This Shattered Land: Surviving the Dead

 

 

 

COPYRIGHT

 

 

 

 

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

SURVIVING THE DEAD BOOK TWO: THIS SHATTERED LAND Copyright © 2012 By James N. Cook. 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 author and Amazon.com.

FIRST EDITION

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

Epub Edition © JULY 2012


 

 

 

Author’s Note

 

 

Two years ago, writing was something that I only dreamed about doing. I thought up story ideas and bored my wife for hours going over them in endless detail. One day she got sick of listening to me and put down her cell phone to fire a level stare at me across the couch.

“James,” she said. “I’m not listening to any more of these story ideas until you write one of them down.”

I started, “But babe…”

“Zip it.”

“I know but…”

“Zip it.”

I frowned. “Fine.”

Then she screwed up. She went and bought me a Kindle.

I don’t think I talked to her for three months. Or maybe she didn’t screw up, maybe that was her idea all along. Either way, I learned about the world of independent publishing, and my life hasn’t been the same since. In short, you can blame my wife for my newfound love of writing. If not for her, I probably never would have sat down to write No Easy Hope.

Thanks, Babe. You win again.

Where will this whole writing thing take me? I have no idea. But it will be a lot of fun along the way. I hope you come along for the ride.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old:

"No law except the Sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled."

Once more it knits mankind,

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

 

 

-Rudyard Kipling

For All We Have and Are

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

 

 

Unexpected Guests

 

 

 

The spring thaw was late. Normally by May, the Catawba River would be running swift and swollen, and tearing at the soft red clay bordering its banks. That was not what we saw looking down at the riverbank. The river had shaken off the sluggishness of winter, but it still ran steady and calm across the Carolina mountain country. Gabriel was not happy about it. He scratched his thick black beard and frowned at the muddy brown water.

 

“Do you still think heading over to Marion is a good idea?” I asked.