Authors: TW Brown
Dead: Winter (2 page)
When we last left our friends in
DEAD: Fortunes & Fai
l
ures
, it seemed they were settling down nicely for t
he winter in their new “homes.”
Steve and Melissa got married, Jamie a
l
most turned into a zombie, but lucked out with food poisoning, Jason was finally disposed of, and Teresa and Melissa are both pre
g
nant.
We also witnessed the demise of poor Emily’s dad and believe me, I c
ried through that whole ordeal.
Are people su
p
posed to
cry when reading zombie novels?
Whether they are supposed to or not, get your ti
s
sues ready.
In the Geeks
’
story, our beloved Kevin has found a girlfriend in Aleah, Heather and Matt are b
e
coming close, Erin has her baby, and she, Shari and Peter are still as useless as gum on the bo
t
tom of your s
hoe when it comes to real work.
Lastly, Shaw and his men at The Basket are no more. After God only knows how many weeks of to
r
ture at the hands of the despicable Garrett, Kirsten finally m
anages to break free from him—
only to die, but at least s
he took Garrett down with her. Can you say ‘satisfying?’
Juan and Macke
n
zie have found true love in one another, along with some new friends (remember
JoJ
o, Thad, and Keith?), and new members have been a
dded to their li
t
tle community.
I felt bad when Ma
r
g
aret died, but I saw it coming.
Last
ly, we have Chad’s group.
I
am most worried about this one.
They have made it to Yosemite, but it appears that many in their group are afraid to get their hands dirty, not to mention that Chad’s daughter, Ronni, is still very di
s
tant from him and blames him for things he has no control over. No, I didn’t cover everything that happ
ens in the third book.
What I have written is just a small part of the exciting, nail-biting m
o
ments.
As we move to the fourth book,
DEAD: Winter
,
I am scared, yet I can’t wait.
I have heard from reliable sources this book is “dreary and bleak.” That is enough to make me want to read it with my hands partially covering my face; you know, like how we used to watch ho
r
ror movies when we were kids?
I think this book will be
a turning point in the series.
I think people
we have come to love will die.
I think Todd and I will not speak for a while after I am finished with this book (I’m jo
k
ing…maybe)
. Nevertheless, I am ready.
I have my box of Kleenex, my coffee, and the lights have been turned down low. Come along on thi
s journey with me, if you will.
I honestly don’t think I can go there by myself.
Nicole Storey
Author—
Grimsley Hollow-The Chosen One
Author’s Note:
It has been a crazy journey since the release of
DEAD: Fo
r
tunes & Failures
. Back then, sales did well enough to pay for the expenses of the next book…mostly. Then, Amazon announced the KDP program. (No, this is not going to be an advertisement for the online juggernaut.) The initial response from May D
e
cember Publications was to wait and see. As word began to spread about three- and four-fold sales increases from people who signed up…we decided to test the waters.
In one weekend, the MDP test subject,
Zomblog
, gave away 10,000 copies! Okay, that was fun, but would it equate to sales? One month later, we were selling as many books in three days as we normally did in a good month! The month after that, I was able to quit my “day” job and devote m
y
self full time to what I love…writing.
So here I sit…one month into my new life as a writer. There is a moment—at least there was for me—where you stop feeling like you are a person who writes, and actually feel like a writer. It is the greatest feeling in the world.
As the second arc of the
DEAD
series begins, I actually feel a little bit of pressure. For the first time, I know for a fact that there are people waiting for this book. I have said on numerous occasions that it is you, The Reader, that I write for. I have star
t
ed getting fan letters from some of you who tell me about your favorite scenes…or about a part that made you cry. I want you to know that I read (and save) every single one. I try to answer them as quickly as possible. Your words mean more than I can say, and I want to thank you all for making my dreams come true.
For those of you who have taken the time to not only read my work, but to write a review and post it on your blogs, sites like Goodreads.com, or on Amazon, I read those as well. In many cases, I have tried to leave a comment thanking you…even if you didn’t exactly care for my work. To those of you that I may have missed, let me thank you right here.
A very special thank you to The Fluffy Red Fox for her wonderful comments that went into the final crafting of this work. As an author, I have discovered that your fans often know your work better than you. I appreciate you and am forever humbled by how devoted you are to my work.
As always, there is a plethora of people who I must acknowledge because, without them, I would not be where I am…or
who
I am: Denise, anybody who knows me knows that I couldn’t do this wit
h
out you; my daughter, Ronni, who graduates this year…your daddy is so proud of you; Cody and Alex…I love you more than you will ever realize; Jenifer, no daughter could be a better son; Shawn Conn, you are an amazing artist and we are fortunate to have you; Nickie Storey-Bailey, Vix Kirkpa
t
rick, Mike (The Geek) Ridenour and Valarie “Woodstock” Griffiths-Brown …thanks to you each individually for b
e
ing my friend.
As always, I want to say to you, the readers who keep coming back...thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Baby, it’s cold outside…
TW Brown
April 2012
Visit Amazon’s Author Page for TW Brown
Table of Contents
Chapter 3 – The
Best Laid Plans of a Geek…
Chapter 4 –
Death and a B
irthday
Chapter 6 – Geek and the Princess
Chapter 10 –
Painful F
arewells
and Tough C
hoices
Chapter 12 –
No R
est for the Geek
Chapter 13 –
Bad Weather and Bad N
ews
Chapter 15 –
Geeks, Doctors, and S
now
O
ver
“Steve!” Dr. Zahn yelled, almost making me lose my balance and plummet into the trench su
r
rounding the hill that the former visitor’s center we now call home rests atop. “Jon says that two of the camps haven’t had any signs of activity in at least the past three days.”
“You trying to get me back under your knife, Francis?” I quipped.
“What on earth are you talking about?” the doctor asked flatly, trying to ignore my use of her first name. What is it about doctors and the whole thing where they insist you refer to them by title?
“I was trying to dredge out some of the crap in this trench from the last burning.” I indicated to the gaping chasm I was standing on the edge of with a giant claw-like device that Ian had fashioned to fish out the bones and such that build up when a few hundred of them get torched. “You scared the crap out of me and almost made me fall in.”
“Then you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings and should consider yourself lucky that it was just an elderly doctor who managed to surprise you.”
She had a good point. I had, in fact, been daydreaming. It had only been three weeks since Meli
s
sa and I were married, but it had been three of the happiest in my life. Funny. Here I am, trying to stay alive when the world was being overrun by the walking dead, and I’ve never been so happy. How miserable was my previous life?
“When did Jon get back?” I asked, deciding that this conversation with Dr. Zahn needed to change course.
“He and Sunshine just set their packs on the porch and are in the examination room waiting for my check up.”
It was a standing rule: if you go out on a mission, you get inspected for bites or scratches first thing. Even though we now knew that the disease that turned you into a zombie wasn’t a hundred pe
r
cent lock if you were “nipped or clipped” as Jon liked to say, you still got checked out upon arrival.