The shot becomes jerky as the cameraman follows. They stop just short of the curb. The reporter points to the camera, then herself.

"It appears that something has just happened inside. It looks like..."

Her voice trails off as she turns toward the doors, where 5 or 6 officers have gathered, two with pistols drawn. One angrily gestures back at the reporter and cameraman. A hospital security guard appears at the doors, his face drawn white. His white shirt is torn and bloody streaks cross the front of it. He fumbles with his keys as he struggles to unlock the doors. The reporter edges toward the doors. The guard finally manages to unlock the doors and as it swings open, a gurgling scream erupts behind him. With a yelp, he drops his keys and stumbles through the officers crowding the door, pushing past them. He collides with the reporter and they both go down and the only sound heard is the guard's ragged breathing. The video tilts crazily as the cameraman stoops to help the guard off the reporter. The guard pushes up at the cameraman as he rises up and runs off. The camera catches the legs of one officer as he chases after the guard. A howling moan, very close, pierces the air. The cameraman, having just brought the visibly shaken reporter back to her feet, swings the camera toward the door. One of the Montgomery County officers that had accompanied security into the emergency area appears at the doorway. His face is pale and blank as he looks around. Two other officers rush up to him. In an instant, the officer’s face changes as he snarls and attacks the others, biting and clawing. Both men go to the ground. The remaining officers reach in, trying to separate them. The reporter turns back to the camera, fear and shock registering on her face. She tries to speak.

“There’s something wrong…”

“Oh shit!”

“Get back! Get Back!”

Multiple growls fill the air as the cameraman adjusts the view to just behind the struggling officers at the door. A group of bloodied and mutilated figures appear in the waiting area of the emergency room, with more filling the hallway behind. Upon seeing the officers at the door, the collective growls become gurgling screams and moans and they charge the door. The cameraman tries to shout out a warning as the first figures in the group plow into the officers. One officer manages to step back and fires into the crowd, before he is brought down.

“I don’t know what is…”

The surging crowd drives the remaining officers back and to the ground. Their screams begin to fill the air. A few muffled gunshots sound from within the pile of twisting bodies. Several officers dressed in riot gear and brandishing shotguns and nightsticks charge forward. They begin discharging their shotguns but the bean bag shots have little effect. Guns empty, the officers raise their nightsticks and charge in. They are soon overwhelmed. The number of bodies streaming from inside the hospital seems endless. They begin to fan out and the news crew quickly draws their attention. Several charge toward them, their arms raised and their growls filling the air.

“Mike, we have to…”

She is frozen in place and unable to move.

“Fuck me.”

The reporter screams as she is engulfed by attackers and driven to the ground. The cameraman trips as he backpedals and also falls. The camera ends up lying across his chest, giving the viewers a close up shot of the reporter being torn apart. As her screams turn to raw shrills amid the growing cacophony of cries in the air, a figure drops onto the cameraman, who yelps in pain as bloodied hands tear at his shirt. He struggles against his attacker as another one drops beside the first. An extremely detailed shot of a torn and mutilated face, with bloody teeth visible through a large tear in the cheek, fills the screen. The torn mouth bites down on the cameraman’s struggling arms and an arc of blood sprays onto the camera lens, giving everything a red hue. The cameraman screams, which is quickly and mercifully cut off as the picture changes to the logo of the news station.

Montgomery County and the surrounding areas are lost soon thereafter.

[Crumbling World]

Chapter 17

Washington D.C.
4:25p.m. Sunday

Traffic along I295 was at a standstill. Dean Osborne wearily wiped his face in frustration. The temperature outside was over 90. His Jeep's air conditioner was broken, a costly item that he had neither the time nor money to fix. He looked over to the passenger seat. His daughter Carrie sat there, deeply engrossed in her phone. They were on their way to Children's Hospital, where Carrie was undergoing treatment for Leukemia. Her prognosis had started to look promising earlier in the year, but had recently turned worse. For the past 4 weeks, Dean had been taking the girl to Children’s for advanced treatments, having enrolled in a highly controversial clinical trial that promised huge gains. He hoped it would. The treatments so far had left her 12 year old body listless and ravaged; Dean had seriously considered ending her participation. He'd even started going back to church, after work, nights and weekends, to pray. But 2 weeks ago, it was as though a switch had been turned on inside the girl and she had become more energetic and was responding positively to the treatment. Her blood cell count had stabilized. She had improved so much that her doctors approved 2 day visits back home. Dean truly believed that God had done something positive for his daughter. Being Sunday, he was taking her back to resume treatment, which would start the following day. Afterward, he would stop at church for the Sunday night service.

A Metropolitan police cruiser rocketed past in the opposite lanes, red and blue lights pulsing, the siren echoing off the retaining walls. Seconds later, it was followed by several more.
"They should be going the other way." Dean said, exasperated. Carrie looked up at him, smiled and then went back to her phone. He scratched at his chest. His shirt was soaked. I'm going to have to change, he thought, looking down. A sudden cacophony of horns in front startled him. He peered through the windshield. The low hanging sun, shining directly toward them, made it hard to see very far.
"Daddy, what's going on?" She asked, grabbing his arm, a worried look on her face.
"I don't know sweetheart." He replied, patting her hand, "it's hard to see with the sun in my face." He squinted, holding his hand up and trying to block out the sun even to see. "It looks like..." He paused. "It looks like something's on fire." He could just make out the flashing lights of the fire trucks ahead. Four police SUVs shot by in the other lanes, going toward the fire trucks. Two rescue ambulance trucks followed. Carrie gripped his arm harder.
"Is it serious Dad?" She asked. Dean shook his head.
"Honey, I don't know." He replied. He reached over and keyed the ignition off. "We might be here for a while."
"Are we going to make it to the hospital?" He patted her hand again.
"Yes, we will get there." He smiled reassuringly.

A black man came running past the Jeep. The man kept looking backward. Dean turned his head, watching. The man clipped a car and fell. He quickly got up and ran, while the car's driver shouted at him. Dean watched him until he disappeared. He turned back and stared out the windshield. There were more people running toward them, cutting in between the 3 lanes of cars. As they drew near, he could see panicked looks on their faces.
"What the..." He started.
"Daddy, what's going on?" Carrie asked again.
"I don't..." Men, women and children, screaming and crying, streamed past the Jeep. There was a thunder of gunshots ahead. Dean instinctively ducked, pulling Carrie down. She screamed.
"Stay down!" He ordered, raising himself up enough to see over the dashboard. The gunfire faltered and then resumed its terrible crescendo. It went on for several seconds. Suddenly, as though a switch had been flipped, the rapid gunfire slowly stopped and became random shots here and there. Then the random shots stopped. All Dean could hear were the screams that filtered into the Jeep as people ran past. Soon, he heard another sound, like the roar of a waterfall. Up ahead, roughly five cars away, he saw two people, a man and a woman, running, the woman holding her hands out behind her. It looked to Dean that the woman was trying to keep the man away from her. She stumbled against a car and went down. The man immediately pounced on her and began biting her back.
"What the hell..." He began. He saw the man grab handfuls of her hair and pull, the hair and part of her scalp ripping free. The man jammed the handfuls into his mouth. Without hesitation, he returned to biting her, this time on the head.

Dean felt icy waves shoot through his veins. What the hell is going on? he thought. Another person ran up through the cars and dropped on top of the woman. Within a couple of seconds, there were two, then three more people there, clawing at the woman. The driver in front of him, a black man wearing a business suit, got out and ran forward. He stopped a few yards away, turned around and began running back. One of the attackers jumped up and pursued him. He swung wildly at the black man, finally grabbing a hold of his jacket. The black man turned to push his attacker away. The attacker grabbed his outstretched hand and bit down. The black man yelled out, stumbled and fell. The attacker was on him instantly, clawing and biting his arms.

The cars around Dean began jockeying around, crashing into one another as they tried to get away. He looked down at Carrie, huddled down in the footwell, arms over her head, crying. His Jeep lurched forward as the car behind him slammed into it. The front end of the Jeep crashed into the car ahead. Dean hit the brake pedal. The car behind him kept pushing forward, he could hear metal groaning as it deformed. He swung his head around and saw the front of a dump truck two cars back, smoke billowing from the exhaust stacks as it pushed the cars forward. What is this idiot doing? he thought. The Jeep bucked forward again and started to crumple the trunk of the car in front. The Jeep started to cant sideways as the car behind him skid to the left. Dean cranked the steering wheel to the right and stepped on the gas pedal. The Jeep hesitated and then slowly turned, the rear wheels chirping as the fender creased along the other car's bumper.

The Jeep shot forward and crashed into the side of the car in the next lane, the other driver staring at him in shock. Carrie screamed as she was thrown into the dashboard. The Jeep sputtered and died. He looked down the row of cars. The crowd that had attacked the black man were back up, beating the windows of the nearby cars. He heard screams as the glass began to break. As he watched, two from the crowd forced their way through the broken side window of the car in front of him. A loud gurgling roar broke through the screaming. He turned his head and saw the black man who'd been attacked, standing there. The man's bloodshot eyes locked onto his. He roared once more and then started toward the Jeep, running at a full sprint. Dean reached for the ignition key and turned it. The motor wheezed. Looking down, he realized the Jeep was still in drive and pushed the transmission selector to park. Pumping the gas pedal, he turned the key again. The motor caught, rumbled to life and then died once more.
"Come on, damn it!" He shouted and turned the key again. The motor roared to life. He kept the gas pedal down on the floorboard. He glanced out the window. The black man was almost there. He threw the transmission into reverse. The rear tires screamed as the Jeep rocketed backwards. It crashed into the car behind him, the back window shattering. Carrie screamed again. He slammed it into drive and cranked the steering wheel to the right, his foot still down on the gas pedal. The black man was at the Jeep, his clawing hands reaching into the window. The Jeep lurched forward, the tires sliding on the pavement. It hit the other car again, pushing it sideways. The Jeep shot into the gap and crashed into the guardrail. Dean's head smacked into the steering wheel. The motor died again, steam billowing from the damaged front end.

Dean sat back, dazed. Blood flowed down his face. He reached over and tried to push the door open. Hands came through the window, tearing at his arm. He looked up and saw the black man there, teeth mashing together. The hands wrapped around his head, pulling him toward the window. Teeth clicked in his ear and then bit down on his cheek. Blood shot out, through the window. He screamed in pain. The hands pulled tighter. He tried to reach up, tried to push away. His ear was torn off next. He looked over, through the blood in his eyes, and saw his daughter screaming. The next bite took a chunk of his neck. Blood fanned out inside the Jeep. His arms went limp.

His eyes rolled back as the blood quickly left his body.