Day by Day Armageddon: Shattered Hourglass
Read Day by Day Armageddon: Shattered Hourglass Online
Authors: J. L. Bourne
Praise for J.L. Bourne’s page-turning novels of the zombie apocalypse
DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON
DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON: BEYOND EXILE
“There is zombie fiction and then there is crawl-out-of-the-grave-and-drag-you-to-hell zombie fiction.
Day by Day Armageddon
is hands-down the best zombie book I have
ever
read.
Dawn of the Dead
meets
28 Days Later
doesn’t even come close to describing how fantastic this thriller is. It is so real, so terrifying, and so well written that I slept with not one, but two loaded Glocks under my pillow for weeks afterward. J.L. Bourne is the new king of hardcore zombie action!”
—Brad Thor, #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Athena Project
“An excellent addition to a zombie section of a library, or anyone’s home collection.”
—Bret Jordan,
Monster Librarian
“A dramatic spin on the zombie story. It has depth, a heart, and compelling characters.”
—Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of
Patient Zero
“A visceral insight into the psyche of a skilled survivor. . . . Claws at the reader’s mind.”
—Gregory Solis, author of
Rise and Walk
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If you made it this far, you have likely spent some time in my post-apocalyptic world through the pages of the first two
Day by Day Armageddon
novels. Foremost, I’d like to thank you—the dedicated fans—for punching yet another ticket on the train with non-stop service through the bleak landscapes of undead armageddon.
Sit back, settle in, and make ready for what
could
be the final chapter in the
Day by Day Armageddon
saga. This one will be different, you’ll see.
Although this story is best enjoyed chronologically, if you are just beginning the
Day by Day Armageddon
saga, allow me to bring you up to speed.
The two-minute version:
The first volume of
Day by Day Armageddon
took us deep into the mind of a military officer and survivor as he made a New Year’s resolution to start keeping a journal. The man kept his resolution, chronicling the fall of humanity, day by day. We see him transition from the life that you and I live, to the prospect of fighting for his very survival against the overwhelming hordes of the dead. We see him bleed, we see him make mistakes, we witness him evolve.
While surviving numerous trials and travails in the first volume of
Day by Day Armageddon,
the protagonist and his neighbor John escape the government-sanctioned nuclear annihilation of San Antonio, Texas. They make their way to temporary safety onboard a boat dock on the gulf shores of Texas, and soon after receive a weak radio transmission.
A family of survivors—a man named William, his wife Janet, and their young daughter Laura, all that remain of their former
community—take shelter in their attic while untold numbers of undead creatures search for them below. After a miraculous rescue, the family joins forces with our protagonist to stay alive. As they scout the outlying areas for supplies, they encounter a woman named Tara trapped and near death in an abandoned car surrounded by the undead.
They eventually find themselves sheltering inside an abandoned strategic missile facility known by the long deceased former occupants as Hotel 23. Their union may not be enough in a dead world, an unforgiving post-apocalyptic place in which a simple infected cut, not to mention the millions of walking undead, can easily kill them, adding to the already overwhelming undead population.
The situation brought out the worst in some . . .
Without warning a band of brigands, seeing targets of opportunity, mercilessly begin an assault on Hotel 23, intending to murder the survivors for the shelter and take the vast supplies inside. Narrowly pushed back at the end of the first novel, the survivors were able to hold Hotel 23 for the time being.
In the second installment,
Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile,
our protagonist connects with the remnants of military ground forces in Texas. As the last military officer known to be alive on the mainland, he soon finds himself in command. He establishes communications with the acting Chief of Naval Operations onboard a working nuclear aircraft carrier on station in the Gulf of Mexico.
He also discovers a handwritten letter telling of a family—the Davises—hiding out at an outlying airport within prop aircraft range of Hotel 23. The rescue mission results in the extraction of the Davis family—a young boy named Danny and his very capable civilian pilot grandmother, Dean.
After being allotted a functioning scout helicopter from the carrier battle group, he and his men begin searching for resources in the areas north of Hotel 23. Halfway through
Beyond Exile,
our protagonist suffers a catastrophic helicopter crash hundreds of miles north of the facility. Severely injured, he is the lone survivor.
Running dangerously low on provisions, he manages to trek south. He soon encounters Remote Six, a shadowy group with unknown
motives, hell-bent on getting him back to Hotel 23. Later he stumbles upon an Afghani sniper named Saien. Little is known about Saien’s background, and his cryptic demeanor only adds to the mystery. At the start, neither fully trust one another, but Saien and our protagonist work together and eventually return to Hotel 23 under the watchful eyes of Remote Six.
Remote Six orders our protagonist to launch the remaining nuclear warhead on the aircraft carrier. The order is ignored and a high-tech retaliation against Hotel 23 ensues. A sonic javelin weapon known as Project Hurricane is dropped by Remote Six, attracting legions of undead creatures to the region.
The sonic weapon is eventually destroyed, but it’s too late.
A mile-high dust cloud, generated by the approaching undead army, signals the need for an emergency evacuation. A harrowing battle to the Gulf of Mexico ensues, where the aircraft carrier USS
George Washington
waits to take on any and all survivors.
Shortly after our protagonist’s arrival onboard, orders from the highest level are issued—a directive to rendezvous with the fast attack submarine USS
Virginia,
standing by in West Panamanian waters.
Destination? China. Mission? Turn the page and find out, but first . . .
Check your doors. Better make sure they’re locked.
—J.L. Bourne
Panama—Task Force Hourglass
Chaos. Pure and complete. The scene below resembled an area following a Category 5 hurricane or aerial bombardment. The many canal structures still remained at the whim of the elements, showing creeping signs of decay and neglect. The jungle was already beginning to reclaim the canal regions, commencing a long bid to erase any evidence that man had split the continents a century before.
Soulless figures walked about, searching, reacting to the firings of dead synapses.
A corpse wearing only a mechanic’s work shirt shuffled about the area. The mechanic had met its demise via the barrel of a Panamanian soldier’s rifle, back when the national curfew was still being enforced. “He” became “it” shortly after the punctured heart stopped and the body temperature began to fall, letting loose the mystery that reanimated dead people. The anomaly (as it was known) spread quickly throughout the mechanic’s nervous system, altering key areas of sensory anatomy. It anchored and replicated in the brain, but only in the sections where primal instinct developed and was stored via DNA and electrochemical switches from eons of evolution. Along its path of self-replication and infection, the anomaly made a quick stop inside the ear canal. There it microscopically altered the physical make-up of the inner ear ossicles, enhancing the hearing. The eyes were the last stop. After a few hours of reanimation, the anomaly completed replication and replacement of certain cellular structures inside the eye, resulting in rudimentary short-range thermal sensory ability, balancing its death-degraded vision.
The former mechanic stopped and cocked its head sideways. It could hear a noise in the distance, something familiar—a nanosecond flash of audible recognition, then it was gone and forgotten. The sound grew louder, exciting the creature, causing salivation. Translucent gray fluid dribbled from its chin, hitting its bare and nearly skeletal leg. The mechanic took a small step forward in the direction of the noise; the open tendons on top of its foot flexed and pulled the small foot bones as it moved. The creature sensed that the increasing sound was not natural, was not the wind or incessant rain noises it normally ignored. The creature’s pace quickened as it reached a small patch of dense jungle trees. A snake struck out as the mechanic entered the foliage, slapping dead flesh and leaving two small holes in its nearly gone calf muscle. The creature paid no attention and continued to slog forward, nearly clearing the foliage. The chorus of souls-be-damned boomed out from all directions as the thing broke through to the clearing.