by J. Thorn
Zombies scare me because man scares me. We, as a species, scares the fuck out of me, to be blunt.
I’ve always been fascinated by the evil that men do — from slavery, to war crimes, to bizarre medical experiments (by governments, no less), to murder. I don’t think the fascination is morbid curiosity, as I don’t like to read of or see people or animals in pain, so much as a desire to understand what causes such monstrous acts. There’s a disconnect in some people that allows them to do the most horrifying things. And while we often attribute these acts to monsters that were made through abuse, mental illness, or some other causality, I don’t think it really takes all that much to turn men into monsters. Just turn on the nightly news (or any of the 24-hour news channels) and you’ll see evidence of man’s horrible acts upon his fellow man. I think that zombie fiction’s appeal, is that it’s about holding onto humanity even as the rest of mankind turns to monsters.
In Chris Wakes Up, I wanted to write something from the perspective of a man who has just been infected, battling against this monstrous change in him. Trying to hold onto humanity even as animal instincts and a hive mentality work to overcome him. As the story progresses, he is losing his memory and what makes him human. Sort of a de-evolution, if you will. In an early draft of the story, I referred to Chris in the last half of the story as “he” or “him,” to further illustrate how removed he was becoming from his prior life. However, in writing the story, it became difficult to refer to him over and over without it seeming forced or confusing.
Chris Wakes Up is our first foray into zombie fiction, unless you count our post-apocalyptic serial, Yesterday’s Gone, which has zombie-like creatures; but those aren’t true zombies in the sense that you know them. Given how much zombies scare me, I doubt this will be our last time visiting Chris’s world, even if he’s no longer part of it.
Thank you for reading,
David Wright
DID YOU ENJOY CHRIS WAKES UP?
YOU’LL LOVE THESE OTHER BOOKS BY THE COLLECTIVE INKWELL
Dark Crossings
In this collection of 18 short stories, authors Sean Platt and David Wright treat readers to dark and twisted tales where nothing is as it seems. From the creators of the groundbreaking post-apocalyptic series Yesterday's Gone, the sci-fi mind bender WhiteSpace, and the vampire thriller Available Darkness, comes these 18 unforgettably terrifying shorts for fans of The Twilight Zone and Stephen King’s short works. Includes author’s notes for a large, quality collection totaling more than 186,000 words.
18 Short Stories. 18 Killer Endings.
Get all 18 stories here:
AMAZON
THE Z 2134 TRILOGY
z 2134 is the thrilling zombie trilogy in the spirit of 1984, The Walking Dead, and The Hunger Games, from the writers of the post-apocalyptic bestselling serial, Yesterday’s Gone.
It is the year 2134 in a dystopian America, following a series of zombie plagues which infected and decimated much of the world’s population starting 100 years ago.
Those left, formed six walled Cities throughout the continent, all under the rule of a totalitarian government which enforces strict control over its populace.
You must obey your government.
You must be a good citizen.
You must be a productive citizen.
You must not break the law.
Or The City Watch will find you and arrest you.
Jonah Lovecraft, a former Watcher, was arrested for the murder of his wife. And like most criminals, he has one chance at freedom — to participate in The Darwin Games, a televised survival show which pits two players from each city against one another in The Barrens, the uninhabited areas outside the City Walls.
He’ll also have to face another enemy — the zombies which still roam The Barrens.
As he fights for his freedom against impossible odds, his daughter, Anastasia, stumbles into people who have information about her father — information which will change her life forever.
But it will also put her in the crosshairs of her father’s enemies.
Z 2134 is published by 47North, and is available exclusively at Amazon, in print, e-book, and audio editions and just concluded with the publication of Z 2136.
Start the adventure with Z 2134:
AMAZON
CHECK OUT ALL OF OUR FULL LENGTH BOOKS AND SERIALS HERE:
http://collectiveinkwell.com/our-books/
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sean Platt is speaker, author, and co-founder of Collective Inkwell, home to breakout indie hits like Yesterday’s Gone, WhiteSpace, and the traditionally published titles with Amazon’s 47North, Z 2134 and Monstrous co-authored with David W. Wright. Sean is also co-founder of genre hopping, reader loved Realm & Sands, with the spiritual epic Unicorn Western, future history of The Beam, and the revenge thriller, Namaste.
You can find Sean at SeanMPlatt.Com, Follow him on Twitter at @SeanPlatt, or email him at [email protected].
* * * *
David W. Wright is the co-author of the Yesterday’s Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Z 2134, and Monstrous series as well as the Dark Crossings collections of short stories. He’s also a sometimes cartoonist.
He co-hosts The Self Publishing Podcast and Better Off Undead podcasts with author Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt. Both podcasts are chock full of foul language, can go wildly off-topic, and should not be listened to by anyone.
David lives on the east coast with his wife, his 7-year old son, and the world’s most pooping-est cat.
He writes about Collective Inkwell stuff at:
http://CollectiveInkwell.com
He blogs about himself, creativity, pop culture, and other stuff at:
http://DavidwWright.com
Connect with David at:
[email protected]
http://twitter.com/thedavidwwright
http://facebook.com/CollectiveInkwellPublishing
* * * *
Artificial Evil
Book 1 of The Techxorcist
by Colin F. Barnes
Colin F. Barnes’s Website: www.colinfbarnes.com
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/rFAtL
All Rights Reserved
This edition published in 2014 by Anachron Press
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. The rights of the authors of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Other Titles by Colin F. Barnes
Novels
Assembly Code: Book 2 of The Techxorcist
Annihilation Point: Book 3 of The Techxorcist
Novellas
The Daedalus Code
Dead Five’s Pass
Chapter 1
City Earth, Northern Mongolia
In 2153 the lottery didn’t just change lives, it ended them. And Gerry Cardle’s numbers were up.
Saturday morning and Gerry should have been at home with his family. Instead, in a mood that cast its own shadow, he walked through the ten-metre-high archway to Cemprom, the largest company in City Earth.
Being at work on the weekend never seemed right. It still had a low-level hum of productivity as hundreds of drone men and women rode glass escalators and busied themselves with
etiquette, but the ferocious capitalism of a weekday was stymied by the ephemeral qualities of a Saturday. They weren’t really trying. It was as if the day on the calendar signalled a different mind-set. Gave them a reason to divert from their usual routine, albeit in minuscule ways. One couldn’t divert too far from routine in City Earth.
The calmness appealed to him. He tried to cling to it in a vain attempt at quelling the anxiety that slithered through his nerve centre.
He approached the reception desk as usual, his suit neatly pressed by his wife, a fabric bangle around his left wrist that Marcy, his youngest daughter, made for him. Only today he was on edge. Those damned Death Lottery numbers haunted him. He shouldn’t be a winner. It was impossible.
They were waiting for him in his inbox earlier that morning, flashing away in his internal mind-interface as if they were mocking him. The term ‘winner’ held a cruel irony that he could never get over. Still, it was just a mistake. It’d get fixed. He knew there would be some logical explanation. He just had to see his boss and sort it all out.
It wasn’t right that someone like Gerry, one of the first on the exemption list, should be eligible for the D-Lottery. It must be something simple like a glitch or a bug in the system. That thought, however, was of little consolation. Gerry was the architect of the algorithm that was used to determine the ‘winners’, after all. If there was something wrong with the system, it was his responsibility.
How a bug could have got into the system he couldn’t know. Only yesterday he and his colleagues performed a maintenance procedure on City Earth’s network. It was clean.
Maybe the glitch was hidden? Someone fiddling with parts of the system on the inside. But who?
Probably Jasper. A snot-nosed, privileged automaton sent down from the Family to report on efficiency and morale, which was redundant. Like anyone displayed anything other than perfect satisfaction. The Family provided a system to cater for every whim and desire, after all. His Artificial Intelligent Assistant dutifully noted the sarcasm. No doubt he would be receiving an internal psyche report later that evening. He’d just take the report and make a virtual paper plane out of it and throw it into the trash bin, where the AIA could choke on the misfiling.
Approaching the security desk, Gerry swiped his right wrist over a small red box. Inside, a laser scanner interfaced with his ID wrist-chip and the identification routine of his AIA to generate a unique security code. Without looking at Gerry, the barely interested receptionist dictated the resulting random number to the computer.
The computer bleeped twice.
“I’m sorry, sir. You don’t have access.”
Gerry was already making his way past the desk with his hand out for the gate when he stopped and turned. He thought he’d misheard. He’d been through this gate hundreds of times. He looked at the receptionist, trying to tell if he was being played for a fool.
The receptionist simply pointed to the red flashing warning on the holoscreen.
“Sir, you don’t have sufficient clearance. Please exit the building.”
The AIA must have registered Gerry’s D-Lottery status with the network already.
Gerry shook his head. Surely it had to be some kind of joke? He fully expected to see Jasper, or even his boss, giggling away in some corner. But the entrance area was empty apart from the well-groomed young man behind the desk. He sat bolt upright with perfect posture, black hair greased back in a slick, modern style. He arched a plucked eyebrow expectantly, as though he were someone important. All privilege, all class, but no skill or talent, just your typical City Earth oxygen thief—which made matters worse when oxygen was a managed resource.
“Steven, isn’t it?” Gerry said. “You went to school with my eldest daughter, Caitlyn. Surely you recognise me?”
“Your ID does not have the appropriate clearance,” he replied, still not engaging.
“Please. Just try again?” Gerry tugged at the bangle on his wrist, tapping his foot on the floor. Anything to remain calm, pleasant. He had to give the benefit of the doubt. The kid was just doing his job… tap, tap, tap.
Steven’s tone dropped an octave. “Sir—”
“Just do it!” Gerry demanded, feeling the heat of frustration seep out of the pores on his neck and face.
Steven snorted, but tried again. “Security check: four-oh-one-three-seven-nine.”
The computer beeped twice.
“Dammit, there’s gotta be a mistake. Call Mike Welling. He’ll vouch for me.”
“That’s against protocol, sir.”
“Look at me. You’ve seen me come through these gates every day for the past month. I’ve worked here for over a decade. I realise your job’s not to take note or pay attention, but do you think you could stop being a massive problem for just one minute and help sort this out?”
Steven turned his head like a petulant owl and spoke into his mic. “Security, please escort the guest at Gate One. He’s become violent.”
“Violent?” Gerry’s head throbbed as if it was about to burst. The pounding of blood through veins and vessels thundered inside his skull. “You ain’t seen violence, kid. Hell! You don’t see anything unless it’s on that damn screen.”
“This episode is being recorded for criminal charges, sir.”
“Call me sir one more time…”
Gerry was about to scream when he saw two security women walk down the narrow corridor to the right of the reception desk. Their expressions were stern. Jaws set and eyes focused. Gerry’s heart pounded in sync with the rhythm of their loud steps as their heavy boots clattered on the Polymar floor.
One of the women wore her blonde hair in a bob cut. Her blue, augmented-reality eyes extended a couple of millimetres as she scanned Gerry. “You need to leave now, sir. Thanks for visiting Cemprom.”
“Ladies, it’s me, Gerry. I work here with Mike and his crew. Why can’t you lot understand that?”
“Company protocol is D-Lottery protocol—”
“Check my employee stamp. Why would I have this if I didn’t work here? I’m exempt!”
Gerry held out his DigiCard, which contained his security credentials, to the blue-eyed security officer.
She glimpsed at the glossy black card but didn’t take it. She wasn’t interested in listening to his plight. Unimpressed, she said, “D-Lottery winners are banned from this building.”
“Yes, I know that. That’s why I’m here on my day off. Don’t you listen? What’s wrong with you all?”
The other guard, with her small dark eyes, probably an ex-military spec, removed her stun-baton from her belt and took a step closer, shrouding Gerry entirely within her shadow.
Gerry snatched back his hand and balled it into a fist. Not through any attempt at violence, but because the shakes had started. Tiny rumbles travelled across his nerve endings, making him grip his hands tight. That was the first sign of his death date being registered. His ID chip was connecting and communicating with City Earth’s network.
His voice transferred the rumble as he spoke. “Please. Just call Mike Welling. He’ll sort this out.” Gerry stepped forward, pleading to be understood.
Too close. Too stupid. Every muscle in his body contracted—and stayed that way.
The floor rushed towards his face. His nose splattered apart on the Polymar sidewalk like a crushed cockroach. The electrical current from the stun-baton fried his nervous system, knocking him unconscious.
Chapter 2
Gerry groaned as he rolled on to his back. There was something in the air—alcohol? Couldn’t be; it had never been available to the general public. Medical only. Was he in a hospital?
Something burned into the lacerations covering his nose. It had the effect of kick-starting his brain and motor functions. His hands and legs twitched.
Something hard and
pointed kicked into his ribs, and a rough series of grunts hovered next to his ear. Then a man’s voice… odd accent. Certainly not anything Gerry had heard before. It had a strange musical quality to it. The vowels extended, overplayed with a slight patois underlying the dialogue.
“Get up, man. You’ll be impounded if ya don’t move on.”
Stale urine battled with the alcohol in Gerry’s damaged olfactory system.
He tried to open his eyes. Resistance. He raised his hands, thankfully not closed into fists, and forced the lids open. There was something thick and warm on his fingers: blood.
Dull grey light entered his vision. That was the only kind of light that filtered down to street level through the protective dome. Too dangerous to allow the sun to shine directly, the Family said. The Cataclysm ended hope of living in the open air anymore. Not that Gerry was old enough to know a time before the Dome—before City Earth. At thirty-five, Gerry was one of the first Future Babies: the first generation of children to be born entirely inside City Earth. He’d live to a thousand, they said. Just do as you’re told, eat what you’re given, drink what you’re given, and listen to your AIA.
