Get Your Paranormal Privateers Excerpts Here! This is my fourth zombie book in my Life After Life Chronicles series.
Do you like reading about sentient alien intelligence that is a Star Trek fan?
“How many excerpts do you have?” you may ask.
Two, and they occur is consecutive chapters.
“Are they worth it?”
Read and find out! Now I’ve got a question for you.
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Most of you know my first book, Zombie Turkeys, now available in audiobook format:
Somewhat fewer of you know my second book, My Undead Mother-in-law, also available in audiobook format:
And still fewer know about my third zombie book, Paranormal Privateers. It’s also in audiobook form. Get your book here.
Paranormal Privateers Status, my third zombie book
I had fun researching Washington DC’s geography, the layout and distances around the National Mall, and shaped explosive charges!
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Get Your Paranormal Privateers Excerpt 1
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.
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
“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!”
“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.
Get Your Paranormal Privateers Excerpt 2
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.
“Follow me,” he said.
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