Authors: Michaelbrent Collings

Genesis (24 page)

Ken ran the last two feet, leaping over the dead man.

“Ken!”
Dorcas
joined him in the elevator. “What are you doing?”

“They’re alive.” Ken leaned over, barely noticing how badly his back hurt, not even registering his missing fingers, and grabbed the dead man’s legs. He shoved them out of the elevator. Not far enough. He began muscling the dead weight out of the cab.

Aaron stood just outside the elevator. He looked at the mirror in the back of the cab and it seemed to Ken like the man’s face slackened. Not in hope, but in sympathy.

“Going up is a bad idea,” he said. “Nowhere to retreat to if the things come again.”

“Seriously,” said Christopher, taking up a position behind the older man. “We should get outta here.”

Ken didn’t stop moving. “I can’t ask you to come with me. You’ve all saved me, and I can never repay you.” He kicked the dead man’s trailing foot out of the track of the elevator’s doors. “But I have to go.”

“Bad idea,” said Aaron.

“Yeah,” said Christopher.

They both stepped in.

Dorcas
pressed the round circle with a “9” in the center.

The doors shut.

The elevator started to rise.

With it, questions rose in Ken’s mind. What was happening? What were these
things
, that
had destroyed almost everyone and everything humanity held dear in less than a day? Why did they stop moving and breathe in time, why were the times they did so decreasing, and what would happen when that “countdown” reached zero? What had killed all the insects? How come one had vomited acid?

What would he find when he reached the ninth floor?

Ken looked at the other survivors. At Christopher, to whom he had said less than a hundred words. At Aaron, who had saved Ken’s life but who remained a complete enigma. At
Dorcas
.

She caught his gaze. Raised her shoulders as though unsure of why they were coming, and said, “It’s still the right thing to do.”

Ken didn’t know if he would find his family when the doors opened.

But he knew he had family here with him.

END OF BOOK ONE

THE SAGA CONTINUES IN BOOK TWO

THE COLONY: RENEGADES

Author’s Note

I like zombie books. But almost all of them move from a place of despair – not merely that zombies exist (as if that weren’t bad enough), but that humans are so rotten that the zombies are probably the least terrible thing to deal with anyway.

I wanted to do something different. Something that had never been done before. One thing I wanted was to show a
real
collapse – a lot of books about apocalyptic events seem to have a few bad things happen, then give their characters a few days or weeks off to recuperate. I am a mean person. I wanted my characters to twist in the wind, to bang and batter and bruise them to the point of physical, mental, and emotional destruction.

More than that, though, I wanted to write a
hopeful
zombie story. A story about humanity running into something terrible… and banding together. Rising above the terror and becoming something more than they once had been.

Horror is at its best when it shows us not just the monsters among us, but the angels as well.

This meant that the bad guys – the zombies – would have to be truly terrible, beyond anything ever seen in a zombie story before. So I started putting together my own zombie mythology. Then, when I had an evil threatening enough to prove my thesis – that humanity is not only able to save itself against nearly infinite evil, but noble and good enough to actually
merit
salvation – I began writing.

I outline most of my books. I do so often enough that I can usually tell how long it will get to take from point A to point B, and from there through to Z.

In the case of
The Colony
, I was in for a surprise: getting from point A
almost
to point B took over 200 pages. We’ve met
some
of our main characters – some of the people whose stories I would like to tell, who have survived partly by luck (you have to be lucky to survive any war), but partly by the fact that they are smart and tough and
good
– but not all. We’ve met some of the bad guys, but
not all
. We haven’t scratched the surface of the story.

I soon realized that the story I wanted to tell might end up hitting half a million words. This meant I could either release it all at once, or do a series of shorter books. Many of my fans wanted the longer version, but a few things mitigated against this:

1)
A
lot of my
other
fans email me regularly, asking when my next book will be out. Responding “a few years… maybe?” seemed like a bad answer.

2) At a half million words, I was worried that the weight – even the weight of
electrons
on a Kindle or a tablet device – might crush unwary readers who fell asleep while reading.

3) I am a fairly successful novelist, but my name is not King, Koontz, or Rowling. So waiting a caboodle of time between books meant an increased likelihood of explaining to my children that we would be cutting back on certain things, like Armani toilet paper and unicorn rides and food.

4) Most important, my wife told me to do it this way. My wife is very smart. She’s also nice and takes care of me and the kids and is scorching hot. Not a woman I care to go against if I can avoid it.

So you’re getting this. If you don’t like cliffhangers, blame my wife.

But I do want to reassure you about a few things:

First of all, if you’re new to my books, I do know how to finish a story (ha!). So if you love the tone, but hunger for a more complete story, pick up a copy of
Strangers
or
The Haunted
or
Apparition
or… well,
any
of my other books.

Second, the day this comes out, I will already be hard at work on Vol. II of
The Colony: Renegades
. There are a lot of nifty things in store. In addition to finding out whether Ken’s family is waiting for him on the ninth floor, we’re also going to find out what happens when you have a bunch of severely injured people with no medical care. Who Aaron is and how he survived in that stairwell is going to be explained (a bit). The issue of where Christopher learned how to blow up buildings is going to be discussed. We’ll get to know
Dorcas
better, and find out some of her secrets.

And, of course, the zombies. There is a reason for their existence, and eventually we’ll find out what it is.

But that’s all assuming the series sells well. ‘Cause there’s that whole “food for the kids” thing.

So if you want to find out how this all ends, please spread the word about
The Colony
. Click that “Give as Gift” button on Amazon and send a copy to your zombie-loving friends… and your zombie-hating enemies. If you like it, leave a review on Amazon and
Goodreads
. The more you buy, the faster I can finish. Promise.

So enjoy. Tell everyone. Start a cult about it and hand out literature and flowers at the airport.

And keep on reading….

- Michaelbrent Collings

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michaelbrent Collings is an award-winning screenwriter and novelist. He has written numerous bestselling horror, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy novels, including
The Colony Saga, Strangers,
Darkbound
,
Apparition, The Haunted, Hooked: A True Faerie Tale,
and the bestselling YA series
The Billy Saga
. Follow him on
Facebook
at
facebook.com/
MichaelbrentCollings
or on Twitter
@
mbcollings
.