"A fast, entertaining, high octane adventure ride of a novel- [...] A fast, entertaining, high octane adventure ride of a novel- [...] This is enormous fun and if you like horror, zombies, thrillers, action, cold cases, and lots of excitement then download this novel." Alyson, Goodreads
Published: August 14th, 2019
To solve murders, you must understand the process of decomposition. Australia’s newest body farm, the Victorian Taphonomic Experimental Research Institute, is hidden in bushland some four hours’ drive from Melbourne.
Scattered across its 150 acres are human donor cadavers and pig carcasses arranged to mimic some of the ways in which police might find murder victims: exposed to the elements, buried in a shallow grave, wrapped in tarpaulin. Forensic scientists and graduate students meticulously track each stage of putrefaction.
Today, Detective Rick Evans of the Homicide Squad is at VITERI for the re-creation of one of his cold cases. A human donor will be locked inside a car. But the donor has other ideas... So begins a facility-wide outbreak of the reanimated dead.
"The plot is convincing, the characters engaging, the action fast-paced. Another fabulous read from Deb Sheldon." ' Robyn, Goodreads
EXCERPT
This
can’t be real, Rick thought.
With her back
turned, Violet grabbed the lip of the car boot and hoisted over a leg as if
preparing to descend a ladder. Her toes splayed and groped for the ground. She
was climbing out. The corpse was climbing out. No, she was alive, she had to be. Nothing else made sense. Somehow, Violet was
alive.
“Oh Jesus,”
Cheryl gasped. “Oh shit. Oh God.”
“Fuck! Fucking fuck,” Garcia wailed.
Both their
voices sounded distant and tinny, funnelled down a pipe. Rick knew what it
meant: his system was overloaded with adrenaline. That also explained the
tingling in his extremities, the shaking hands, loss of peripheral vision, his
laser-like focus on Violet.
Another side
effect of adrenaline was overthinking.
Pointless
overthinking.
Circular
reflections incapable of problem-solving. Reflections that can get a police
officer killed. What’s
happening? I don’t understand. How should I respond? I’m scared. What should I
do?... What’s happening? I don’t understand. How should I respond? I’m scared…
If he didn’t
shake off his confusion, panic would continue to paralyse him.
He had to act.
First, he put
his hand on his gun, a Smith & Wesson M&P40, nestled in his
shoulder-holster. Then he sucked in a breath of fetid air and took a couple of
steps to force his legs out of their jellied state.
“Madam,” he
said, voice loud, stern and commanding. “My name is Detective Senior Sergeant
Rick Evans. I’m from the Victorian Homicide Squad. Please stay where you are.
Stay inside the boot. We need to talk. I need you to stay inside the boot while
we talk. Understand?”
“Shit, oh shit,” Cheryl moaned.
“That donor is
dead,” Garcia said. “Boss, she’s dead.
What the fuck?”
“Madam, stay
where you are.”
Violet continued
to struggle backwards out of the car. Her shoulder blades, buttocks, calves and
heels were fish-belly pale, the rest of her a bright and livid purple. Hypostasis.
Post-mortem lividity. After death, capillaries are unable to fill with blood
when under pressure. Violet must have laid supine on a hard surface, such as a
floor or mattress, while her blood circulation came to a standstill and
coagulated.
No, it couldn’t
be… It just couldn’t.
Sweat ran from
Rick’s hairline. His vision pinned.
Both her feet
touched ground. The blanched toes, wrinkled as if soaked in water for a long
time, grasped and found purchase in the dirt. She turned. Took a hesitant,
faltering step.
“Stay where you
are or I’ll shoot,” Rick said.
He had
discharged his weapon in the line of duty only once before. To defend against a
man wielding a machete. A man running and slashing at people in the city. Rick
had sprinted towards him and, at approximately seven metres—the minimum safe
distance—aimed at the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Blam. The man had survived the ambulance
ride but expired in hospital. An internal investigation had absolved Rick after
a gruelling pass through the wringer. But the nightmares Rick had endured, the
flashbacks, the second-guessing…
Stop thinking. Stop thinking and do something.
Violet edged
closer, slowly and with effort, shuffling her stiff legs. Dark green veins
showed in her face. This whole time she hadn’t blinked. Rick was sure of it.
He stared at her
in disbelief, noticing every little detail. Her breasts were long and empty as
if she had recently lost a considerable amount of weight. Below her navel, a
baggy roll of skin hung like an apron and obscured her bush. Perhaps she had a
scar beneath that apron. Perhaps a surgical scar from a hysterectomy had
contracted, pulled the skin tight as a purse-string and bisected her belly.
Rick’s wife had the same problem but from an emergency C-section, their third
daughter, a breech birth...
“My fucking
God!” Cheryl shrieked.
The terror in
that shriek jolted Rick like a slap. He unclipped his holster with trembling
fingers and took out the gun, pointing it at Violet. The sight of her
threatened to loosen his bladder. Maybe even his bowels.
“Stay where you
are,” he said. “Stay.”
Like talking to
a dog, he thought. That neighbour’s dog when he was twelve, the pit bull—
“For Christ’s
sake, she’s a zombie!” Cheryl cried. “Shoot her!”
A zombie? But how on earth—
About the author:
I'm an award-winning author from Melbourne, Australia. I write short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum.
My latest releases, through several publishing houses, include the horror novels "Body Farm Z", "Contrition", and "Devil Dragon"; the horror novella "Thylacines"; the crime-noir novellas "Dark Waters" and "Ronnie and Rita"; and the dark fantasy and horror collection "Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories" (winner of the Australian Shadows Best Collected Work 2017).
My short fiction has appeared in many well-respected magazines such as Quadrant, Island, Aurealis, SQ Mag, and Midnight Echo. My fiction has been shortlisted for numerous Australian Shadows Awards and Aurealis Awards, long-listed for a Bram Stoker Award, and included in various "best of" anthologies. I'm also guest editor of this year's edition of Midnight Echo.
Other credits include TV scripts such as Neighbours and Australia's Most Wanted, feature articles for national magazines, non-fiction books published by Reed Books and Random House, and award-winning medical writing.
Publisher: Severed Press Facebook: @SeveredPress Twitter: @severedpress
9 comments:
This sounds perfect for me and I'd grab it just because of that wicked cover!
The cover is interesting. I like anything Zombies.
Zombies! Just in time for Halloween. This sounds like an awesome read.
Sounds good.
I enjoy zombie novels. This one sounds particularly awesome. Cool cover as well.
I would love to read your book.
WOW this looks amazing, love the cover and the title.
love the cove and it looks like a good book. Can't wait to read it.
Looks good.
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