Game Over
Authors: Andrew Klavan
ACCLAIM FOR ANDREW KLAVAN
“Fast paced action and creative world building make this an engaging read beyond the teen market.”
â
W
ORLD
M
AGAZINE
ON
H
OSTAGE
R
UN
“While
MindWar
was very good,
Hostage Run
is even better. Character development, nail-biting suspense, and action keep readers on the edge of their seats, and the ending? You will have to read and see!”
âR
EDEEMED
R
EADER.COM
“Edgar Awardâwinning Klavan's well-orchestrated fantasy thriller features . . . an imaginative mix of gaming action with real-life stakes. With just the right cliff-hanger ending, this trilogy opener shows promise.”
â
B
OOKLIST
ON
M
IND
W
AR
“. . . the focus is on action, and there's just enough left unresolved to tempt readers onward.”
â
K
IRKUS
R
EVIEWS
ON
M
IND
W
AR
“A fantastic read. Fast-paced and wildly imaginative,
MindWar
is a cinematic cyber thriller with more twists than a circuit board.”
âJ
OHN
D
IXON
,
AUTHOR OF
P
HOENIX
I
SLAND
(
INSPIRATION FOR THE
CBS TV
SHOW
I
NTELLIGENCE
)
“Klavan retains his James Pattersonâlike gift for keeping pages turning, and the mystery behind it all . . . is a juicy one, and well handled.”
â
B
OOKLIST
ON
N
IGHTMARE
C
ITY
“This book will appeal to anyone who is looking for a fast-paced adventure story in which teens must do some fast thinking to survive.”
â
S
CHOOL
L
IBRARY
J
OURNAL
ON
I
F
W
E
S
URVIVE
“Klavan turns up the heat for YA fiction . . .”
â
P
UBLISHERS
W
EEKLY
ON
I
F
W
E
S
URVIVE
“The original plot is full of twists and turns and unexpected treasures. Klavan's writing is quick, tight, exciting, and intense. The adrenaline-charged action will keep you totally immersed.”
â
RT B
OOK
R
EVIEWS
, 4½
STARS ON
C
RAZY
D
ANGEROUS
“A thriller that reads like a teenage version of
24
. . . an adrenaline-pumping adventure.”
âT
HE
D
AILY
B
EAST.COM ON
T
HE
L
AST
T
HING
I R
EMEMBER
“Action sequences that never let up . . . wrung for every possible drop of nervous sweat.”
â
B
OOKLIST
ON
T
HE
L
ONG
W
AY
H
OME
“[Klavan] is a solid storyteller with a keen eye for detail and vivid descriptive power . . .
The Long Way Home
is something like âThe Hardy Boys' crossed with the âMy Teacher Is an Alien' series.”
â
W
ASHINGTON
T
IMES
“I'm buying everything Klavan is selling, from the excellent first person narrative, to the gut-punching action; to the perfect doses of humor and wit . . . it's all working for me.”
âJ
AKE
C
HISM
, F
ICTION
A
DDICT.COM
“Through it all, Charlie teaches lessons in Christian decency and patriotism, not by talking about those things, or even thinking about them much, but through practicing them . . . Well done, Andrew Klavan.”
â
T
HE
A
MERICAN
C
ULTURE
ON THE
H
OMELANDERS SERIES
OTHER BOOKS BY ANDREW KLAVAN
THE MINDWAR TRILOGY
MindWar
Hostage Run
Game Over
Nightmare City
If We Survive
Crazy Dangerous
THE HOMELANDERS SERIES
The Last Thing I Remember
The Long Way Home
The Truth of the Matter
The Final Hour
Copyright © 2016 by Andrew Klavan
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherâexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture quotations are taken from The KING JAMES VERSION and The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
®
(ESV
®
), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 9781401688998 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Klavan, Andrew, author.
Title: Game over / Andrew Klavan.
Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, [2015] | Series: The MindWar trilogy ; book 3 | Summary: "Rick emerged victorious from The Realm twice. Is his luck about to run out?"-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015028782 | ISBN 9781401688981 (hardback)
Subjects: | CYAC: Virtual reality--Fiction. | Video games--Fiction. | Terrorism--Fiction. | Paralysis--Fiction. | People with disabilities--Fiction. | Christian life--Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.K67823 Gam 2015 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015028782
16 17 18 19 20 RRD 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
BOSS LEVEL: THE KING OF THE DEAD
28. KILLER PLANTS FROM OUTER SPACE
THE CITY WAS
empty except for the dead, but the dead were everywhere. Rick saw them staring at him through darkened windows, their jaws slack, their eyes open but lifeless. He saw their bodies lying in the gutters. He saw them sitting slumped at the tables in the outdoor taverns, or lying crumpled in the shop doorways, as if death had found them going out or coming in. He saw the soldiers propped against the courtyard walls, their swords still gripped in their hands, their mouths twisted in an eerie rictusâthat fixed grin of slow decay.
Where am I?
he thought. His heart was pounding. His head was spinning.
Am I back in the Realm? What part? I've never seen this place before. How did I get here?
His stare moved over the lifeless forms all around him. These weren't human bodies, not entirely human, anyway. Some were the corpses of those weird half-Boar creatures he had done battle with before, gigantic, tusked pigs that stood on two legs and wielded their weapons with strangely shortened arms that were covered in bristling thick, spiky
hair. Others were the dead Cobra Guards; he'd battled them, too, on Kurodar's WarCraft: enormous snakes that could drop from their stunted legs onto their bellies and slither after you with lightning speed and dagger-sharp fangs. And there were some forms, some corpses, he did not recognize. Horrible, human-size bats with the hideous gray faces of ancient crones, wild, wiry hair, and claws like razor blades. They looked like the Harpies he'd seen in books about Greek mythology.
Rick felt confusion rising up inside him, filling him like a kind of fog.
What is this place? How did I get here?
And still he stood staring, staring at the dead. Some of the cadavers had practically rotted to skeletons. Some were worse than that, more horrible, part skeleton, still part flesh. And some were nearly whole. They seemed to have stopped breathing only a moment ago. But wherever he looked, the dead were looking back at him, grinning back at him. It made Rick's stomach sour with disgust.
He began to move down the street. A city street. What city? Where? Was it a dream? He wasn't sure. It didn't feel like a dream. It felt all too real.
He stopped at an intersection of two broad highways. He slowly turned his head, passing his eyes over the scene, squinting in the bright morning light.
Quiet. The whole city was so quiet. Flies buzzing somewhereâhe didn't want to know where or around what. And now and then there came a faint breath of wind
that carried the foul stench of rotting meat with it. There was no sun visible in the weirdly yellow sky, and yet the sky seemed to radiate heat. It occurred to Rick that even the fresh bodies would not stay fresh for long.