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.
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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.
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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.
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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!”
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“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 Free Except – An Author Reading
Here’s another excerpt, read by Yours Truly, Andy Zach. Get Your Free Excerpt is from the beginning of the book, chapter 1.
The Paranormal Privateers are zombies hired by the Federal government as privateers. The book opens with them fighting Somali pirates–by letting themselves get captured.
“Is that all?”
Nope! They go through the Suez canal and then on to Sevastopol, where they break up a human trafficking ring.
Paranormal Privateers back cover – Click to get your preview
Inhaling the salted breeze, he grinned back at Muhammed. He cheered and laughed in his seat behind the M2 machine gun in the bow of the boat they used to patrol the coasts and fishing waters of Somalia. The sun gleamed off his white teeth.
“Look, Dirac!” he said. “They’re stopping!”
True enough. The bow wave ceased as he watched. A pod of dolphins ended their sporting on the wave and submerged. The gleaming white yacht loomed above them. What were they doing in the fishing waters of Somalia? He couldn’t imagine the wealth on board. Enough for their whole village to eat well for a year!
Their supreme leader, Omar Ogala, organized Somali fishermen and former coast guard sailors to patrol their fishing waters. He ordered them to capture any fishing or cargo vessels they spotted. He told them the Americans and Europeans no longer cared about Somalia with the other crises around the world and they could defend their coasts from foreign competition—and dumpers. Many foreign nations, knowing Somalia’s military weakness, sent cargo ships full of pollutants and dumped them into their waters.
Dirac never expected to see a luxury ship here. It was as big as a cruise liner, but apparently a private yacht. He’d seen one once before when an Arab sheik visited Mogadishu. This one was three times the size! The owner would pay big to get it back. Maybe even a billion dollars? He couldn’t imagine that much money, and he was good with numbers. Let’s see: fourteen million people lived in Somalia. Divide a billion dollars among them would give each about seventy dollars. Unbelievable. A family of five could live comfortably for a year on that!
You Can Go ‘Round the World – Part 2
He came along as a navigator, fighter, and boarder, guiding their boat along the shore of Somalia and into the Arabian Gulf for several days, before leading them back. Besides Muhammed and him, there was Zahi, another fighter and boarder, and Ali, their captain.
“Dirac,” Ali said, “you and Zahi board this ship and take the helm. You will follow us back to Hobyo. Muhammed and I will stay on the boat and keep the machine gun on them.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Ali took the megaphone they carried for ship-to-ship communication. “Let us board! Let us board! Or we will gun your ship!”
Dirac didn’t understand English, of course, but he knew what Ali was saying. Ali was the only one who knew any English.
“Don’t shoot! Give us time! We have to get our ladder!” Surprisingly, the person spoke in Arabic. Good Arabic too, but with a strange Saudi and European accent. More surprisingly, it was a woman, a blonde, from what he could see of the figure leaning over the railing far above us. He kept a close watch on her. Strictly for security purposes, of course.
They kept their boat about fifty meters away from the ship and watched the crew scurry about the many decks. Dirac counted five including the main deck, and there were at least three more decks below the main one.
You Can Go ‘Round the World Part 3
Finally a rope ladder unrolled from the main deck, perhaps ten meters above them. They came close to the ship. A pod of dolphins flashed under their boat. Then they leapt out of the water and into it.
Only, they weren’t the dolphins he had seen earlier. Four people in green wet suits landed with heavy thumps in Dirac’s boat. They had no breathing equipment, not even snorkels. They took off their goggles, and their eyes shone bright red in the sun.
“Zombies!” Ali cried. “Shoot them!”
Automatically, Dirac sprayed the nearest with his AK-47. He heard the others fire too. Muhammed shot the largest one with the big .50-caliber machine gun. That could cut a man in two.
Dozens of red craters appeared in the black wet suit of the one Dirac shot. But she—a white, brown-haired woman—didn’t go down. Her brows furrowed in anger, and shouting in English, she ripped the gun from his hand and threw it into the ocean. He was like a baby with a rattle taken by his parent. The other zombies did the same, except the big one. He grabbed the barrel of the machine gun in both hands and wrenched it from Muhammed. Dirac could hear the zombie’s flesh sizzle on the hot barrel. Then the big zombie bent the barrel into a right angle. Rubbing his hands together afterward, the burned skin fell on the deck of their boat. Pink skin showed on his palms.
He was enormous, bigger than two Somalis put together. His red eyes looked out of his calm, square face. The bullets from the machine gun had sliced the wet suit open across his chest, and more pink skin showed in the gap. As he watched, brown hair grew.
You Can Go ‘Round the World Excerpt – From London
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.
The Chapter 5 London chapter icon – what could it mean? Click and find out!
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.
You Can Go ‘Round the World
Chapter 9 icon of Paranormal Privateers
After more adventures, the zombie privateers (lead by My Undead Mother-in-law Diane Newby) go to Washington DC.
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You Can Go ‘Round the World – An Author Reading
Here’s another excerpt, read by Yours Truly, Andy Zach. Get Your Free Excerpt is from the beginning of the book, chapter 1.
Ten Books, Ten Chapters Free, all for Advent 20. I’m giving a gift daily. These books were from the previous ten days. Today, you get the gift of convenience. All the books are in one spot for you.
He felt different. More energetic, more alive. He bred with female after female in his flock without tiring. The tom stayed awake through the night. He feared no predator.
Then a turkey hunter shot him.
The setting sun overlooked a crisp, clear evening in early November. South of Bartonville, Illinois, a farmer had leased his wood lot to two turkey hunters. Big and burly in their bulky camouflaged outfits, they had just bagged one.
“Good shot, Pete!”
“He’s a big ‘un!”
Pete and Bob walked up to the tom turkey, bleeding on the cold ground. The rest of the flock had scattered into the woods. He had exceptionally good plumage and weighed perhaps twenty pounds. Pete reached down and picked him up by the neck.
“He weighs at least twenty-five pounds!”
Then the turkey’s eyes opened—and gleamed red. He kicked with his spurs and pecked savagely at Pete’s arms and eyes. Dozens of his hens attacked the men from behind.
“Gobble! Gobble!”
He felt different. More energetic, more alive. He had no memory of being shot, but a certain turkey satisfaction at killing his killers. The tom also enjoyed pecking at their dead meat. He had always liked frogs, but this meat tasted better. He led his flock down the road in search of more predators to eat.
“Sam, you’re fired.” Lisa’s green eyes met Sam’s brown ones.
“What? Lisa, you and I have worked together at the Midley Beacon for ten years! And we’ve known each other for fifteen! And we’ve been married almost two months!” Sam broke eye contact, stood up from his desk, and paced about their small office.
“Sorry, Sam. Romance has to take a backseat to finances. Ever since the bottom dropped out of the zombie turkey news market since the first of the year, the Midley Beacon hasn’t made enough to pay your salary.”
“But that’s our salary. We share and share alike.”
“We can still live on my salary. And you can apply for unemployment now that you’re fired.”
“But what’ll I do all day? I can only play Fortnite for so long.”
“What did you do before I hired you ten years ago? What did you do while I was in college?”
“Uh, mow lawns. Handyman repair. Stuff like that. But I’m a grown man now. I want more.”
“Hmm, you are a decent reporter.”
“Thanks, Lisa. That’s high praise coming from you.”
“Well, it’s the truth. You’ve grown from a crappy reporter, like ninety-nine percent of all reporters, to well above average. I did lay off everyone else on the staff before you, you know.”
Sam’s eyes misted. “Aw, you’re making me feel warm and mushy.”
“You know I love your mother. But your mother’s a zombie. Who wants to see one zombie, let alone four of them?”
“Now that’s not fair. Mom and Dad have adjusted to their zombiism very well. Mom still volunteers at church and bakes cookies and pies for the bake sales. Dad still works as an accountant at GM. There’s nothing to worry about!”
“That covers Diane and George. I know them. I guess I’m ready for them. What about your brother and this new girlfriend of his? I don’t think Don has said two whole sentences to me since I’ve known him!”
“He’d never get a word in edgewise with you, Ron. You said it yourself—you’ve had diarrhea of the mouth since you were born. He and his friend Maggie will be fine.”
“Whatever you say, Karen.” I knew when to surrender. I focused my eyes on the Indiana turnpike ahead.
“Hmmph!”
I glanced at Karen while I drove. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, and she looked out the window, away from me. Trying to make peace, I said, “I thought we dodged a bullet when the zombie turkey plague just missed Gary, Indiana. I never dreamt this zombie thing would hit our own family.” I kept my tone neutral
“So far it hasn’t hit us hard. Life goes on as usual.”
Great! At least she was still talking to me. “As great as it can with glowing red eyes,” I said with a big grin.
“Maybe. I hadn’t really thought about how hard life would be like that.”
Dirac sighed with relief when the US flag came down, and the surrender flag went up on the mast of the titanic luxury yacht. He didn’t mind firing rounds from his AK-47 over their heads, but he hated killing people. He knew they were only infidels, but they were still people.
Chapter 1 icon of Paranormal Privateers
Inhaling the salted breeze, he grinned back at Muhammed. He cheered and laughed in his seat behind the M2 machine gun in the bow of the boat they used to patrol the coasts and fishing waters of Somalia. The sun gleamed off his white teeth.
“Look, Dirac!” he said. “They’re stopping!”
True enough. The bow wave ceased as he watched. A pod of dolphins ended their sporting on the wave and submerged. The gleaming white yacht loomed above them. What were they doing in the fishing waters of Somalia? He couldn’t imagine the wealth on board. Enough for their whole village to eat well for a year!
Their supreme leader, Omar Ogala, organized Somali fishermen and former coast guard sailors to patrol their fishing waters. He ordered them to capture any fishing or cargo vessels they spotted. He told them the Americans and Europeans no longer cared about Somalia with the other crises around the world and they could defend their coasts from foreign competition—and dumpers. Many foreign nations, knowing Somalia’s military weakness, sent cargo ships full of pollutants and dumped them into their waters.
Dirac never expected to see a luxury ship here. It was as big as a cruise liner, but apparently a private yacht. He’d seen one once before when an Arab sheik visited Mogadishu. This one was three times the size! The owner would pay big to get it back. Maybe even a billion dollars? He couldn’t imagine that much money, and he was good with numbers. Let’s see: fourteen million people lived in Somalia. Divide a billion dollars among them would give each about seventy dollars. Unbelievable. A family of five could live comfortably for a year on that!
Now, what was he going to do? His 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. Bryce 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 to himself.
Zombie turkeys had ravaged Illinois and the US at Thanksgiving. Thankfully, they hadn’t hit near Terre Haute, where he lived. He skimmed the article rapidly. Corn All, one of their agribusiness rivals, had genetically modified its corn to fight off corn disease. The genetic modification would adapt to the disease at a cellular level and neutralize it by copying the DNA from the disease organism, whether fungal or bacterial.
“Dear diary,” Jeremy Gentle dictated into his app on his tablet in his bedroom. “Today, I became a superhero.” Jeremy stopped, uncertain. Was that the best way to start his journal? Might as well just tell the story. He needed to sleep. He had a big algebra test tomorrow at Maryville Middle School.
Yesterday, school went as usual. It was the same old seventh grade. Same handicapped kids in the same class. Same problems transferring to the toilet from my wheelchair. Nothing new.
Oh, I take that back. I had one new, bad thing happen— I fell during physical therapy. There I was, between the parallel bars, halfway done. I tried with all my might to take another step. I couldn’t. My muscles screamed, at their end. My legs collapsed, and I hung like a marionette from the gait belt, held by my therapist, Fred Bernstein.
How fascinating! 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 Dancer had noticed patterns in the markings. He saw they repeated themselves in clumps which then formed more patterns. Then he started listening 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.
Dancer had learned to understand Jeremy and his parents, and then he’d put the terms they said with the clumps on the paper. Each letter had a sound, and together they formed clumps his master called “words.” The idea was brilliant. No wonder they were his owners and he was only a hamster.
Dancer read each paper eagerly to the point of memorizing it, but reading started to bore him. Jeremy only changed the lining about once a week. So he’d watched Jeremy open and close his cage door. Then he copied the motion, using his paws and nose. He left to search for more words to read.
Startled, I looked up from my computer and turned around in my wheelchair. My best friend, Dan, had slipped silently into my lab. I still thought of it that way, but we’d made it into the Secret Supers clubhouse almost a year ago. Dan’s round, brown face smiled down at me while his tall, wide frame loomed behind me. His dark glasses hid his blind eyes.
“I didn’t hear you come down the elevator.”
“I took the stairs. Your mom made cookies, so I came over. I could smell them from my house.”
“You mean, you could smell them from my mom’s thoughts?”
“And your’s and your dad’s. You were all excited, so I couldn’t help myself from taking a sniff from your mom’s nose. I didn’t snoop any further than that.”
“I know you respect everyone’s privacy with your mindreading power.”
“Except maybe yours. You did permit me to read yours anytime. But I haven’t read your mind about what you’re concentrating on. C’mon, tell your old friend Dan.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I want to surprise the Secret Supers.”
1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The Pre-Existence of Jesus Christ
The Gospel Medley back cover
John 1:1–5, 10–13
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [1]2The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him. Without Him was not anything made that has been made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.[2]
This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John, 2 who testified to God’s word and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.
What is the origin of the book of Revelation?
How did John get the book of Revelation? Through which Persons did the Revelation pass?
What is the purpose of the Revelation?
Who is the intended audience of Revelation?
What is in the Book of Revelation?
Prayer: Thank You, Almighty God, for giving us the book of Revelation, directly from You through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank You for using Your created angels and sons of men to spread Your truth through all the world. Amen.
God gives us the name of the book: the Revelation of Jesus Christ. He gives us the topic, things which must happen soon, and shows the provenance of the book as the knowledge flows from His throne through Jesus, to His angel, to John, and then to the whole church.
