by Mira Grant
“What news?” Mahir asked, as we pulled onto the freeway. “I’ve been incommunicado for hours. Blasted flight.”
“Mail from Rick—Senator Ryman’s plane touched down about the same time yours did. They’ll be meeting us at the funeral home. Emily couldn’t make it, sends her regrets.” I shook my head. “She sent a pie last week. An actual pie. That woman is so weird.”
“How’s Rick handling the transition?”
“He’s taking it pretty well. I mean, he quit when the senator asked him to be the new VP candidate, and it doesn’t seem to be driving him crazy. Who knows? Maybe they’ll win. They’re definitely bread and circuses enough for the general populace.”
“American politics.” Mahir shook his head. “Bloody bizarre.”
“We work with what we’ve got.”
“I suppose that’s the way of the world.” He hesitated, looking at me as I turned off the freeway and onto the surface streets. “I’m so sorry, Shaun. I just… There’s nothing I can say that says how sorry I am. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know you cared about her a lot,” I said, shrugging. “She was your friend. You were hers. One of the best ones she ever had.”
“She said that?” he asked, wonderingly.
“Actually, yeah. All the time.”
Mahir wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “I never even got to meet her, Shaun. It’s just… it’s so damned unfair.”
“I know.” I didn’t bother wiping my own tears away. I stopped bothering weeks ago. Maybe if I let them fall they’d get around to stopping on their own. “It is what it is. Isn’t that how these things always go? They are what they are. We just get to cope.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“At least she got her story.” The parking lot of the funeral home was choked with cars. Packing the staff of multiple blog sites and a presidential campaign, as well as friends and family, into a single building will do that sort of thing. Their security must have been freaking out. The thought was enough to bring the ghost of a smile to my face, and the ghost of a chuckle from George in the back of my head.
Mahir glanced at me as I pulled into the last parking slot reserved in the “family” section of the lot. “I’m sorry, did I miss something? You’re smiling.”
“No,” I said, unlocking the door. There’d be men with blood tests at the funeral home doors, and mourners waiting to tell me how sorry they were, to share their tears like I could understand them when I could barely understand my own. “You didn’t miss anything at all, I guess. You got as much as I did.” I climbed out of the car, Mahir still looking at me strangely. And then I stood there, waiting, until he followed me. “Come on. There’s a whole bunch of people waiting for us.”
“Shaun?”
“Yeah?”
“Was it worth it?”
No, whispered George, and, “No,” I said. “But then again, when you get to the end, what really is?”
She told the truth as she saw it, and she died for it. I came along for the ride, and I lived. It wasn’t worth it. But it was the truth, and it was what had to happen. I tried to hold onto that as we walked into the funeral home to say as many of our good-byes as we could. It wouldn’t be all of them. It never could be. But it was going to have to be enough, for me, and for George, and for everyone. Because there wasn’t going to be anything more.
“Hey, George,” I whispered.
What?
“Check this out.”
We stepped inside.
Acknowledgments
This is a book that truly could not have been written without the help of a dedicated and industrious team of editors, continuity checkers, and subject matter experts. From doctors and epidemiologists to people willing to attempt riding luggage carts over railroad trestles for the sake of research, there was as much field work as sit-down study. It was a group effort in many ways, and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all the people, named and unnamed, who helped me bring the world of Feed to life.
Rae Hanson and Sunil Patel were two of the first to join the proofing pool, providing valuable advice about technology, politics, the media, and the way the entertainment world would change after the zombies rose. (Rae also carved a jack-o-lantern with Shaun and Georgia riding the bike over a crowd of zombies. I have excellent friends.) Amanda and Steve Perry were my point people for everything having to do with wireless and cellular technology, and taught me a great deal about the miniaturization going on in the real world. Between them and Mike Whitaker, who did the majority of the technical design on Shaun and Georgia’s van, I have much more accurate tech than I have any right to.
Matt Branstad was responsible for verifying the accuracy of my firearms design, and was invaluable when it came to finding new, exciting ways to kill zombies. Michelle and David McNeill-Coronado provided regional details on Sacramento (David actually suggested the railroad trestle), as well as providing active, engaging sounding boards for the political climate of the book.
Medical assistance was provided by Brooke Lunderville and Melissa Glasser, who rebuilt my medical technology from the ground up several times, while Debbie J. Gates helped out with the animal action. Alison Riley-Duncan, Rebecca Newman, Allison Hewett, Janet Maughan, Penelope Skrzynski, Phil Ames, Amanda Sanders, and Martha Hage were on tap for general proofreading and plot consultation; I couldn’t have done this without them.
Finally, acknowledgment for forbearance must go to Kate Secor and Michelle Dockrey, who received the bulk of my “talking it out” during the writing process; to my agent, Diana Fox, who is never anything short of heroic; to my editor, DongWon Song, who understood the story from the first; and to Tara O’Shea and Chris Mangum, the incredible technical team behind [http://www.MiraGrant.com] www.MiraGrant.com. This book might have been written without them. It would not have been the same.
Rise up while you can.
Copyright
Copyright (c) 2010 by Seanan McGuire
First eBook Edition: May 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-12246-7
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
