Blood Runners: Box Set

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  I had most of the books fleshed out, but Justin then came aboard and he’s got a unique ability to make characters likable and interesting which is always a great thing. Justin was able to spot some mistakes I’d made, principally that the book was too damned dark! Sure, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, but he kept reiterating that doesn’t mean it’s got to be a complete and utter downer. Who the hell wants to read a book that sends them into a depression spiral?

  Anyway, he gave me some excellent notes and we worked together to soften things a bit and make it more of a thrill-ride, and after many revisions, we were able to bring Book 1 across the finish line. We hope everyone enjoys the world we’ve created and will be eager to pick up the subsequent books to learn whether there’s been a successful revolution in New Chicago! One final note is that you’ll see subtle references in “Blood Runners” to the other world we’ve created in our “Syndicate Wars” books (an excerpt of which is at the end of this book), principally in what brought about the Unraveling, the end of the world. We’re doing our best to find a really cool way to tie “Blood Runners” in with “Syndicate Wars” and we think we’ve found a way to do it, so stay tuned!

  -George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Justin Sloan

  This book first came into existence for me when George asked me to come on board. I was immediately drawn to the concept and the two main characters. This idea of bringing back the old school but in a new futuristic post-apocalyptic world is certainly not new to me, as I’ve done similar works with Justice is Calling (with Michael Anderle), and the idea of Threshers are familiar grounds, as I wrote on Walking Dead: Michonne, the video game (and they are similar to zombies, kinda).

  My regular readers will notice the style is partly mine, but largely not. That is because George brought me onto the project when the books were already mostly written. I changed some scenes, added new ones, and did an overall pass, but this is still largely his work. It was his vision and his characters, and I wanted to largely keep it that way, while adding what I thought would make the characters stand out more and be more relatable.

  These are definitely a George and Justin collaboration, but I want to make sure we all give him a pat on the back for all of the awesome work he did on these books before pulling me in.

  So we hope you enjoy, and we hope you are able to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. We also hope you enjoyed it enough to carry on to book two and then book three. If you like them enough, maybe we’ll bring you more!

  Also, please check out our other series! I have my vampire and werewolf series (Reclaiming Honor with Michael Anderle, and Cursed Night by myself), and George has some zombie and vampire books. If you’re into paranormal and whatnot, this is the place is for you. For others, I also have fantasy and kidlit books. Lots to choose from!

  But most excitedly of all—we’re co-writing a series with a third friend, and it’s going to be awesome. Seriously.

  - Justin Sloan

  If you want updates on that and more, including some free books, head over to www.JustinSloanAuthor.com and sign up for the newsletter.

  Thank you again for taking the time to share this journey with us!

  Author Notes Book 2

  George’s Notes

  Justin and I were very excited while working on Book 2 because we knew it would allow us to do some really cool things, including ramping up the action, putting our heroes in some very dicey situations, and introduce some new friends along with the very real threat posed by the horrible monsters that live outside New Chicago’s great wall. The introduction of the monsters, the “Thresher,” allowed us to set the stage for what will be a climactic battle for the soul of New Chicago in Book 3. Interestingly enough, the idea for the Thresher came from my work as lawyer with silica and the victims of silicosis. Forced to read more literature than I ever cared to read on the disease, I was given an old book on the Dust Bowl in the United States in the 1930s and there was a very strange reference to people who’d gone berserk because of their exposure to dust. They’d inhaled so much of the stuff, which fell in great waves for hours and occasionally days on end (blacking out Chicago in 1934!), that it basically caused them to become psychotic. There was a quote from the person in the book that the dust had caused the people to revert to a primitive state and that got my mind working. I thought the whole thing was gruesome, but also compelling, the idea that a person’s exposure to certain environmental conditions could alter their mind, basically flipping a switch that couldn’t be turned off. I combined this with the very real threat posed by a solar superstorm to come up with the nightmarish things that Marisol and Elias are forced to confront once they escape the city’s dictator. What we hinted at in Book 1, is explored in detail here, as our heroes are forced to venture outside their comfort zones in order to save their friends and kick some serious Thresher butt. Hopefully everyone enjoys the ride, because the action is going to be ramped up again bigtime in Book 3!

  Justin’s Notes

  George and I have been plowing away at our writing, and by that I mean we're both working on these projects as well as others, and I can't imagine we'll have fingertips by the end of this. (They'll be worn off by the keyboards). But you know what?

  IT'S FUN AS HELL!

  We've been reading the great reviews on book one so far and love our fans. You all are the most amazing fans out there, and it's for you that we give up sleep and keep working to write more books.

  If you didn't know, I went full-time recently--that's right, all I do now is write all day, take a nap, and then write some more (okay, I guess I try to work out here and there too). So these books are just going to keep coming, you can count on that.

  What's the end result though? Who knows! What's been really fun along the way though is tying the many book together. For example, you might have noticed that in Absolution (Blood Runners one) we have hints to the fact that this might or might not tie into our Syndicate Wars books that we did with Kyle Noe. Now you're seeing the direction this book is taking, and I promise you, George came up with some awesome stuff for book three. Yes, I say George, because (as you probably read in the author notes for book one, if you read them) he was the brainchild behind these books. They were his creation, and I came on to add a bit of my touch and help market them.

  They've been fun, though some of my normal readers complained this one was gruesome at points--points we might have edited a bit since, but would love to hear your thoughts. Perfection? A bit dark? Either way, we want to know! We won't necessarily change our writing styles just because one person has a complaint, but if enough people feel the same way, the means we might have something to learn. As writers, we're always trying to improve our crave and tell stories that resonate with you, the reader, so are happy to learn and adapt.

  If you loved this story, of course you need to read book three, and it's coming soon. But in the meantime, check out Syndicate Wars, and another series coming soon called Broken Road. It's going to be a doozy.

  Thank you all again, and we'll see you in the next book (or the Facebook page!)

  Author Notes Book 3

  George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Cut and trim, cut and trim, that’s what Justin and I did to make sure Book 3 was the roller-coaster ride we wanted it to be. Originally, it was a fair bit longer, but we wanted to keep it tight while avoiding the dreaded “action fatigue,” and hopefully everyone likes the way it turned out. Here and there we dropped in some clues that tie the book and the world in with one of our other series, SYNDICATE WARS, and if you look closely enough, you can spot the clues (including the reference to the causes of the Unraveling and the mysterious silver object Longman was searching for). How might all of these events be connected? Is the world in BLOOD RUNNERS reality, a figment of imagination from some higher power, or something else entirely, like a fractured loop in time? You’ll have to keep reading and check out SYNDICATE WARS to find out, and it’s our hope that we’ll find a way to bring everything full
circle in a future book as the heroes in BLOOD RUNNERS explore the world beyond New Chicago.

  Justin Sloan

  I can't believe another trilogy is done! This series came out with a one-two punch in terms of book 2 releasing a week after book 1, but also in terms of story. I'm sure you'll agree that it grabs on and doesn't quite let go until the thrill ride is over.

  What's been interesting, from our point of view, is watching how this series performed soon after we released our other series with Kyle Noe -- Syndicate Wars. That one is scifi while this one is post-apoc, but other than that we really didn't do much differently in terms of marketing and all that. In fact, we probably had more compliments on these (Blood Runners) covers. All of that being the case, these books haven't done quite as well yet. Their sales have been great, but the big difference is in Kindle Unlimited page reads. Syndicate Wars' page reads were insane, while the page reads for these books have been just slightly above average for me.

  What does this tell us? That more KU readers are in scifi? Maybe. Or maybe that they're easier to market to? Or it might even just have to do with the fact that most of my readers before this were scifi readers, and I've been building up a readership of people who like happy and fun stories, both kind of the opposite of what "post apoc" implies, right? So we'll keep paying attention and keep learning, to see what we can discover about the process.

  What's next? Well, George has also brought me in to help out with this cool series he started called Broken Road. It's similar, with more of a thriller aspect to it. Stay tuned for that. On my side, I have my 5th post-apoc vampire book coming out around the same time as this book, or slightly before, so you might want to check that out. It's called Born into Flames, and is in my Reclaiming Honor series, with Michael Anderle.

  We are also still working on books in the Syndicate Wars series and have cool stuff coming your way, so we hope you check them out! Until next time, take care.

  The Fallen Sky: A Blood Runners Short Story

  Want to see how it all began? How the world first began to unravel? Then check out the below Blood Runners short story called “The Fallen Sky.”

  Like a film in slow motion, Elias’s brain broke down the memories of what it had been like the night before the world ended. The hordes of people in the cities and exurbs were then still tethered to the internet, a vast ecosystem of information that enabled them to share, in real-time, the night’s spectacle. Everyone knew that something rare was going to happen, a belch from the sun, a massive solar sky-storm so extraordinary that it could be seen from any perch in any dark corner of the world. An event, the media howled, that might happen only once in a thousand years!

  They came in droves that night, people from the countryside as well as those from the city, tramping out of their bubbling neighborhoods and inner boroughs to meet and watch the majesty of Mother Nature. The entire endeavor resembled a medieval circus with revelers and hawkers of food and music. In the midst of it was Elias and his family. He’d reluctantly been dragged along with his siblings, his mother, and particularly his father, who was forever complaining about the family not having enough “quality time” together.

  They parked their car in a garage and took an elevator up to the top of a fifteen-storey building where a friend of a friend of Elias’s old man worked for an accounting firm.

  “Just wait until you see the view!” Elias’s father had said, squeezing his mother hand as they headed to the building’s roof.

  Similar to a Fourth of July fireworks watching party, everyone had gathered on a broad apron of cement to watch the epochal event. It was an elaborate spread, with people dishing out food and men with tall white hats carving meat at various stations, while willowy servers dressed all in black handed out handcrafted hors d’oeuvres.

  “How cool is this?” Elias mother had said to him, munching on a stuffed mushroom that was as big as a closed fist.

  Giant flatscreen TVs hung from metal walls above the terrace, which was dotted with potted plants and small trees. The screens displayed images of reporters from distant spots all over the world, who were covering the event as if it were New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

  There was a countdown, of course, and Elias, being just a young boy then, was taken by the sight of the adults reveling in the whole thing like children. Alcohol flowed and balloons filled the air against a cacophony of air-horns and laughter and for the first time in a very long time, Elias watched his father and mother with their arms around each other, swaying to the beat of music from a band that played on a nearby rooftop. They looked happy and utterly content for the first time in a very long time. The moment, and it was a very brief moment, was perfect.

  Elias and his siblings joined in the party, listening to the tunes, scarfing up goodies, peering through the high-powered binoculars that so many of the partiers had brought. After a while, nobody seemed to pay much attention to the flatscreens. Nobody except for Elias. He’d noticed that some of the reporters, those in the more distant parts of the world, were no longer visible. Their satellite-sent live feeds had simply blacked out. That was the first hint that something was amiss.

  Moments later, a fat-faced man called out “There it is!” and everyone looked up to see what looked like filaments of pure light streaking the darkened sky. A spiderweb of charged particles crisscrossing the darkness. Hushed silence fell over the rooftop, the watchers awestruck as the heavens raged and seemed to change color with every passing second, reminding Elias of the lava lamp that his father kept on an office desk.

  It wasn’t until the first wave of plasma hit that panic set in. Elias could tell something was wrong when the sky glowed orange and then turned a deep, sick, retina-searing red. Elias had seen a power wire severed during an ice storm two winters before. He’d stood and watched, dumbfounded, as it danced and snaked across the ground, shooting off balls of light as it sizzled and burned. That was exactly what it was like now, he thought to himself. It was as if the world’s largest, high-voltage power line had been dropped on the city.

  The sky began to glow, as if it had been set on fire, and Elias’s mother turned to him and his siblings. There was recognition on her face and she waved her hands. “Close your eyes!”

  Elias and the others did and then—

  CRACKBOOM!

  A concussive blast echoed overhead with such force that it seemed to push Elias to the ground. He simultaneously felt pressure from above and the stirring of the ground underfoot. His eyes were still closed, but he assumed a bomb had been dropped or that an earthquake had it. The building swayed and he was terrified it would topple so he opened his eyes.

  “I-is everything okay, Mom?” Elias had asked his mother.

  She was too busy silently crabbing back, her hand over her mouth.

  Elias heard murmurs rise in the crowd and then he spotted one of the men who’d been gazing through the binoculars and pumping a fist and shouting for joy only seconds earlier. After witnessing the fall of the sky the man had dropped the binoculars and staggered, his eyes bloody and bugged out.

  “Oh, Christ!” somebody screamed.

  Elias watched in horror as those who’d been peering up directly up at the sky turned. The capillaries in their faces burst first along with their eyes, rivers of blood streaming down from their hollowed-out sockets. Elias’s gaze swung upward and he witnessed what looked like a great rending wall of fire, a stream of red and orange plasma that swept across everything like some cosmic tsunami.

  Elias saw this happen to perhaps two dozen people on the terrace and then somebody saw the blood and confusion and screamed and a woman with gory eyes shrieked and stagger-stepped and was accidentally shoved off the roof. More partiers panicked and the crowd surged and more people fell as pure bedlam set in.

  Elias was pulled back into the wide-eyed face of his father who whispered, “We are leaving right now.”

  Elias’s father hauled Elias up over his shoulder and grabbed for his siblings. Elias’s family made for
the exits even as the plasma continued to rain down. The stream had turned to balls of what looked like molten fire that began triggering subsonic BOOMS! overhead. Every source of power in the city seemed to wink out at the same time.

  Elias watched the panic-glazed faces of the others as his father, realizing the elevators were of no use, exited down a service stairwell. What sounded like the alarms on a million cars echoed outside, small explosions reverberating from overloaded machinery and circuits. He could hear the labored breathing as his father and mother carried everyone downstairs, faster and faster, stumbling, nearly falling, the shouts of those following behind overwhelming everything else and then, several minutes later, they were out on the streets.

  Figures swam in and out of focus as Elias was carried at breakneck speed down through the city and it suddenly dawned on him like a revelation. The sky was on fire and the world had gone dark and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

  The balls of plasma fell from the sky like sulfuric hail as Elias’s father skidded to a stop and whispered, “Oh, my holy God.”

  Elias craned his neck and the others around him bellowed because they could see a small mushroom cloud rising up, way out in distance.

  “It’s the nuclear reactor!” somebody screamed. Elias heard others whisper that whatever was happening likely overrode the internal machinery at the reactor, causing a nuclear explosion.