Ride the Serpentine (Year of the Zombie Book 7) Read online

  We rejoiced when the Stone Show returned and laughed at the irony that it was now being broadcast from the Government’s official bunker. If you know anything about the Stone Show’s history with the FCC, you’d understand how that was like Superman and Lex Luthor moving in together. Martin’s absence from the show was hard to ignore, but we at least held out hope that he was still alive somewhere.

  Then, one morning, we’re listening over breakfast. They were running a segment on people’s daily routines. Some guy named Caleb Kaiser calls in from Upper Marlboro. Says he starts every morning by listening to our song ‘Ride the Serpentine’ in honor of his wife Thana, our ‘number one fan,’ who died 6-months-ago. He goes into their story. They met at a concert during our Ride the Serpentine Tour. Love at first sight. Married for 17 years. One child; a son, Liam. Nine-years-old. Dead. The caller choked up at that point. Deadfucks, I assumed.

  ‘My Thana,’ he goes. ‘She was never the same after the death of our son. It broke her. She regressed to a happier time in her life to cope with it. Started dressing like she did when we first met. She was a groupie for Serpentine at the time. Real diehard. Followed them all over the country. She would go around calling the lead singer Graeme Gunz her husband. She never even met the guy. That was actually a point of contention during the first few years of our marriage.’

  The caller stopped, blew out some air. You could hear the emotion in his breath. I wanted to yell at him to continue, but my head was spinning from his story, mainly the description of his wife, Thana. I suddenly felt cold. Goosebumps. I look over at Gramps. He was white as a ghost – no pun intended.

  ‘What I wouldn’t give to have her back,’ the caller continued. ‘She had gotten this idea in her head that there was this concert in Baltimore she was supposed to attend. She would take one of the cars and run. We had to start restraining her. It was awful. She begged me to loosen her restraints. She said they hurt her wrists. I didn’t want to, but she begged me. You see. She was in such pain. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. So I did what she asked…’

  He paused. No exhale this time. Just dead air.

  ‘She got out that night,’ he could hardly say the words. ‘We found her car two days later. It was on its roof, half-submerged on the bank of Palmer Lake.’

  The caller descends into full-on weeping. And that becomes the background noise for the biggest ‘Holy Shit’ moment this side of finding out that the deadfucks weren’t just part of some elaborate Hollywood promotion.

  Gramps blew chunks all over the table. Holly blew chunks at the sight and smell of Gramps’ half-digested breakfast. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so fucking shell-shocked. We went through the rest of the day on auto pilot, avoiding eye contact and moving around the Grotto like strangers who shared a dark secret. I finally had enough and suggested the one thing that I knew would get our minds off this shit.

  ‘Let’s jam.’

  It took a little coaxing, but we got a good session in. I let the guys in on the lyrics I wrote about our number one fan. Now I had a title, Thana, and a story to reference from. It didn’t take long for a song to materialize. I approached it from the angle of unrequited love and how far we’ll go to obtain the object of our undying affection. I wrote a version where she got what she wanted. Gramps wasn’t the biggest fan, but he understood the process.

  The next day on the Stone Show, a woman named Janice calls in with a few words of support for ‘that poor man from yesterday’s show who lost his wife and son.’ She goes on to describe how ‘Ride the Serpentine’ has special meaning to her as well. She credits the song with giving her strength when she’s feeling overwhelmed and ready to throw in the towel.

  Imagine that. I never saw Ride as an inspirational tune. To me it’s just the manifestation of the wave of ‘Fuck Yeah!’ I was riding when I wrote the damn thing. It was ’87, I think. Right around the time when we graduated from famous to God-like status. Back when my head was the size of a frickin’ bowling ball. I defy anyone to live through that shit without it going to your head a little.

  On the show, co-host Raven and Janice share legendary rock anecdotes. They name-drop Serpentine in the same breath as the Stones, Zeppelin, Guns n’ Roses, Metallica, Nirvana, as groups that changed the game. They call Gramps the slithery personification of Rock ‘n’ Roll and they call me a bonafide guitar God. I can live with that. They even throw Holly a bone when one of the behind the scenes guys goes into this rant about how it must suck to be the drummer in a successful rock group. ‘You’re like window dressing,’ he goes. ‘…an afterthought...’ They debate the subject for a while.

  The Stone Show opens with the song the next day. Somehow it just fits. They open the show with it from then on. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more proud of one of my babies.

  Raven jokes about a lawsuit since they hadn’t officially gotten permission to use the song.

  Me and the guys decide to prank the show. What better way to let everyone know that we’re still here. Holly calls in as our former attorney Ira Levinthal. Good old Ira. Always wondered what happened to him. He was such a pussy that it couldn’t have been good.

  ‘It’s my intention to serve you with a Cease and Desist order unless my clients are paid for the use of their song,’ Holly – as Ira – says to Raven on the air. She catches him off-guard when she plays along with the joke. Holly runs out of legal mumbo-jumbo and let’s the cat out of the bag.

  Raven seems genuinely happy to hear from us. We spend the next hour and seventeen minutes telling our story post 9/6, affectionately remembering Martin Stone, and waxing philosophical about the power of music in light of recent developments.

  We thank the callers and fans and the show for giving them a voice. We end the call with an acoustic rendition of Ride.

  A week later, we’re on our way to the Weather to take part in the telethon and to discuss possibly staying on as the Stone Show house band. Gramps’ got this idea about turning this documentary thing into a series. Real World: Mount Weather Edition. Ha!

  Stranger things have happened.

  Stay tuned…

  ***

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Andre Duza is an actor, screenwriter, and a leading member of the Bizarro movement in contemporary literary fiction. His novels include Voodoo Child (co-written with Wayne Simmons), WZMB, King Dollar, Technicolor Terrorists, Necro Sex Machine, Jesus Freaks, Dead Bitch Army, and the graphic novel, Hollow-Eyed Mary. He is the co-author of Son of a Bitch co-written with Wrath James White, and Outer Light, a graphic novel sequel to a Hugo Award Winning episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that was penned by television writer/producer Morgan Gendel.

  He has also contributed to such collections and anthologies as Book of Lists: Horror alongside the likes of Stephen King, Edgar Wright and Eli Roth.

  www.houseofduza.com

  facebook.com/andreduza

  ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE

  My first novel, STRAIGHT TO YOU, was released in 1996 and promptly disappeared from view. 500 copies were printed, and I still have a couple of boxes from the original print run in my garage! The experience taught me several valuable lessons about writing, most notably that both the hardest and most important task for a new author is to find people to read their work. In those dim and distant pre-Internet, pre-ebook days, that was no easy task.

  When it came to releasing my second novel, AUTUMN, in 2001, I was already making my first tentative steps online. It struck me that the easiest way to get people to read my book was to give it to them for free, so that was what I did. And with no real plan or design, my first zombie novel generated around half a million downloads, a series of sequels, a radio adaptation and even a (not so great) movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine.

  Self-publishing was frowned upon in 2001 (and still is today in some quarters), so I decided to take a different approach. I talked about ‘independent publishing’ instead, and I set up INFECTED BOOKS, my own publishing company. I hit
the market at just the right time and managed, through luck more than judgement, to capitalize both on the sudden growth of ebooks, and also on the massive popularity of zombies.

  In the fifteen years since AUTUMN was published, zombies have become a global phenomenon. In the same decade and a half, the publishing industry has changed beyond all recognition. Back in the day, myself, Brian Keene and David Wellington were just about the only folks putting out zombie fiction. Now that’s changed and there are many brilliant zombie authors delivering the goods. I thought the fifteen year anniversary would be a great opportunity to celebrate both the enduring appeal of the living dead and the massive success of zombie authors worldwide.

  2016 is Infected Books’ YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE, and over the course of the year you’re going to be treated to brand new zombie novellas by some of the very best in the business. Check www.infectedbooks.co.uk at the beginning of each month for each new release.

  David Moody

  January 2016

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM INFECTED BOOKS

  YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE

  KILLCHAIN by Adam Baker

  THE PLAGUE WINTER by Rich Hawkins

  THE YACHT by Iain Rob Wright

  Z-HUNT by Mark Tufo

  GERAINT WYN: ZOMBIE KILLER by Gary Slaymaker

  LITTLE MONSTER by James Plumb

  STRANGERS

  LAST OF THE LIVING

  ISOLATION

  THE COST OF LIVING

  STRAIGHT TO YOU

  AUTUMN: THE HUMAN CONDITION

  TRUST

  by David Moody

  GIRL IN THE BASEMENT

  by Wayne Simmons

  VOODOO CHILD

  by Wayne Simmons and Andre Duza

  FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.INFECTEDBOOKS.CO.UK

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