The Passenger (Surviving the Dead)

  Table of Contents:

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE PASSENGER: A SURVIVING THE DEAD NOVEL. Copyright © 2013 By James N. Cook and Joshua Guess. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the authors and Amazon.com.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Epub Edition © AUGUST 2013

  The Passenger

  A Surviving the Dead Novel

  By:

  James N. Cook and Joshua Guess

  For more information, news, and updates on James N. Cook and the Surviving the Dead series:

  Visit James N. Cook on Facebook

  Follow James on Twitter

  Read James’s Blog

  To keep tabs on Joshua Guess and his goings-on, you can:

  Like his author page on Facebook

  Read his Blog

  Or follow him on Twitter

  Also by James N. Cook:

  No Easy Hope

  This Shattered Land

  Warrior Within

  Also by Joshua Guess:

  Victim Zero, Book One of The Fall

  And all his other books, too numerous to list here.

  Authors’ note:

  Please Read Before Purchase!

  If this is your first visit to the harrowing world of the Surviving the Dead series, feel free to disregard this authors’ note entirely. (And yes, I meant for authors’ to be plural. There are two of us this time around.) If you are a longtime fan of the series, however, you really need to read this.

  For my stalwart friends revisiting this world after several months’ absence, I would like to set a few expectations up front.

  First of all, this is not Surviving the Dead Volume Four. Eric and Gabriel are not featured in this novel. However, you may remember the main character, and a few others, from my first novel No Easy Hope. This is a standalone novel set in the Surviving the Dead universe. This book is not crucial to the overall Surviving the Dead storyline—meaning you can skip it and still follow the series just fine—but you will be missing out if you do.

  Second, this novel is written differently than the first three. All my other work is written in the first person, whereas this novel is, for the most part, written in third person. A significant portion is written in first person, but I did not write those sections. My good friend and co-author Joshua Guess did. All my contributions to this novel are, as previously stated, third person.

  Why the switch, you ask?

  There are several reasons. I wanted to make it clear to you, awesome reader, that this novel is different from the other three. Writing in first person kind of limits your options as a writer, while third person—with its omniscient perspective—provides a great deal more flexibility. You can add plot elements and provide explanations that would be cumbersome in first person. Third person also contributes significantly to brevity, making the writing flow much faster. Mostly, though, I just wanted to try it. I’ve been writing in first person for so long, I felt like I was starting to stagnate. I think it is important for me to push my limits and try new things as a writer, and to develop new skills.

  How did I do? Personally, I think I did okay for a first attempt. I guess I’ll have to defer to your judgment on that.

  Which is not to say that Joshua didn’t write any third person sections. He did. (He is equally good at either perspective, the cocky bastard.) But I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which ones. If you can’t figure it out, and you really, really want to know, send me a message on Facebook or Twitter and I’ll clear it up for you.

  Last, this book is a good bit shorter than my previous work. For example, No Easy Hope was 116,000 words, roughly, while this novel weighs in at about 60,000. Still novel length, but more concisely written than my other books.

  Now that I have armed you with all the pertinent information necessary to make an informed buying decision, let me just say that I sincerely hope you buy this novel. Not just because I write for a living, and if you don’t buy it I might have to start eating Top Ramen every day, but because Joshua and I devoted a lot of time and effort to it and we are both proud of the work we did here. It is a fast paced, engaging story with lots of gore, action, and heart: the holy trinity of post-apocalyptic storytelling. We think you will like it.

  As always, thank you for all your support and encouragement, and for letting me live my dream. You, awesome reader, are the reason I do this. Without you, I’m just another lame dude pecking away at a keyboard.

  You keep reading them, and I’ll keep writing them.

  James N. Cook

  Charlotte, NC

  July 28th, 2013

  Foreword

  By Joshua Guess

  Some of you know who I am—after all, this book is half my work, so I've shared it with my own readers—but some of you don't. Rather than bore you with a bunch of biographical details, I'd rather use this space to tell you why I enjoyed this project so much.

  A large part of it was the chance to work with James (Jim) Cook. A year ago today, Jim interviewed me for his blog, and I learned that while we are remarkably similar people, we have very different writing styles. Different, but strangely complimentary. James came up with the idea of collaborating on a standalone Surviving the Dead novel, and in late May of this year, we got started.

  I've been writing for half my life, diligently working to develop my abilities. Jim, however, didn’t start until he was 30 years old. That impressed the hell out of me; No Easy Hope does not read like a first try. I know, I have a file full of false starts and half-finished manuscripts. When he approached me about writing The Passenger, I was excited. Jim has a big audience—that's you—and he told me he wanted help me reach full-time status as an author.

  That meant a lot to me. I've worked very hard to get where I am, but I always told myself (and my wife, Jess) that I would stay working until I had the income from writing to go full-time. In March of this year, when our tax returns came in, I broke that promise. There were many factors in that decision, but mostly, I realized I needed the time off from working to put all my efforts into my next book. My dream has always been to do this for a living, and thanks to Jim, who put the first chapter of that novel, Victim Zero, at the end of his most recent book Warrior Within, I'm now a full-time writer.

  It's been life changing.

  The book you're about to read matters to me for a lot of reasons. One is the obvious: it will make me money. Funds I can use to pay the b
ills and keep writing. Another is the challenge it represented. When writing my own books, I'm free to do anything. But I find myself creating purposeful restraints that force me to be creative. The restraints I faced in writing The Passenger, and the challenges it created, were twofold: I had to write in a universe not my own, and I had to write from a perspective strongly limited by the context of the story. I think doing so made me more creative, and more original.

  Beyond the royalties and their ability to help me write full-time, beyond the craft aspects of the work itself and how they helped me become a stronger writer, and even past the excellent complimentary structure of the story which contrasts my style and Jim's, I got to make a friend.

  Before we started working on this book, Jim and I were friendly, but distant. Over the course of the project, we became friends. We talked on the phone regularly as we worked out the story, which led to entertaining conversations and general bullshitting. I'm not saying we braided each other’s hair or anything, but our professional relationship became a strong friendship. When Jim came to Kentucky to finish up the book in person, my mom even gave him a hug.

  It was good times. All of it.

  Every writer who manages a career out of putting words on paper gets there a different way. Jim struck gold with his first book, finding success almost right away. And he deserved it. His work is strong, his books are entertaining and gripping, and he didn't get lazy. If anything, his dedication to putting out ever-better books as well as interacting with his fans is even stronger now.

  Although I've been at it longer, I haven't been as lucky as others. I've had good times, but no explosive popularity. Instead, I've built my audience slowly, brick by brick. It's been hard work, and satisfying for that. But Jim's generous offer to help speed that along is awesome in the truest sense of the word.

  At the end of the day, I'm happy even if this book sells not a single copy. I got a lot out of the experience, the best part being someone I can talk to about the business we're in, a friend who like all good friends will help me succeed as much as he can. Should my career suddenly blast off tomorrow, I would return the favor in a heartbeat.

  The last few months have been exciting and scary and a million other things, but above all, they've been productive. The freedom to work on this project, the chance to spend more than a paltry few hours at the keyboard, is the best. Not because of the money, which has always been only a means to pay the bills, but because I get to tell the stories I've always wanted to tell. I get to entertain.

  And in this case, we get to do that. The book you're about to read is a contrast in styles. It's dark. It's harsh. It brushes the coat of grime away from the raw nerve of human brutality. It forces you to deal with the worst things a person can do when there are no more checks and balances.

  I had so damn much fun writing it. I hope you like reading it just as much.

  Joshua Guess

  Author, Doughnut Enthusiast, and Secret Adamantium-Laced Mutant Hero

  Frankfort, Kentucky

  July 29th, 2013

  For Josh and Jacob.

  Brothers, warriors, men of strength.

  Wear your scars with pride, for you are not among the timid.

  It is an honor to be your friend.

  ONE

  I've heard it said that dying is easy.

  Some philosophers liken it to being born again, and indeed, many religions state it in those terms explicitly. I'm not a philosopher myself, but I have an advantage over them—I've been there. As the old saw goes, dying is easy. Living is hard.

  Reanimating is a different ballgame altogether.

  You remember it. It's not like being born in the sense that your awareness develops over time, the memories of blind panic crushed into singularity by the years of consciousness that come later. I remember it all. I was a man, once. I had a job, a family. I had a mortgage, and a nice car, and a collection of ties that had taken years of curating to get just right.

  I had a name. I swear I did.

  The one blessing that came with my death was that it was quick. I remember trying to escape the violence, swarms of undead being cut down by men in uniforms behind me. My family made it through the barricade ahead of me. As I moved through, one of those things managed to snag my hand. There was pain. I looked back to see the last two fingers on my right hand gone.

  Even then, we knew what a bite meant. There was no time for worry or fear. I spent most of my adult life as a man who never had a chance to make a stand or be brave, but I did at that moment. My family looked at me as I clutched that wounded limb, the soldiers around us staring as they finished the cleanup.

  I knew the options. I'd heard them enough times to feel the words indelibly burned into my mind. I could go easy and quick, or I could wait it out. Suffer, burn, die anyway. Then come back.

  I didn't think about it for long. I rushed forward to kiss them goodbye, whispered a request to the soldier closest to me, and then ran back through the barricade as fast as my feet would take me. The bites could kill quickly, very quickly. I didn't want to be a danger to my family, or other people lucky enough to escape the swarm unharmed.

  There weren't many undead left outside the barricade, and every one of them was moving in the opposite direction. Knowing I was already dead gave me a recklessness I wouldn't have risked otherwise. The few infected that came close enough to almost touch me were kicked or shoved in my desperate attempt to get far enough away that my family wouldn't see me fall.

  I was maybe a hundred feet from the barricade when the shot rang out. It took me high in the shoulder, proving that not all marksmen are created equal. The push of the bullet threw me off balance, and I hit the ground at the edge of a small hill. Tail over teakettle, I rolled and thrashed through brush and debris. I heard my clothes tear against a hundred small obstructions; felt the damaged muscle and sinew in my upper back scream at the brutal earth every time I slammed against it.

  The trip down the side of the hill seemed to last forever, but finally, it ended. My last memory as a living man was lying half-submerged in a babbling stream. It was cold. I was cold. I listened to the crack of gunshots slow down and eventually fade away. I looked up at the sky and wondered how I'd missed the beauty of the stars for all those years.

  Funny, I thought. Only at the twilight of humankind, when all the lights have gone out, do I finally see the lovely vastness that’s always been there. Just beyond the border of my cluttered little life.

  And then I died.

  *****

  My body woke up before I did.

  I don't know if it works that way for the other shambling corpses that make up my current peer group, but my first memory of my new life was coming to sudden and unfortunate consciousness as my body shredded the throat of a screaming man. My instinct was to pull away in horror, but I couldn't. In fact, I couldn't even look away.

  I was a passenger. Read-only reality.

  I railed and struggled to stop what my body was doing, to no avail. My hands—look there, that's my wedding ring, done in white gold inlays on tungsten carbide—pulled gobbets of flesh from what became a corpse during my struggles.

  The full spectrum of sensory data was there, but I had no control over any of it. You can't imagine what it's like. It's not the same as watching some horrific television show you can't turn off. You're actually a part of the program. I felt the hot blood of the dead man running down my fingers. I smelled the sour perspiration on his skin. I heard his bowels cut loose, could taste the warm, salty meat of him as my estranged fingers jammed pieces into my mouth.

  After an hour or so of eating and doing the mental equivalent of vomiting inside my own head, I heard something that filled me with hope: gunfire. The area we were in was unfamiliar, so I couldn't be sure if the shooters were soldiers or unsuspecting survivors. Briefly, I wondered how far my errant body had traveled under its new management, but gave up that curiosity when I realized it didn't matter. Wherever I had roamed, I hoped it was far enou
gh away that my family wouldn't chance upon me. I didn't want them to see me this way.

  Whoever was firing that gun had a chance to end this for me. My body was already moving toward the sound of the shots.

  My God, the shots.

  The sound.

  The best way I can describe it is like hearing in 3-D. Something about the sonic waves ricocheting from the sharp crack of the rifle was akin to depth perception, but far more powerful. I just knew the direction it came from, the distance. Like knowing how to grab a ball from the air as it's thrown to you. Whatever the plague destroying humanity was, whatever it had done to me, it seemed to make my body a better predator.

  I just hoped whoever I was heading toward was better still.

  TWO

  “Staff Sergeant, secure that weapon.”

  Ethan heard his commanding officer, but didn’t turn to look. His heart was beating too fast in his chest, his blood too loud in his ears to register the command. Numbly, he stepped forward, his legs on autopilot.

  “Thompson! What the hell are you doing?”

  He kept walking. Step by agonizing step, he got closer to the revenant. It was face down on the ground, partially coagulated blood seeping from an exit wound on the back of its head. It was the right height, the right build, even the hair color was the same. Dark brown, peppered with gray, grown down to the shoulders. Ethan stopped next to the body and reached down to roll it over with a trembling hand.

  “Hey, Ethan. You all right man? The fuck are you doing?”

  Dimly, he recognized Justin’s voice. His friend’s footsteps crunched in the frost as he came closer. Ethan rolled the body onto its back and leaned down to study its face. After a long instant, his shoulders sagged, and a fog rose around his head as he let out a breath.