An Excerpt from NOT EVERYTHING BRAINLESS IS DEAD

This is an excerpt from my first book, which I am posting in honor of SAMPLE SUNDAY! If this excerpt tickles your fancy, which it should, you can pick up a copy of the book for 50% off using the coupon code RAE50 starting Sunday, March 6th.

A blood-curdling scream echoed through the war-torn halls of the police station like that of a little girl who had unwittingly wandered into the wrong neighborhood and then viciously devoured the souls of everyone around her. The ever-approaching scream commandeered the attention of those cramped inside the small cell. Dr. Malevolent, who had been formulating a plan for her big escape and return to a life of crime, felt strangely overcome by the wails.

Deep within the woman’s body, possibly somewhere to the right of her spleen, or maybe hiding behind her liver, a small switch flipped into  the on position. It caused the only hurdle that could possibly dissuade her lust for world domination to kick in—motherly instinct. Yes, baby fever had grabbed her by the gonads, or not really, since she did not have any. Rather, it grabbed at the spot where her gonads would be, but found only air and disappointment. Baby fever did not have a thorough understanding of human anatomy.

The criminal mastermind began to worry uncontrollably about whatever little girl was out there within the hail of gunfire and screams. What mother had abandoned their poor little daughter in a place like this? What kind of world are we living in where the safety of a child was so audaciously pushed aside? The super villain clenched her fists in rage. The scream continued its journey down the hall until just outside the room. Dr. Malevolent’s jaw dropped as the source of the scream burst into the room and ran around in circles, crying at the top of his lungs.

Yes, Captain Rescue had arrived. Blood speckled his skin and suit and his eyes were as open as can be. The horrors he had just borne witness to had apparently regressed the poor hero. Mentally, he had become that little diva he always pretended to be as a young child, sneaking into his mother’s room late at night and stealing her oversized clothes, then dancing around with a wooden spoon, singing Aretha Franklin songs.

With lungs unperturbed by the continuous screaming, Captain Rescue frantically stumbled for the ring of keys that hung from a nail on the wall. The living scream unlocked the cell door and scrambled into the cage without taking a moment to breathe. He turned his back to the criminals, locked the cell door, and then turned around only to find Boris’ fist connecting with his face. The hero dropped like a rock. Luckily, the jolt had ceased his incorrigible shriek. Boris had actually done the Captain a favor—who knows how much longer he would have been able to cling to consciousness, he had not breathed in well over five minutes.

Captain Rescue sat straight up, “Zombies! They’re everywhere, they’re going to kill us all, we’re going to be eaten alive! Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

Boris sighed and punched him again.

“I’ll keep us safe, though, don’t worry!” The hero said ecstatically as he tossed the keys through the cage. They slid across the floor and stopped just inside the hallway.

Boris sighed and punched him yet again.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

Boris raised his fist to the hero, “’Cause you keep doing stupid things, and from my experience, this is the cure.” His fist connected with Captain Rescue’s face once more.

“Did I really hear you say that there were zombies out there,” Dr. Malevolent spoke slowly to Captain Rescue, as a mother would to a child that had consumed too much sugar and had started to run around frantically like a decapitated chicken. This child, however, was just bat-shit crazy.

“Well, uh, they’re trying to eat the ones that aren’t doing the eating.” Captain Rescue said, tracing his words with his hands, assuring he understood the definition of zombie. A look of utmost horror and confusion appeared on Dr. Malevolent’s face, and then she punched the hero, inciting a round of applause by Boris.

By the time the clapping had ended, an eerie silence had blanketed the police station. The cacophony of screeches, groans, and gunfire that had turned the building into the party of the century had finally died down. Either the police officers had put an end to the zombie uprising, or they had all been eaten. Knowing zombies, they had all been eaten. Thus, with Captain Rescue’s mental handicap more than confirmed, the rag-tag group of survivors sat in silence, waiting for some sign from the outside world that everything was okay.

After a few minutes, a squeaking, sloshing sound broke the silence as heavy footsteps traveled towards them from down the hallway. The sound was reminiscent of a wet grizzly that had been synchronized swimming and now wandered about in search of salmon. However, considering they were nowhere near grizzly or salmon territory, chances were the bear in question was actually a ravenous zombie, and the salmon it wanted so badly—human flesh. The sound grew steadily closer, no one within the jail cell knew whether to ready their anti-bear weapons or their anti-zombie weapons, and then froze in terror at the realization they had neither.

Freight, the large police officer from earlier, stepped through the door. The man was a remarkable sight; a delicious stew of blood and various bits of zombies covered him from head to toe. Judging by the visual evidence, the zombies had simply started to think he was one of them. He certainly looked like it. His unblinking eyes were wide open and he did not seem to notice the blood flowing over them. His hands clutched a smoking shotgun, a red ribbon around the barrel.

He was trembling. Not from fear, but from the sheer excitement of having free reign to blast the heads from zombies. He loved guns and he loved to shoot them, so this zombie apocalypse suited him perfectly. His bloodshot eyes made it apparent that the plethora of drugs he pumped into himself regularly to form his chiseled physique had sent him into overdrive and rendered him practically insane. The steroids, his hardcore mental disposition, and the ramped up testosterone found their way into a blender and this was the outcome. His keyboard of life had its caps-lock key pressed and then torn to pieces.