Dead: Winter

Dead:
Winter

©201
2
May Dece
m
ber Publications LLC

The split-tree logo is a registered trade
mark of May December Publications LLC
.

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and inc
i
dents either are the product of the a
u
thor’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coi
n
cidental.

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.  Any repr
o
duction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or May December Pub
lic
a
tions LLC.

Printed in the U.S.A.

For Nickie, Vix, and Christina…

my first fans.

Foreword

When TW Brown asked me to write a foreword for his fourth, and much anticipated,
DEAD
no
v
el, I was petrified.
I know many are wondering why he chose the author of a YA novel, who does not write true horror, much less Zombie-Lit.  That thought c
rossed my mind, as well.
There are many a
u
thors out there who write about zombies
and
would give their eye teeth for this chance!

My first tho
ught was, “I’ll screw this up.”
I told Todd that my writing a foreword for one of his
DEAD
novels would be the equivalent of someone drawing stick figures on the Sistine Chapel.  Act
u
all
y, I wrote “Sixteenth Chapel”—
trying to make a joke.  However,
the end results are the same—
I just wasn’t wo
r
thy.

Then, I got to thinking.
I may not write books with zo
m
bies, but I am an e
xpert when it comes to zombies!
Trust me, if the world falls to a zombie apocalypse tomorrow, I WILL su
r
vive!  Als
o, I am TW Brown’s biggest fan. Don’t believe me?
Ask him yourself (no co
m
ments from the peanut gallery, please)
.
I have devoured every novel he has writ
ten.
His books are my one guilty pleasure. I decided the best way to honor this amaz
ing book—
the best way
I
could contrib
ute—
is to tell the readers why I love the DEAD series so much.  So, here it goes…

I will admit to you that before reading Todd’s zombie-lit books, I pr
e
ferred watching the undead on television or the big screen. 
The Walking Dead
is my favorite T.V. show and I h
ave seen all of Romero’s films.
I am a huge fan of the classics, such as Sam Raimi’s
Army of Darkness
to (and yes, you can laugh if you want) Fred De
k
ker’s
Night of the Creeps
, and everything in between.
If a movie or T.V. show has anything resembling a zombie in it, I want to see it.

Before I read Brown’s
DEAD
and
Zomblog
series, the clo
s
est I had come to attempting zombie-lit was a catastrophic novel written by an au
thor who shall remain nameless.
I was so disap
pointed.
T
here was no emotion, no depth—just people killing zombies.
Where were the feelings of helples
s
ness and hope?  Where was the
struggle of right versus wrong?
I know it was appalling of me to do so, but right then and there, I decided to get my zombie fix from my usual sources and vowed to never read another “zombie-lit” book again.

And then I met Todd Brown.
Sounds like a line from a bad mov
ie, doesn’t it?
He recommended his
DEAD
series to me.  Was I skeptical?
Oh, yeah.
I
still
haven’t read Kirkman’s series for fear that it will take away my enjoyment o
f the T.V. show I love so much.
I had come to the conclusion that it was imposs
i
ble to convey those moments of gut-wrenching horror, those pulse-stopping moments that make zombie movies so great,
in the written word. However, Brown was so nice.
He didn
’t ask for anything in return—
just an honest review of his work.  I had some time to kill and
figured I had not
h
ing to lose—
except maybe his friendship when I blew him out of the water with my bad r
e
view later on.

The bad review never came.
I was hooked from the first page of
Dead: The Ugly Beginning
.
This
is what I had be
en longing for!
Real
characters with
real
emotions, who never know if they’re making the right decisions, but do so anyway because other people are depen
d
ing on them.
I plowed my way through all three books in the series in three days:
DEAD: The Ugly Beginning
,
DEAD: Revelations
, and
DEAD:
Fortunes & Failures
.

I couldn’t put them down.
Why
do I love these books so much?
The answer is quite simple:  The zombies in the books take a back seat to the characters. Let’s face it; the zombies are just doing what zom
bies do.
They can no more change their actions than the ocean can cha
nge its direction in the tides.
They are min
dless and only know one thing—
to feed.  However, we learn in Brown’s series that the “walkers” (sorry, I had to throw that word in) are the least of the sur
vivors’ worries.
The real mo
n
sters a
re still breathing…still alive.
The real monsters are
us
.

Brown’s books are divided into different storylines
—or as I like to think of them—
families.  I have come to love all of these charac
ters.
There are good guys and gals, heroes, and villains that make you want to reach through the boo
k and choke the life from them.
I love the fact that there are several stories with
in
one story, but all have a com
mon goal—
survival and (for most of them) trying to do the right thing.

Every once in a while, you pick up a story, read it, and then can’t get it
off your mind when you’re done.
You think about it relentlessly, wonder about the characters’ backgrounds, what will happen to them, and what could ha
ve made things better for them.
You know things they don’t and wish you could jump i
n
to the story and tell them, because if you don’t, one of your favorit
e characters might get snuffed.
That is another reason why I love, yet sometimes get angry, at TW
Brown.
He is NOT afraid to
kill off a favorite character! Not even dogs are safe.
As I have read and come to love the amazing people who make up the
DEAD
series, I have re
ad these books on tenterhooks—
hoping with my fingers crossed that the next chapter won’t take Steve, Teresa, Thalia, or any of the others
that I consider too precious—
too important to die.  However, I know from reading Brown that no character is safe.