Snareville II: Circles
Snareville: Book 2
Circles
By
D.M. Youngquist
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"D. M. Youngquist’s SNAREVILLE sinks its teeth into the reader’s jugular—a horrific, mordant, lean, page-turning ride dissecting the denizens of a backwater burg besieged by a zombie plague. The best part—aside from the gruesome action—is that you come away caring about these people in unexpected ways. Bite off a chunk of SNAREVILLE today—you won’t be disappointed."
—
Jay Bonansinga
, National Bestselling Author of PINKERTON’S WAR, FROZEN, and PERFECT VICTIM
Introduction
Welcome to the world of Snareville. It’s a little world much like the one that we live in. The towns are some of those here in Central Illinois where I live. Snareville itself used to exist out on the Illinois prairie. Until the railroad bypassed it. And then the highway. Now’s it a collection of a half-dozen houses and a goodly sized cemetery.
The Snareville of these books is a decent little town. A town full of good rural folks living their quiet lives. Could be any small town across the Midwest. People put in gardens. They preserve their harvest. They hunt and fish. They use horses to get around. One thing they have to deal with that no other town I know of is Zombies.
I got tired of reading zombie books, and seeing zombie movies based in large, sprawling urban areas. I can’t relate to these places. These settings. Yes, I know where Chicago is, it’s a couple hours down the road for me. Doesn’t mean I understand the culture. I wanted something different. Something people like myself could relate to. So I took my zombies, and dropped them into a small rural setting surrounded by woods and farmland.
I also got sick of the books and movies dealing with just the first days, or at the latest a couple of months into the zombie outbreak. Okay, I understand that for most people to buy into it, the zombies have to win. Sorry, but I don’t accept that. More exists out there than your large, mega city. There are pockets of people here and there scattered in small towns and villages around the world. I wanted to follow the lives of some of these people.
So, Snareville was born. The first book covers pretty much the first year and a half. We get to the second Christmas in the New World by the close of the first book. People have survived. Snareville has become a walled city. Our ancestors would recognize the deep trenches and high walls surrounding the village. They might not recognize the wire fencing surrounding it, but they’d recognize a town fortified against an enemy.
And what about the people of that town? They go on with life the best they can. They tend their gardens, they hunt hogs and sheep. They fish in the nearby waters. Death comes not only in the violent form of attack from the zombie swarms, but silently and still from cancer and heart attacks. A big difference with Snareville is many of the men have two or more wives.
Now, I love my wife, and would never consider having another (Hey most men, myself included, can barely deal with the one they have. Why would we want to add another to the mix?) But, in looking down through history, we find that as men go off to fight in years of battle, the numbers balance between the genders shifts. In many societies, it was common to have more than one wife, and to have lovers on the side as well. With many men killed and eaten in the initial outbreak of the zombie virus, this just became something that seemed a natural.
So, we’ve shifted to the ancient with our walls and our wives. We’ve also shifted to the modern. Women now fight combat roles beside the men. They lead platoons. They command troops. They pull raids. The women of my family, and honestly, of those I work with, are capable of doing what many men can do. As the human population of the Snareville world has shrunk, women have taken up the responsibility to fight and go forward with life as well.
So, what about the people of Snareville? Who are they? At the end of book one, Daniel Jackson has survived. Not only has he survived, but he has become second in command of the people in town. Danny Death, as he’s now called, leads the fighters, now known as Raiders, in their survival against the swarms of zombies. He has had three wives. Jennifer was his first. The mother of his first child. But she was killed by her jealous ex husband.
He’s now married to Pepper, who came to town as a prisoner. She was part of a gang of scavengers captured when Dan and his crew went on a supply run. They started out with a strong dislike for one another, but like a lot of relationships, it became a love match. She’s also a fighter and commands troops in town as well.
Then there’s Cindy. Damaged, lab-rat Cindy. She was one of two people used to experiment on by Doctor Carla Johnson, the person responsible for this zombie plague. Cindy survived the infection, and was used by Johnson to develop the virus which was released into the general population as a biological weapon by terrorists. As the story developed, another researcher, Doctor O’Shea, was able to develop a serum which reversed the effects of the z-virus. Dan and Cindy found they loved one another, and by the end of the first book, Dan asks her to marry him.
So, there you have it. Pockets of survivors hold out here and there. A cure has been developed. Life goes on. Babies are born. People die. Some get eaten by zombies. Welcome to the new world. The world of Snareville.
Acknowledgements:
To quote my friend and business partner, Sylvia Shults, after she read the first volume of the Snareville series: “Man, you really know how to blow shit up!” I laughed. She’s not the first to say something like that, but I just love the way she puts it. When I talk weapons, firearms mostly, I draw on about thirty five years of experience in hunting and competitive shooting with pistol, rifle and shotgun. It’s just something I’ve always done. My dad, grandpa, and back on down the line about five generations have been hunters. I teach Hunter Safety Education a couple times a year, and still get out to the range when I can. My collection of firearms spans the World Wars, and up to modern times. Nothing fancy, just some old war horses I’ve managed to save.
So, from the small arms perspective, I know my own stuff. When it comes to artillery and bombs and things that will level something like a city, I draw on my friends and family. Thank you to my brother Staff Sergeant Forest Ballinger for your help, along with our cousins Captain Wells Parker, Captain Katy Dickson, Major Linda Raymond, and her husband Major Chris Raymond. I also want to thank my nephew Lance Corporal Patrick Langon and Chief Eric Dukes. I also want to thank my friends 1st Lt. Derek Molln, Lance Corporal Cody Gibson, and Sergeant Dave Wallace.
As you can see, the military plays a big part of my life. My Dad is a vet of the 82nd Airborne, my Father in Law is a Bronze Star veteran of WWII. It would be a dishonor to all of them if I had made the military the bad guys in this series. Thank you all for the help you have given me, the countless stupid questions I asked, and most of all for everything you have done. In war and in peace. Because if you, I am able to sit here and write these books.
I would also like to thank my friends and family who helped put the cover together. Adam Agushi for taking the photo and doing the work to get it ready. Patrick Gonigam, Jennifer Miller, Sam Agushi, Michaela Youngquist, Alexandria Barajas, Dustin Rahn, Justin Miller, and John Cullina. Thanks guys, for letting us splatter you with blood, rip your clothes, and boss you around for a couple hours. We couldn’t have done it without out you. Actually, it was kind of fun.
Dedication
For Fay, my rock, my love. Thank you for sharing my life.
Chapter 1
They rode up through the fields. Three years worth of grass and weeds engulfed what had been corn. It was their third day in the saddle and Dan was tired. Savanna was close. He could smell the Mississippi River; could see a few burned out houses on the edge of the marshes that surrounded the south end of town. On a small rise he reined in his horse and pulled a set of binoculars from the saddlebag. It was midday, by the sun. He glassed the parking lot of a roadhouse a half-mile north of them.
“Gettin’ some lunch, Boss?” Jinks asked as she stopped her mare beside him.
“Thinkin’ about it, Corporal.” Dan grinned. “My ass could use a break too.” He handed her the binoculars. “What you think?”
Jinks checked the parking lot through the binoculars as the others rode up behind them. Ella and Bill rode warm-blood mares, Sergeant Rick Cody from Dan’s Marine unit rode an Arabian mare. They led a Shetland pony mare and two geldings. The two bigger horses were loaded with pack saddles.
“I think the place looks open for business,” Jinks said as she surveyed the lot. A mix of rolling iron and horses took up most of the pavement. “But I don’t think the clientele are the suit and tie type.” She watched as two people stepped off their Harleys, handed their guns to four guards at the door and disappeared inside.
Dan chuckled as he slid his binoculars back into the saddlebag. A cold April wind riffled his beard. “It never was, little girl. You can wait with the horses if you want. I’m hungry.” He nudged his buckskin gelding forward.
“Oh hell no,” Jinks said, as she started her mare after him. “I’m not waiting outside with the horses and the kids. And stop calling me ‘Little Girl’. I’m nineteen, I’m a Corporal in your army and I’ve killed almost as many zeds as you have.”
“You applying for a job or something, Kid?” Dan laughed again. He got a string of curses hurled at him for a reply.
They turned out of the field along the road. Everyone was jumpy after three days of being out of Snareville. Savanna was secure, but it was more than a hundred miles of wild outback between the two towns. Normally, when they ran trade missions between the two cities, they either went by boat up the rivers, or overland in armored convoy.
This trip was different. Fuel wouldn’t hold out forever. Even the massive storage tanks would eventually run dry, or the fuel would destabilize and be no good to anyone. Horses, however, were another matter. They had thirty back in Snareville. Their herd was a mixture of breeds, from the high end warm-bloods and Arabians, to stock horses and ponies. The problem was that no one had a stallion.
In Savanna, there had been an Arabian breeder with a modest farm set up before the apocalypse. He was still there, but had moved his operation to one of the islands in the middle of the river. His horses couldn’t get stolen by scavengers, or eaten by predators if there was half a river between them and mainland. He had agreed to breed the mares Dan’s group had, in exchange for a few goods that he couldn’t get locally. These four mares were the first to go up. The other five would be brought in when Dan returned from this trip.
With resources stretched thin, they couldn’t justify transporting horses by trailer, so they rode the distance. But it made for a long trip if people weren’t used to a saddle.
They followed the road in. Each carried a black rifle they had personalized as the war ground on. As they swung into the lot, the guards watched them from behind dark sunglasses. Dan rode over to a small enclosed area for horses, dismounted and tossed a kid a can of hash to make sure no one messed with the string. Members of the squad groaned as they stretched. Joints popped and bellies rumbled. They slung their rifles over their backs, muzzles down. Dan checked the holsters that carried his pistols to make sure the flaps were locked. Everyone did the same.