The words are coming much easier now and I’m really very fond of this novel. I can’t wait to get it done so I can share it with people (my brain won’t let me send out WIPs for critique).

And here is a short excerpt — warning, this is a pretty violent and profane passage, it is, after all, a zombie novel

~*~

Geraldine watched Alice’s face. As Scrub-boy and Shanise came within touching distance, Alice’s nostrils flared and a wild-look of awareness crept into her eyes.

It reminded Geraldine of the time an ex-boyfriend talked her into going hunting with him. After getting up obscenely early and freezing her ass off in a blind for hours, finally a deer had come into sight. She’d watched it through binoculars while Ross lined it up in his scope. Then, without warning the breeze shifted and blew from behind them, straight at the deer. She’d watched its notstrils flare and its eyes go wide and scared-looking. Then it had stomped its foot and bolted back into the underbrush, all before Ross managed a single shot.

That was how Alice looked now, only instead of stomping and running, she lurched forward. Scrub-boy reached out, planning to catch her, Geraldine suspected, unfortunately it was he who got caught.

Alice grabbed him by both shoulders and pulled him toward her. At the same time she tilted her head and lunged forward, fastening her teeth on his nose. Scrub-boy screamed and pulled back, leaving a good portion of his nose behind in Alice’s mouth. The motion reminded Geraldine of a ghastly parody of how children get a freezie out of the wrapper with their teeth.

In amongst the blood which now covered Scrub-boy and Alice both, Geraldine could see something translucent and white where his nose used to be. Cartilage, she thought, it must be cartilage.

Scrub-boy clutched his nose and staggered backward, while Shanise stumbled to the side. Her eyes were wide and glazed with what Geradine assumed to be shock and terror. She could relate to those feelings very well.

~*~

This contains a fair bit of foul language, so read at your own risk.

Monday, January 14, 2008 11:06 am

The hospital was on fire. Again. Devon cursed and muttered under his breath. Goddamn homeless people. When were they going to learn not to set the fricking place on fire? When?

He leaned up against the fire truck he’d arrived at the scene in, and watched everyone scurry around. To the untrained eye it would look like chaos, but Devon had been a firefighter for long enough to know what was going on, and he knew, very soon, he’d be going in. He could see it in the way the captain kept glancing over at he and Fred.

Devon took off his helmet, ran his fingers through his raven hair and nudged Fred with his elbow. Fred turned to look at him, eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”

“We’re goin’ in, I expect.”

“Ye ever been in there?” Fred asked with a tilt of his head. Devon noticed that the skinnier man was licking his lips nervously.

“The Camsell? Yeah sure, lotsa times. The bums set it on fire every couple months. Never this bad before though,” he said, looking over at the smoke pouring out of almost a quarter of the windows.

“I hear it’s haunted.”

“Eh, people always say shit like that about old abandoned buildings – especially ones like hospitals where loads of people have died.”

“I guess so,” Fred muttered, and Devon watched his pink tongue dart out and lick at the corner of his mouth again. “I guess so.”

“You don’t believe in all that shit, do you?”

“Who me? Nah.” Fred said.

Devon could see that he was lying. Fuck, he thought. Bad enough I’m here this afternoon, but to be stuck here partnered with the rookie, an apparently superstitious rookie, it was as if the fates were conspiring against him.