Note, Patreon will ask for a monthly fee to read all chapters. You can also join for free and get the rollout at the same time as my free site on Royal Road. Click here to go there.
“What’s an ARC Copy?” you may ask.
“Advanced Readers’ Copy” is ARC. It’s the copy I give to my editor. I’m eager for reader feedback. I’ll give you one if you promise to give me a revew when I publish it in July 2025!
In this post I’ll give you a list of all my chapters on patreon.com. You can also get it on royalroad.com But there are fewer chapters published there.
Get all Chapters of my new book, “Magic Arrives”. Click here.
Accidents happen. Especially around zombie turkeys. Then you add zombie humans, and problems proliferate. Mix in some ill-planned genetic engineering, and things get crazy.
The insanity continues, from the story where zombies are merged with cucumbers to the one where two basement-dwelling nerds gain access to all video content from the past two hundred years—from aliens.
Andy Zach pulls out all the stops on his imagination as he serves up this smorgasbord of silliness. Try it. Laughter is good for your soul
Are you curious about Jesus Christ? Do you struggle to understand the Bible? The Gospel Medley includes the four Gospels in a single narrative, faithfully pulling the text from the World English Bible. You are now able to read all the gospel as a single, easy-to-read story.
Each Gospel describes Jesus’s life from a different point of view with different details and insights. The Gospel Medley combines every word into a single perspective with all details and events arranged chronologically.
Unlike other harmonies, The Gospel Medley doesn’t put the four gospels in columns or rows. Instead, the text is integrated word by word into a smoothly flowing narrative. Further, each paragraph references the four gospels so you can read the original citations. You also get footnotes of all the quotes from the Old Testament, giving you the context of Jesus’s words.
For a unique perspective of the four gospels, read ‘The Gospel Medley’ today.
Oops and More – Free Short Stories
A queen from long ago
The first mistake is a tragedy–a queen’s husband and son died through drowning.
One queen saw the problem more clearly than anyone else. Her king and prince had both drowned only a short distance from the shore because no one saw them signing for help. The queen sat vigil all night long, and in the morning she sent heralds with large signs in every language to all the humans, elves, dwarves, fairies, leprechauns, and even a dragon. She pled with all to find something that would let creatures communicate without signs or gestures when they couldn’t see each other. She promised she would give whatever was in her power to whoever could accomplish this.
Andy Zach during his doctoral research – on the Phoenix
Where is my mistake in this story? You’ll have to read and find out!
A Phoenix Tale
I left the air-conditioned comfort of the taxi, and the sights, sounds, and smells of the old bazaar in Jeddah assailed me: a robe-clad man on camel plodded by, an adjacent fishmonger added his smell to the fresh dung in the street, and the hawkers yelled their wares.
I could only speak Arabic at a middle school level, but as I strolled through the bazaar, I heard “Fresh dates!”…”Highest quality rugs!”…”Finest gold jewelry!”… “Ancient books! The rarest in Saudi Arabia!”
My head snapped around. A bald, stumpy man in a white caftan saw me look and said, “Books? You want ancient books?”
“Yes.” I spoke carefully, knowing my poor accent. “Can you speak English?” I didn’t have much hope.
This story begins with a girl in a wheelchair being transported by accident to–find out below!
The scene was chaos! I knew immediately I was in a different country, judging by the languages I couldn’t understand. I had also determined this was no modern city—I seemed to be on the outskirts of town amid a swarming crowd. Men were shouting and women were crying; meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out how I had gotten there and where exactly I was. Several seconds later, however, that question was answered.
Genetic engineering seems to be the last place to make mistakes. But that’s what Brice Butterworth does.
Now, what was he going to do? Brice Butterworth’s boss just told him to double the productivity of Vegan Inc.’s pickle strain they used for their Kilwowski Pickle brand. That was completely impossible.
But keeping his job required it. Brice was the low man on the genetic engineering totem pole at Vegan Inc., the last one hired and the first one to be fired if another recession hit.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t face this. So he cruised the internet. “The origin of zombie turkeys? I didn’t know they’d found that. Hmm, a Midley Beacon exclusive, the foremost zombie news source,” he read out loud.
Brice is one of my favorite characters. I’m eager to write a book just about him.
“Whatcha doing, Brice?” asked my boss Wilma O’Reilly after sneaking up behind me.
I jumped. As usual, I was cruising the internet, bored with my job. How awkward.
We worked at Vegan Inc., an agricultural conglomerate. I was their lead geneticist in charge of enhancing the qualities of the corporation’s vegetable products through genetic modification.
Zombie Shift Anthony Jones, warehouse worker and his wifeRaven
In this Oops! Short Story we start with a car accident.
He woke up staring out his windshield at the green grass of the highway median. Dully, Anthony listened to the sound of his car’s engine cooling, ticking like a clock. He didn’t know why he was here or how he got here.
“Hey, are you okay in there?” came a voice from outside the car.
Turning his head toward the sound, he realized he was upside down, supported by his seat belt and his legs, which were strangely numb.
“Uh,” he croaked.
* * *
“We’re going to cast your leg,” said the nurse in the ambulance. Her name tag read Louise Tall, but she didn’t seem tall. “What’s your name?”
“Uh, Anthony. Anthony Jones.”
“Do you know your height and weight, Anthony?”
“Five-eleven. Two ten. I need to lose some weight. Ow!”
I’m not immune from mistakes. This is how one mistake make my parents into zombies.
I need to tell you about my own zombie story. It’s about how my parents became zombies.
As soon as the zombie turkeys appeared in Illinois, I started cultures of their zombie turkey bacteria in petri dishes. When other animals, squirrels, rabbits, and cows began turning zombie, I added cultures of their bacteria. I sought the ultimate source of animal revivification. It was my PhD thesis and my life’s work.
I’ve always wanted to revive animals from the dead. It seemed the secret was through the special bacteria for each species. Naturally, when humans became zombies, I cultivated their bacteria too.
He was dead. At least, his business was. And without his business, his wife would leave him and take their new baby. Then he might as well be dead.
His dad had run the Elysium Fields Mortuary for thirty years and had made a killing at it. The first and only mortuary in their small town of Hillvale, everyone got buried there. He charged normal prices, he was friendly, and he helped their community. His dad said to him when he was a teen, “Irving, after you get your college degree, go to mortuary school, and when you come out, I’ll hire you and then turn the business over to you. You’ll be set for life.”
What kind of accidents can happen with zombie corgis?
Breeding zombie corgis wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Heather Mallorn sighed as she reviewed accounts for Her Majesty’s Corgis in Hanna City, Illinois. Certainly, she made plenty on each zombie corgi she sold. Normally, corgi puppies went for $1,200. She earned double that for zombies. The zombie corgies were invincible guard dogs, and cute too, with bright-red eyes. They were no harder to train than regular corgis, just slightly more aggressive. Well, a lot more aggressive.
What trouble can a pet hamster cause? Find out below!
How fascinating! Dancer thought. This book says there are libraries where hundreds of books live. It also says the fiction books are in order by author name.
Dancer scurried off Your Sixth Year Reader to look at Jeremy Gentle’s bookshelf again. Jeremy was Dancer’s owner and unknowing educator. Ever since he’d taught himself to read by studying the newspapers lining the bottom of his cage, Dancer had craved reading.
He hadn’t figured out why he’d started reading. One day he’d noticed patterns in the markings. He saw they repeated themselves in clumps. Then the clumps formed more patterns. He also listened to his owners differently. They also spoke in patterns. “Jeremy” was always called “Jeremy” or “Jeremy Gentle” by his mother, and sometimes by his father.
“Arrrgh! Me hearties, eat hearty!” said a short, stocky pirate with an eye patch and a captain’s hat seemingly copied from Cap’n Crunch. The pirate gestured, with a hook instead of a right hand, toward an enormous banquet table laden with food. The one visible eye gleamed red.
“Arrrgh! Where’s the skilly and duff?” said a refrigerator-sized bald pirate with an enormous mustache. His eyes also shone crimson.
“Arrrgh! That be the tacos and enchiladas,” said a small, beautiful pirate with dark hair bound by a red bandanna and smiling blood-red eyes. She pointed with her cutlass toward the Mexican section of the smorgasbord.
“Arrrgh! You be a Mexican pirate?” said a blond pirate with broad shoulders and a Cockney accent. She wore her hair in a long queue emerging from a bloody headband around her forehead. She also had glowing ruby eyes.
“That’s your problem, isn’t it? Try the local apartments. Look for rooms to rent on the internet. It’s not that hard to find a place in Ohio.”
I could tell by his grim expression he was serious this time. He’d been nagging me for nearly a year to move out and “set up housekeeping” ever since I’d graduated from the state university with my BA in video game art and my minor in computer science. I’d managed to wheedle him out of it and delay the date. Until now.
Let me know what you think of my gifts for you by clicking here or emailing me at [email protected]. As always, everyone who responds with a comment or email will get a free book from me.
What did you like best about this Oops! and More on Sale blog post?
From Chapter 4 London, the first draft of Paranormal Privateers, we find the paranormal privateers, George, Diane, Lulu, and Sharon, going incognito as undeclared zombies, quite against British law at the time. They’re using bloodhounds and zombie corgis to track down terrorists threatening London. Oh, and they have a truckload of zombie bulls.
The Chapter 5 London chapter icon – what could it mean? Click and find out!
Scotland Yard met us the next morning when we docked in the port of London. We divided up into three groups to cover the area. Diane and I took everything between Grosvenor Place and Belgrave Place. Lulu and Sharon took the area from Belgrave to Basil. The Scotland Yard dog handlers Jerry Naismith and Benjamin Buxley took the wedge from Basil to Knightsbridge.
We jogged along, Diane and I. She had picked up the special two-wheel wheelchair, iBot, from Kamen industries office in London and loved tooling along at six miles per hour. Since we were in England maybe I should use the metric equivalent: ten kilometers per hour. I had no trouble keeping up with her, even as a deaf-mute. If people talked to me, I just handed them my deaf-mute card. The dogs, our two corgis, and two bloodhounds, also in service dog vests, loved it.
Then came a yell over our headsets. It was the Scotland yard crew, Jerry and Ben, both yelling.
“We’ve found them! The terrorists! They’re on the second floor of Harrods, in the tableware section!” said Jerry.
“We can’t get any closer! They’ve got tasers!” said Ben.
Get Rare Excerpt, part 2
Chapter 10 icon
“The hounds found C-4 in crockpots. When the sales clerks saw us they shot tasers at us!” Jerry continued.
“We would have been fried, but our kevlar vests stopped them,” added Ben.
“Now they’ve surrounded us in the ladies WC, taking shots at us,” Jerry interjected.
“We’re not far away!” said Lulu. “We’ll be right there!”
“George, we’re over a mile away, but we’re close to our truck, er, lorry holding the bulls and more corgis.”
I nodded. We had decided killer turkeys and the crowds of London were not a good combination. The turkeys remained on the yacht.
Diane jumped out of her wheelchair. “I’m breaking cover, you can too, George!” We ran to the truck, about two blocks away.
“Let me drive Diane,” I said.
“Of course. Left-hand drive scares me!”
Left-hand drive just required flipping all my US habits around. Look right first, then left. Keep left. I got the lorry out into traffic. We got into the traffic circle off Grosvenor.
“Look for Brampton exit,” I said.
We went all around the circle. No Brompton.
“Let’s try Chesham,” Diane suggested.
“We just passed it,” I said.
“What about Wilton?”
“You mean that last exit? We can’t go back to it now.”
“Here comes Belgrave again.”
“Let’s pull off,” I consulted the map on my cell phone. No map appeared for London. Rather, a popup said, “Directions disabled for London by order of the City of London. Please consult an official London cabbie.” I read aloud, incredulous.
Excerpt of third zombie book, part 3
The bulls bawled in the lorry. “There’s a taxi stand over there,” I pointed to Diane.
“I’m on it!” Diane leapt out of the lorry, ran across the busy traffic circle, accompanied by honking cars and talked with a cabby. She gave him some money and ran back.
“He’ll lead us to Harrods!”
I followed him out of the traffic circle. Then I heard in the headset, “Yow!”
Paranormal Privateers back cover – Click to get your preview
“Ay, caramba!” That was Lulu.
“What happened, Lulu?”
“Sharon caught a taser in the face. She’s down! It’s way more electricity than a regular taser. It can stop a zombie!”
“How are the Scotland Yard guys, Jerry and Ben?” I asked.
“We’re fine!” Jerry answered.
“After Lulu and Sharon attacked the clerks let us alone,” Ben added.
“Then we slipped down to the first floor,” Jerry said.
“That’s the second floor in US terminology,” Lulu said.
“So if the tableware is on the second floor, that’s the third?” I asked.
“Yes,” Lulu said.
“What’s your situation, Lulu?” I asked.
“I’m using a cutting board as a shield. When the taser hits it, I cut the wires with my katana.”
“Are they going to rush you? Where are you?”
“I don’t think so. One tried sneaking past me and I bowled him down by throwing a mixer at him. I’m guarding the exit to the dinnerware room. They can’t leave past me, but I can’t advance. I can’t leave Sharon anyway. How long until you get here?”
“We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“We’ll need about ten more minutes,” said General MacGregor, who was in charge of the backup forces.
“Good! Double backup! Lulu, hang on, we’re bringing in the heavies!” Diane said.
I examined my cell methodically. A drainpipe, two inches in diameter. A toilet. A hard bed. A steel door with hinges on the outside. I’d probably need to escape from somewhere other than this cell. Once they established a routine with my interrogation, I’d look for escape routes.
I chuckled to myself. Synthia Smith was my true name, in the sense it matched my birth certificate and other current identification. Before Synthia Smith, I was Rachel Rathbone, and before that Quinella Quincy, and so on, through the alphabet. My earliest memory was a toddler named Betty Botter. I had to be cute and pick pockets. Who knew what my original name was? Changing identities was a standard procedure for me with each new assignment.
This had been my most challenging operation, and I’d almost pulled it off. Those damn zombies! Had I blown up Harrods, the demands for billions in exchange for each national landmark’s safety would have been credible.
They had no idea of the bigger picture—and they wouldn’t get it. My terrorist cover story was completely true, but neither the terrorists nor Scotland Yard knew they were merely a means to an end. It was the truth: total subjugation of the United Kingdom was a reasonable goal for one like me, a child of the world’s greatest criminal.
I knew more about Papa Smith, my ostensible grandfather, than any of my siblings. I think I actually touched his feelings as a loving granddaughter, and I believe he shared more with me than with any of his other crime-lord grandchildren. Of course, he might be manipulating me, just as I tried to manipulate him. That was the most reasonable assumption, especially if we were actually related.
What Is Paranormal Privateers All About? – Synthia Smith, Part 2
Regardless, I felt fond of him. When I overthrew him and took over his crime empire, I thought I’d keep him alive. I enjoyed our talks via our secured video line. When he’d shared Sid Boffin’s failure with me, I clapped in delight as he praised me for staying in touch with him. I think that was genuine emotion and not an act. It was hard to tell sometimes.
A motion on the floor caught my eye as I sat on the bed. A cockroach crawled up the drain and onto the floor. Surprising. Usually, Britain kept their prisons pest-free. Then another. Then a dozen more. And then, hundreds.
This was not normal cockroach behavior. They did not come into the light in hordes. I sat cross-legged on the bed and watched the swarm with fascination. They climbed the door, walked its steel perimeter, and went back down the drain as others came up.
Curious, I nabbed one using my lightning reflexes. Examining it, I saw a metal dot under its thorax and a narrow tube attached to its abdomen. A pungent, acidic smell came from the tube. I looked back to the door. The acid ate a narrow trench in the door’s perimeter, right where the cockroaches still marched. Near the ceiling light, I saw mist curl away from the door.
Synthia Smith, Part 3
Modified and controlled cockroaches—like Sid Boffin’s cyborg-controlled animals. I’d read his Ph.D. paper as well as the Midley Beacon‘s declassified reports on his battles with the zombies. Since Sid was dead at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, this could only be one of my siblings or Papa Smith trying to rescue me.
Using my perfect memory of the twists and turns when they’d led me here hooded, counting my steps, and remembering the doors, I was confident I could retrace the route.
The last of the cockroaches marched around the door, leaving its trail of acid. They etched the door perhaps a centimeter deep. Couldn’t be much left.
I knocked on the door. Yes, it felt like a centimeter thick, and it echoed like it was almost cut through. Then someone knocked back, much harder.
“I’m here!” I called. I assumed this was my rescuer.
“Step back,” grated a curious, tinny voice, like it was coming through a small radio.
I stepped away.
CLUMP! CLUMP! Two metallic thunks hit the other side of the door. Then, SKREERK! The door tore off like the lid of a tin of meat.
I didn’t expect what I saw. A male silverback gorilla filled the doorway and the whole hallway beyond. Thick armor covered his body. Casually, he placed the door scrap against the hall.
