Blood Red
Authors: Jason Bovberg
Tags: #undead, #survival, #colorado, #splatter, #aliens, #alien invasion, #alien, #end times, #gore, #zombies, #apocalypse, #zombie, #horror
“An epic addition to the genre,
Blood
Red
brings apocalyptic literature home to the suburbs. Ranging
from the gritty to the surreal, the story delivers a nonstop,
real-time experience of the End Times—replete with visceral terror,
buckets of gore, and, ultimately, a redemptive humanity. As
touching as it is anguishing, Bovberg’s novel gives us a new and
deeply compelling perspective on the collapse of the modern
world.”
—Alden Bell, author of
The Reapers Are the Angels
and
Exit Kingdom
“
Blood Red
occupies a post-apocalyptic
landscape that both excites and terrifies. This book gets seriously
under your skin. Jason Bovberg proves he’s got the goods with a
whole new kind of horror novel.”
—Tom Piccirilli, author of
The Last Whisper in the Dark
and
The Last Kind Words
“With
Blood Red
, Jason Bovberg pulls
off something you don’t even see attempted very often, much less
accomplished. He infuses a post-apocalyptic tale with a sustained
sense of genuine mystery; of having no idea what’s happening to the
world and the people around you, or why. Even when you think it may
be solved … no, it isn't. The endgame, and the surreal nightmare,
has only just begun.”—Brian Hodge, author of
Whom the Gods Would
Destroy
and
Dark Advent
“Highest praise for Jason Bovberg.
Blood
Red
is a harrowing tale assuredly set forth. The pacing is
relentless and inexorable, the details vivid and chilling, as
Rachel and her fellow survivors balance staying alive with a race
to figure out how to counter the horrors advancing upon them.
Guaranteed to creep you out!”
—Robert Devereaux, author of
Deadweight
and
Santa Steps
Out
“You've been to the end of the world before,
but never quite like this. Jason Bovberg has managed the difficult
trick of making the zombie apocalypse scary and unpredictable
again, combining fresh ideas with well-realized characters and a
fast-moving, suspenseful plot to create a memorable horror
novel.”
—Richard Lee Byers, author of
Blind God’s Bluff
and
The
Reaver
“Take a little bit of
The Stand
, add a
dash of
The Passage
, throw in some
Dawn of the Dead
,
and top it off with John Carpenter’s
The Thing
—then throw
all that out the window, because Jason Bovberg’s
Blood Red
is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Every time I thought I
knew where the story was heading, Bovberg proved me dead wrong.
Well written with an exquisite pace and populated with believable
characters,
Blood Red
is deliciously creepy and completely
riveting. It starts as a slow-burn freak-out and culminates in a
series of horror-show set pieces that will forever be etched in my
mind (three words:
the pregnant thing
). This book made my
skin crawl.”
—Grant Jerkins, author of
A Very Simple Crime
and
The
Ninth Step
“Do you like stories about body snatchers?
Strange atmospheric phenomena? Reanimated bodies shambling,
zombie-like, in search of prey? Heck yeah! Who doesn’t, especially
when those tales are set in a quiet Colorado town? Newcomer Jason
Bovberg dishes up just such a classic in
Blood Red
and, even
better, he closes the tale in true Frederic Brown style by showing
you that in fact, things are
MUCH CREEPIER THAN YOU
IMAGINED
.”—Mark Minasi, bestselling author and tech
journalist
"With
Blood Red
, Jason Bovberg serves
up a fresh, grisly take on apocalyptic horror fiction, complete
with a plucky young heroine, strangely glowing orbs of goo, and
enough gloppy gore and steaming viscera to please the most
blood-thirsty of readers. I was eagerly turning the pages to reach
the 'Where the hell did that come from?' conclusion!"—Jeff James,
author of
Totally Unauthorized X-COM Terror From the Deep: The
Ultimate Guide to Alien Destruction
“
Blood Red
will freak you out with its
gripping narrative and terrifying action. Jason Bovberg has come up
with a blood-curdling tale of the reanimated dead, a fascinating
apocalyptic story told from the perspective of a smart and fierce
heroine. The way the bodies move around still gives me the
creeps!”—Ted Hill, author of
Sudden Independents
A PERMUTED PRESS book
Published at Smashwords
ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-2-536
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-2-543
Blood Red
copyright © 2013
by Jason Bovberg
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Roy Migabon
This book is a work of fiction. People,
places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s
imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or
historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without
the written permission of the author and publisher.
Table of Contents
To my dad
John Bovberg
My inspiration
My hero
I wish I could have saved him
“
Rachel!”
Rachel lurches up from sleep, disoriented.
She’s immediately assaulted by a sharp pain above her left eye. She
frowns with distaste, then yawns. Her mouth is dry and funky, and
her sinuses feel pummeled. Her stomach is undergoing a prolonged
lurch. She can’t even remember how or when she found her way to her
bed. These are all vestiges of last night, although most of it is
merely a blank spot in her memory.
“Dad?” she mutters, half-conscious. Did her
dad call to her?
She finally opens her eyes into a squint. The
early morning throbs through the curtains, along with some kind of
distant keening. A siren? No, that’s not it. Dust particles shift
in a dim, reddish beam, caught in a hot breeze that bloats the dark
curtain. There’s a deep sound like retreating thunder coming from
far away, fading into the distance—or maybe it’s just the
soundtrack of her headache.
She knows she ought to apologize to her dad.
Last night before jumping into Tony’s new Subaru, she’d said some
things.
Yelled
some things, really. She tries to tamp down
all that nonsense. She’s tired of feeling this way all the time.
The inevitability of guilt. She’s not the one who—oh, forget
it.
“
What
, Dad?” she tries again, pushing
a little exasperation into her voice.
What time is it?
she wonders. She
twists toward the clock, bleary-eyed.
6:17 a.m.
“Oh good lord,” she whispers.
Then she holds her breath, listening. Besides
the sounds from outside—the faraway whine and what seems to be the
angry wailing of a cat a few doors down—there’s nothing. She
reaches up and digs the sleep from her eyes. Her heart is beating
rapidly now, waking her fully. Her mind feels clouded by the
remnants of some kind of twitchy nightmare.
Rachel sits up, her bare feet touching warm
wooden floorboards.
She stands carefully, a little off-balance,
and assesses the situation. Her clothes are in disarray across her
floor, all of them inside out, hastily tossed. There’s a vague odor
of smoke in the room, no doubt from the clothes. Somehow she
managed to pull on her nightgown last night, but she doesn’t
remember doing it. Her panties are still nested within her
wadded-up jeans, and she finally finds her bra flung over a
middle-school spelling bee trophy that her dad insisted she keep
displayed on her dresser, even now, into her late teens. She shakes
her head mildly at the sight.
Her mouth tastes foul. She doesn’t have any
memory of brushing her teeth following her late night in Old Town.
She doesn’t even recall Tony driving her home. She
does
remember the overriding intention to stay out later than her dad or
Susanna might wait up for her.