After the Bite (28 page)

Afterword

Hey. I’m David. If you’re reading this it means you picked up a copy of our book, and for that Seth and I want to thank you.

Writing, editing, and publishing this book has been a long and sometimes painful process. You make it worth it.

We hope you enjoyed our collection, and we hope you’ll continue to enjoy what we write in the future. We aren’t done writing, we aren’t done with the universe presented in this book, and we sincerely hope we aren’t done having a part in your life.

It’s been a long road and there’s a longer one ahead. We hope you’ll walk it with us.

Wherever your road takes you, we wish you happy travels. Stay safe, and don’t get eaten alive out there.

With love,

David Lovato and Seth Thomas

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 (personal and fan page) and Twitter.

Also by David Lovato:

“
Hole”, a short story, free at most ebook retailers.

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

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

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

You can also
find him on Facebook (personal and fan page) and Twitter.

Also by Seth Thomas:

“
The Morning Light”, a short story, free at most ebook retailers.

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

Coming soon from David Lovato and Seth Thomas:

In the Lone and Level Sands
, a zombie apocalypse novel.

More info here:
https://www.facebook.com/intheloneandlevelsands

Still here? That’s great!
I mentioned before that these stories are set in the universe of another work of fiction Seth and I have written. It’s called
In the Lone and Level Sands
, and it should be available November 2013. It follows seven groups of people around the country at the start of the same zombie apocalypse featured in this collection. Some of the characters in here show up there, and both books share a few shadows and ghosts.

The following is a sample chapter from that book.

Thanks again for sticking with us.

9

In the Air

The plane bobbed suddenly, and Layne gripped the arm of his seat tightly. Alex giggled.

“Don’t worry, it’s normal,” she said.

“I know,” Layne said.
He didn’t feel any better, though. He knew the chances of the plane going down were low, but he didn’t like high places, and a plane was just about as high a place as one could get. The plane jerked about, and Layne had the same reaction.

“You
’re going to rip the arm right off of the seat,” Alex said.

“It
’s a natural reaction,” Layne said. “I don’t like heights.”

“You
’re not even at the window.” Alex laughed.

“Doesn
’t mean I’m not thousands of feet in the air,” Layne said. Alex’s laughing didn’t annoy him; it actually had a sort of calming effect, it let him know how silly he was being.

The plane jerked harder than it had before, and Layne grabbed both arms and shut his eyes.

“Quit that,” Alex said. “You’re going to be fine.” She took Layne’s left hand, which startled him. The plane dipped slightly, and this time, he wasn’t allowed to squeeze. “See?”

Layne smiled. His right hand had still clamped down on the arm of the seat, but at least he was beginning to
appear less afraid. Layne looked at Alex’s hand and noticed a rainbow-colored bracelet with dice-block letters on it.

“I like your
bracelet,” he said. Alex laughed.

“Thanks. My mother made this for me when I was young.”

“What does it say?”

“It says
‘Hope Perseveres’. She used to say it a lot, whenever we were having trouble. She used to remind me that hope would get us through anything.”

“I like that,” Layne said. The plane shook again. “I can use it right about now, too.”

****

In the cabin the co-pilot, a young man named Oliver, was trying to make small talk, but the pilot gave one-word answers, if he said anything at all. Finally Oliver gave up, and hoped that the next flight would have a much friendlier captain.

It was dark out, so there was very little to look at other than the array of blinking lights and switches before him. Oliver thought he could fall asleep, then wondered if perhaps the pilot already had. It was impossible to tell behind the man’s aviator sunglasses.

A slow, steady beep brought Oliver out of his daydream. He looked for the source, and found that the plane had been slowly dropping altitude, and was starting to approach landing levels.

“Hey, man,” he said to the pilot, “you gonna get that?”

The pilot made no attempt to respond.

“Hellooooo?” Oliver said. He snapped his fingers before the pilot’s face. No answer. The pilot was out cold.

Oliver sighed and pulled up on his control stick. The plane didn
’t respond, and he realized that the pilot’s controls were overriding his own. Oliver leaned over the pilot, feeling awkward as he had his face near the guy’s lap. He searched for the override switch.

“Uhhhh,” the pilot said.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but since you’re so tired—”

The pilot leaned forward and bit into the back of Oliver
’s neck. Oliver screamed, and he could feel blood streaming down his neck. Then, he felt his skin tear as the pilot sat up.

Oliver scrambled away from the pilot.
“What the hell?” He pressed a hand against the back of his neck, but this only caused a sharp pain to shoot through his body. He thought he felt bone, but he couldn’t be sure.

The pilot struggled to get up, but was strapped into his chair. It was like he didn
’t know how to work a seatbelt. Still unsure of what was going on, Oliver took the opportunity and punched the pilot in the face. Oliver’s knuckles split, but the pilot merely recoiled and then returned to his attempt to unshackle himself. Oliver punched him again, and the pilot’s glasses snapped and flew from his face.

The pilot looked at Oliver. At least, Oliver
thought
he did. The pilot seemed distant, like his mind was somewhere else, leaving the body to do as it pleased.

Oliver got up and headed for the cabin door, but the pilot grabbed him as he was passing. Oliver struggled, but the pilot was stronger, and he took Oliver
’s arm in both hands before sinking his teeth into it. Oliver screamed again.

Oliver reached for his headset to radio the ground, but
he couldn’t reach. He began pounding on the pilot’s head and face as hard as he could. The pilot went on biting as though nothing was happening.

Another scrap of flesh was ripped from him, and Oliver was suddenly freed, and he fell to the ground.
He stood up, but fell back down. He suddenly felt incredibly dizzy and very faint, like his mind was leaving him, like sleep was creeping in. He crawled to the door and reached for the handle. He could grasp it, but he couldn’t open it, and even if he could have, he wouldn’t have been able to walk out. Oliver felt himself fading, and he wasn’t sure why. He was bleeding, but the whole matter had taken only a minute or two, so he didn’t think he was losing enough blood to die from it. What was going on?

Unsure of what to do, Oliver thought of everyone else on board. He reached just below the door handle and locked the cabin door, then let his arm fall to the floor. He almost immediately realized that he had probably done more harm than good, as now no one could get into the cabin to put the plane back into the air. It was the last rational thought he would ever have.

The pilot thrashed in his seat, unable to undo his belts. He began frantically pounding the board before him, and then there was a loud chugging sound.

****

Layne was still holding Alex’s hand when he heard the noise. It was like a loud, sporadic whirring, and then, after a moment, the whirring ceased. Layne looked out through the window and saw nothing but black. He looked back into the plane before him, and saw a bag of peanuts that had been on his tray slide toward him, and then he felt the incline. Then he heard the screams, felt himself lift out of his seat. If he could talk, he would’ve asked Alex if this too was normal, knowing perfectly well that it was not.

The plane was falling.

Copyright Information

“The River”, “Holy War”, “The Living Dead”, “On 68
th
and Woodland Drive”, “Sanctuary”, “Grampa’s War Story”, “Dead and Gone”, “Alone Up There”, “Thy Neighbor”, “Two Worlds”, “BAZK”, “Ghost Story”, and sample chapter copyright © 2012 by David Lovato.

“On the Road”, “Tragedy in Belford”, “Death’s Robe”, “Concrete Nightmare”, “Acceptance”, “Dog’s Story”, “Grim is the Truth”, “Did Your Mama Ever Tell You the Story of the Day You Were Born?”, and “Like Fish” copyright © 2012 by Seth Thomas.

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