Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel) (36 page)

He shrugged.

“Told you I would.”

“You told me a lot of things,” I reminded him. “Some of them kind of creepy.”

His mouth curved in a rueful smile.

“Just following orders. If it’s worth anything, I regret a lot of it.”

“Not all of it?”

He gave me a sideways glance.

“You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know. Figure you deserved at least some of it.”

I snorted. “‘Officer, she was asking for it.’ Is that it?”

“No.” He was silent for a moment, and then he continued. “I like you,” he said simply. “You’re smart, brave, and you don’t give up.”

I nodded, accepting his words at face value.

“Plus you’ve got great tits.”

The outrageousness of that comment startled a little snort of laughter out of me.

“I’m not going to sleep with you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Not asking you to.”

“Good.”

We lapsed back into silence, staring up at the night sky as we listened to the sounds of a dying city rise up to the rooftop. Maybe it could still be saved, once the doctors had perfected the retrovirus, and we got it out to whatever percentage of the population still lived. It would be dangerous, but hell, that’s what wild cards were for, right?

Maybe I was still needed after all.

The whole of the bright blue, cloud-dappled Earth gleamed in the eyes of Commander Jess Lowry as she stood in a ring of windows in the cupola of the International Space Station.

From their vantage point, circling the globe every hour and a half, days and nights seemed to fly past every forty-five minutes with a burst of sunrise and then a plunge into darkness. Normally she loved the night side—a miniature clockwork wonderland, filled with a glittering, shimmering glaze of electric diamond dust tracing out lattices of firefly pinpoints and luminescent trails stretching across entire continents in bright points of copper, gold, yellow, and white.

All that was gone now.

Her eyes darkened as she kept her vigil over the new night sky. The once-bright landforms were dead, and the Earth hung limply in space like a badly bruised corpse, ugly black holes where Rio and New York and Tokyo used to shine. She suppressed a shudder as she remembered the screams coming over the station’s comlink, from Houston’s mission control room.

There was a sound behind her, as Flight Engineer Nikolai Mironoff zipped down the main tube like an arrow, effortlessly threading through a cluttered gauntlet of laptop stations, instrument panels, plastic tubing, and other bits of random equipment without hitting any of the potential snares. He floated into sight and pulled himself to a halt alongside her.

“Kakie novosti?”
she asked, still staring out the cupola’s borosilicate viewports.

“Nothing we don’t already know” the Russian replied. “Power levels on both starboard and port arrays are holding steady. I have shut down all non-essential modules and transferred everything on our checklists to Zvezda.”

She turned to him. “Good. The Soyuz ready to go?”

The cosmonaut hesitated, and she knew he didn’t trust the obsolescent spacecraft for a re-entry. Yet they had no choice in the matter. It was either risk an orbital drop in the battered old Soviet workhorse, or stay on board while their oxygen and power levels raced to see which was exhausted first.

“It’s ready to take us straight to hell right now,” he replied. “But maybe—if we are very, very lucky—maybe it will get us through the upper atmosphere before it all falls to pieces.”

“Thanks, Nikolai.” Jess gave him a weary smile and returned her gaze to the outside.

“A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam…” she sighed.

“Shto eta?”

“Something Carl Sagan said once, about the earth being a pale blue dot. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there, on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” She gave Nikolai a rueful smile. “Now I wonder if there’s anyone left down there at all.”

“If that
chertovskiy
Soyuz doesn’t kill us on impact, there will be. We’ll be the new
Adám i Jéva
. We’ll repopulate the planet, you and I.”

She played along.

“Where shall we touch down then? Any ideas where to set up the new Eden?”

Nikolai peered out at the uninviting ball floating before them, scowling slightly at the slim prospects before making a small flourish with one hand.

“Ladies choice, of course.”

“Let me think about that.”

He nodded, and took watch alongside her.

She reached for the hi-resolution handheld imager—a combination telescope and camera—and tore it off its velcro tether. The planet continued its slow, relentless turning, cycling through light and dark while she pored over the whole world laid out before them, scanning for possible landing areas.

There was a spot of shimmering haze at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf. That was the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire.

In the North Atlantic she could see the wake of a large vessel—an aircraft carrier perhaps, though she had no way to tell if it was American or Russian, or even if it was still under the control of human beings.

Australia’s east coast glowed from wildfires, raging out of control.

On the highest settings of her imager, tiny pinpricks of light from various spots on the California coast caught her attention. But what were they? Campfires? Burning rubble? Were they signs of life? Or just more signs of death?

She kept searching, while the world kept spinning.

I hate writing acknowledgements as much as I love the people I want to thank! There are just so many of ’em, though, and I hate to forget anyone. So apologies in advance if your name is not listed here. It’s not because I don’t love and appreciate you! It’s because the brain… it melts…
it melts
!!

First up, those epically awesome Titan folks: Nick Landau, Vivien Cheung, Katy Wild, Alice Nightingale, Natalie Laverick, Miranda Jewess, Charlotte Couldrey, Tim Whale, Selina Juneja, Julia Lloyd, Ella Bowman, Hannah Dennis, Chris McLane, Martin Stiff, and my usual extra helping of love to Tom Green and Katherine Carroll, who make publicity fun for me! Love me the Titan crew, especially my Dark Editorial Overlord, Steve Saffel, who is not just a wonderful editor, but a truly supportive friend.

Research can be time-consuming and frustrating, but with the help of Facebook and my eclectically knowledgeable friends and family, it was fun and relatively easy this time around. In no particular order but with equal gratitude: Elizabeth Buxton, James Jackson, Aaron Sikes, Eric Bar, Nancy Vandermay, Kate Laity, Aud Fredstie, Maddie Karathanas, Jonathan Stern, Richard Hartman, Jonathan Brett Kennedy, James Jackson, Peter Indiana Allison, Michael Beach, Marcy Meyer, Pamela Cale, Ernie Williams, and oh, I know there are more… You know who you are!

I am continually blown away by the generosity of my friends. Sending waves of thanks and love to John Hornor Jacobs for the Redneck Legolas art; my cousin Steffan Fredsti for the katanas and cousinly support; Anne Stevenson for Titania; Aimee Hix for Motivational Penguin and Dana’s Delights; and Jane Thorne-Gutierrez for chocolate, band-aids and the Magic Amethyst. Huge thanks to the Veteran’s Allegiance for their willingness and enthusiasm to appear in my book!

Owen and Julie, your time and counseling when my sanity was cracking were invaluable (not to mention the bacon chutney). Further sanity points were awarded to me by Maureen A., Maureen Z., Aldyth, Brad, and James. Thank you. And Jen, you helped keep my world together when it fell apart. Thanks for being the Danny to my Sgt. Angel (or vice versa, if you insist!).

Endless appreciation to Jess Lourey for her unfailing ‘you can do it’ feedback when I was at my lowest ebb, and heartfelt thanks to Cynthia Gentry for those writing dates! Loren Rhoads, those talks over coffee always inspire. Special thanks to Joe McKinney and Craig DiLouie for taking the time to read (I owes ya drinks!), and a huge hug and thank you to my favorite Perpetual Writing Machine Jonathan Maberry for his encouragement, as well as inspiration by example.

My family has always supported my writing (thanks, Mom and Bill!), and while my sister Lisa wouldn’t have been caught dead being a cheerleader in high school, she’s been great at cheering me on through my struggles to finish this book. And most of all, thanks and love to Hell Ocho, T. Chris “Cookie” Martindale, and David Fitzgerald… I could not have written this book without the three of you.

Dana Fredsti
is an ex B-movie actress with a background in theatrical combat (a skill she utilized in
Army of Darkness
as a sword-fighting Deadite and fight captain). She’s addicted to bad movies and any book or film, good or bad, which include zombies. She is the author of the Ashley Parker series, touted as Buffy meets
The Walking Dead
, as well as the cozy noir mystery
Murder for Hire: the Peruvian Pigeon
, and co-author of
What Women Really Want in Bed
. She guest blogs frequently and has made numerous podcast and radio appearances. She lives in San Francisco with her boyfriend, their dog Pogeen, and a small horde of felines.

PLAGUE TOWN BY DANA FREDSTI

In the small university town of Redwood Grove, people are succumbing to a lethal strain of flu. They are dying—but not for long. Ashley Parker and her boyfriend are attacked by these shambling, rotting creatures that crave human flesh.

Their lives will never be the same again.

When she awakes Ashley discovers that she is a “wild card”—immune to the virus—and is recruited by a shadowy paramilitary organization that offers her the chance to fight back. Fatally attracted to her gorgeous instructor, and bonding with her fellow wild cards, Ashley begins to discover skills she never knew she had.

As the town falls to ever-growing numbers of the infected, Ashley and her team fight to contain the outbreak—but will they be enough?

“Sexy, weird, creepy…”
Jonathan Maberry,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Patient Zero

“
Plague Town
will have you turning pages fast… and checking the locks on all the doors.” Ray Garton, author of
Live Girls

“A delicious, gore-filled zombie treat.” Stacey Graham, author of
The Zombie Dating Guide

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