In the Lone and Level Sands (90 page)

“What is it, Dex?” Layne said.

“My watch is working.”

“That’s good, Dex.”

“No… Remember? It’s a satellite watch. It
hasn’t worked since the plane.”

Everyone stopped moving. Layne turned to
Dex. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, look.” Dex offered his watch for the
others to see. “It’s almost 7:30.”

Katie turned to Layne. “Do you think
he
was doing it? Blocking airborne signals, somehow?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m
just glad they work.” He looked at his bracelet again.

“So,” Keely said, wrapping her arms around
Katie. “Where to, now?”

“I think it’s time we settled down
somewhere,” Layne said. “I mean, if you’re all still willing to
follow me.”

“Are you kidding?” Dex said. “You’re stuck
with us. Forever.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without each
other,” Ralph said.

“We’re family,” Warren said.

Layne thought he might cry.

“Then I have an idea of where we can go. It
isn’t the safest place in the world, but it isn’t far.”

****

They parked in the same lot they had stopped
in upon arriving in Los Angeles. The radio station was empty. Layne
sat in the main booth with a microphone in front of him, studying
the controls. It was silent in the booth; the song from his dream
was long gone, and Layne had a feeling he’d never hear it
again.

Outside, after they finished fueling and
starting the generator, Keely and Katie searched through the
remains of the old cars. One had burned out long before, but the
other, still turned on its side, hadn’t suffered much damage.

“Maybe some of our stuff is still in there,”
Katie said. Keely peered in through the window and saw a small
metal spiral. Her heart skipped a beat. She reached in, having to
lift her feet completely off of the ground, and pulled out her
sketchbook. It was intact. She turned to the drawing Brandon had
made for her what felt like forever ago.

“What’s that?” Katie asked.

“It’s a drawing,” Keely said. “From an old
friend.”

The two embraced, and kissed below the
sunset.

With as many manuals and charts as he could
find spread out on the console, Layne decided he was as ready as he
would ever be. He consulted a large book, flipped a few switches,
and watched as the bright red “On Air” sign lit up.

Layne pulled the microphone to his mouth.
His friends watched from behind the large glass window behind the
console. Vince waved and mouthed another “thank you”. Katie and
Keely soon joined them.

“I don’t know if anyone out there is
listening,” Layne said, “if anyone happens to have their radios on.
I know it’s been a while since these things worked, but they work
now. I hope someone out there can hear me.

“Like a lot of you out there, I have a
story. It’s a long story, and it’s a tiring one. It’s a sad one.
Something I’m sure most of you can sympathize with. But there’s
something else we all have in common, me sitting here in this
station, and all of you out there, anyone bothering to listen,
anyone able to understand me. We’re still alive.

“A few weeks ago, something happened.
Something changed our world, and our lives, in ways we couldn’t
possibly have imagined. And in the chaos and the horror that
followed, a lot of people died. A lot of my good friends died.”
Layne fought to choke down the tears.

“But what you might not know is that
something else happened, that night. We were all given a new
chance. Everyone, every single one of us gets a new life. It
doesn’t matter who you are anymore, it doesn’t matter where you’re
from, or what you believe, or what you’ve done. This is our chance
to start over new. Hope perseveres.

“I met a man a few days ago, and he said
this was the year of our death. He called it—” Layne paused for a
moment to try to remember. “He called it Anno Letum. And he called
it
their world
. But I disagree. I think this is the year of
our rebirth. You can call it a renaissance, if you like. I like to
call it ‘life after death’. It’s our chance to start over. It’s our
new world. It’s our…” He looked at Garrett. Garrett smiled. “It’s
our lone and level sands. Our blank canvas.

“The world we left behind wasn’t perfect. We
were killing each other off in droves even before most of our
population turned into cannibals. We were crazy, then. But things
are different now. We have a new chance. To everyone out there,
anyone who might be listening, I want you to stay strong. To keep
your hope alive.”

Layne stopped to clear his throat. He felt a
little silly, not knowing if anyone could even hear him.

“I’m going to continue broadcasting from
this station for as long as I’m physically able to. I hope I can
offer some help to anyone out there in this new world of ours. It’s
not a perfect world, but it can be anything we make it to be. It’s
a harsh world, and a dangerous one. But it’s filled with
opportunities.

“I wish you the best of luck. Remember, this
is still our world. Let’s get it right, this time.”

####

Afterword

The earliest incarnation of this novel began
in early 2008. Seth and I had been writing short stories for years,
and we were both huge fans of the zombie genre, so we decided to
put the two together and collaborate on a zombie story.

The only thing I remember about that version
is that it started in an airport, and my main character was a
woman. I have searched to no avail to find the actual draft; it
appears to have been lost during some computer hardware failure or
another. I also remember we didn't get very far before scrapping
the project, probably due to the loss of the document.

In December 2008, we decided to take another
shot at it. We started from scratch, taking turns writing a chapter
and sending it back and forth. For the most part, I wrote Layne's
arc (and the Norman Peters chapters that come between each part of
the book) and Max's arc, while Seth wrote Evan's, Martha's, and
Charlotte's arcs. A little way into the first draft, Seth came up
with the idea for Jordan's arc, and I had been piecing together
Zoe's (which was originally going to be part of a very different
apocalypse story, but I was missing some essential pieces that, as
it turns out, were present in this one).

We finished the first draft in December of
2010. Soon after, we began the process of editing it. In the
subsequent months, after countless hours of work and arguments and
lost sleep and 40-hour weeks (without pay, as in most writing
careers, that comes later), we realized neither of us really knew
what we were doing.

The project went on hold. We both read books
on writing and editing (and anything else—you can't write if you
don't read), and we worked on other projects.

Somewhere along the way, we had other ideas
that didn't quite fit into the overall narrative of this book. I
came up with idea to separate them into a collection of short
stories, which was put on hold around the same time.

Over the years, we finished another draft of
In the Lone and Level Sands, and sent a few queries to agents. What
we learned was that the book was way too long to gain much interest
on that front.

In late 2012, after a few more years of
understanding how this works, I went back and finished editing the
short stories. It's almost impossible to publish a collection if
you're a first-time author, so we self-published it as
After the
Bite
in November 2012.

After the Bite
was met with a
reception that was small but on the whole positive. (At least, we
didn't hear many complaints.) I was happy with it, which I think
inspired me to pick this one back up.

In August 2013 I went through one last round
of editing, this time with the benefit of not having read it in a
long time. It occurred to me that a lot of the messages in the book
are still relevant (though some pop culture references had to be
brought forward in time a few years) and that I still liked the
story, as well as the ideas Seth and I have for possible future
works. Since we self-published
After the Bite
, we decided to
stick with that route for this one.

In the Lone and Level Sands
has been
a monolith watching from behind me for a long time. It's the
largest and most complex project I've ever worked on, not to
mention the most time-consuming. I'm excited to finally present it
to the world as a finished product that I'm overall proud of. One
of the longest chapters of my life is coming to a close, and I
can't wait to see what comes next.

Seth and I want to thank our friends and
family for being there to answer silly questions like “Where would
you least like to be during the zombie apocalypse?” and “Would
meatloaf still be good after three days in the fridge?”

And, of course, we want to thank you, for
reading the words we put on these pages. Without you, they’d be
meaningless.

David Lovato

October 2013

About the
Authors

David Lovato was born in California. He spent
his early years moving from house to house, eventually settling in
Gladstone, Missouri. Seth Thomas moved to Gladstone a year later,
and the two met on the school bus, where for years they traded
stories they’d written until they decided to write some
together.

David’s blog can be found here:
http://davidjlovato.wordpress.com

You can also find him on
Facebook
and
Twitter
.

Also by David Lovato:

“Hole”, a short story, available for free
through most ebook retailers.

Dark Things
, a collection of four
short stories, available through most ebook retailers.

Six and Seven
, a novella, available
through most ebook retailers.

Seth’s blog can be found here:
http://sevidian.wordpress.com

You can also find him on
Facebook
and
Twitter
.

Also by Seth Thomas:

“The Morning Light”, a short story, available
for free through most ebook retailers.

After Death
, a novel, available in
print and through most ebook retailers.

Also by David Lovato and Seth Thomas:

After the Bite
, a collection of short
stories set before, during, and after the zombie apocalypse.
Available in print and through most ebook retailers.

Copyright Info

Copyright © 2013 David Lovato and Seth
Thomas

Author picture designs by Seth Thomas, art by
Laura Soret, copyright © 2012 Laura Soret
http://suthnmeh.deviantart.com/

Cover picture design by David Lovato and Seth
Thomas, art by Laura Soret, text by David Lovato, copyright © 2013
Laura Soret