Humanity Gone: After the Plague (24 page)

             
My vision becomes blurry.  I stop kicking and screaming.  It isn't working anyway.  They carry me to right in front of the helicopter.  The one holding me and one in front of him are the only ones in front of the chopper.

             
How did all this happen?  We were so close to safety.  This meant everything to them.

             
Then I see my opportunity: the soldier’s knife hanging off his gear on his chest.  I look up at his mask covered face, finding a seam by his neck.  He seems to be ignoring me; he thinks I am out like my sister.

             
I grab his knife and thrust it under his mask and into his neck.  He falls without a yell.  As he collapses, my feet find the ground.  With the knife in hand, I charge to the nearby woods at the other end of the helipad parking lot.  Those men won’t be happy when they notice who I’ve killed.

As I get to the dense trees, the bark beside me splinters away and I hear the shots beneath the sound of the helicopters.  The masked men are shooting at me.  I keep running until I find an old, withered tree and climb behind it.  The shots spread throughout the trees around me.

              I peek out after a few moments go by without any gunshots.  The second helicopter is taking off. They must not want me that badly.

             
Sara.  I feel sadness sweep over me, but this is no time to cry.

             
I watch the helicopters flying into the sun, east.  Soon they are out of sight.  I come out of the forest and go to the dead soldier.  His mask is now off, so I see who I killed.  Maybe I should feel sadness for this, but I feel nothing.  He has a cell phone clipped to his belt.  I take it. I open it and it has service.  What’s more, it has a full battery. Somehow I feel lucky at this moment.

             
I walk to the car, grabbing my backpack with my bow and arrows. The helicopters did not take long to get here after we called.  They cannot be too far.  I look up at the rising sun and tuck the soldier's knife into my backpack.

             
Swinging my gear over my shoulders, I run into the forest.  I have killed four people in the last several hours – not bad for a twelve year old.  I will kill as many as it takes to get my family back– especially to get Sara back.

End of Book I

Thank You

            
 
Both of us appreciate your time and hope you enjoyed book I of the
Humanity Gone
Saga.  “After the Plague” is an accumulation of original and “borrowed” ideas from throughout my life.  Over a year ago, I started a rough outline of the story on a piece of sketch paper.  It was partially inspired by O.T. Nelson's
The Girl Who Owned a City
, a book I read way back in middle school.  A world without supervision always held a certain appeal to me.  However, in his book the magic age was 12.  I wanted to up the ante and incorporate young adults.  Young children can be mean, but young adults could be barbaric.

             
The concept of shifting perspectives stems from several sources.  In my mind, I wanted something between K.A. Applegate's
Animorphs
series, and George R.R. Martin's
A
Song of Ice and Fire
series.  That could be the first time those two works have ever been compared.   The presentation was also meant to be cinematic in a sense by relying on dramatic irony in key moments across the story.

             
Originally this started as a solo project for the first several months until I realized that I needed help as it grew into a real pandemic of sorts.  I enlisted Dean to help with editing, but soon found him to have invaluable ideas of his own that have been incorporated throughout the work. 

             
After the initial manuscript was finished, we bounced drafts back and forth.  I was lucky to even have author Jay Wilburn add his two cents at the revision stage, and I thank him for his  thorough critical response.

             
As I write this, Dean is doing a hunt for typos and grammar errors.  He texts me that he is exhausted.  I am too. We have managed to pass it back and forth several times already, but somehow the occasional homonym or a Dickinson-like use of a dash rears its ugly head.  My birthday (and speaking of Emily Dickinson- hers as well) is in a half hour and I hope to have sent it sometime tomorrow for finalizing.  However, I know I will not let it go until I give it one last read through.

             
I guess this is why God made publishing companies.

             
Yet, we stuck it to the “publishing man” and made this product that we are both very proud of accomplishing, and I hope you join us on our next adventure.

             
Book II is in the works.  The plague is in the past; now it's time to see who takes control. Thanks again.

             
Derek Deremer

12/9/2012

About the Authors

Derek Deremer

Derek Deremer is currently an English teacher in South Carolina.  He somehow wandered down there after growing up in the suburbs  of Pittsburgh.  While graduating with an English degree from Westminster College, he developed his love for common words and many other endeavors in his continual pursuit to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Dean Culver

Dean Culver is an engineer and scientist, pursuing amateur ventures in many fields both within and beyond the borders of science and technology.  Born, raised, and currently residing in Pittsburgh, he has occasionally traveled and relocated, hoping to find where his goal of creative balance can be achieved.