Jake Bible - Dead Mech

Published by Samannah Media

Copyright 2010, 2011 Jake Bible

Book Cover By Ed Delaney Copyright 2010

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Allcharacters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authorsimagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance toactual events or persons, living or dead, is purelycoincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Note

This ebook is licensed for your personalenjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away toother people. If you would like to share this book with anotherperson, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Ifyoure reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was notpurchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.comand purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard workof this author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, let me thank all of the fans of DEADMECH that sat through hours upon hours of listening to the podcast.Without yall, none of this would have happened.

I have to thank my wife, Marti, and my kids,Sam and Annah for living with me while I wrote, recorded, edited,wrote, recorded, edited, wrote, well, you get the picture. Thankyou for being so patient. I love you very much.

I also have to thank my Dad for handing methose boxes upon boxes of paperbacks when I was in middle school.The worlds he helped me discover: Robert R. McCammon, RogerZelazny, Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Frank Herbert.

Thanks to my Mom who loves books also, butmost of all, loved to talk about books. Hours spent dissecting thecultural and historical significance of horror and scifi charactersand worlds.

I want to thank all of my friends that Igrew up with that challenged me artistically and intellectually.Without yall I would have just been another bored kid with dreams,but zero motivation to act on those dreams.

Finally, I want to thank all of the teachers(my wife included). Without teachers this country would be acesspool of bland, lifeless crap. You, teachers, are the spark thatignites the creative fires and fans those flames into greatness. Iremember you all and thank you for every single word ofencouragement and for never giving up on me even though I waspretty annoying and hard to deal with.

Thank you everyone!

FOREWARD

What Is A Drabble Novel?

Since writing the novel and podcasting it toover 6,000 subscribers, the number one question I am asked is: whatis a drabble novel?

Well, to understand what a drabble novel is,you have to understand what a drabble is. So let us start at thebeginning, a drabble is a piece of micro-fiction exactly 100 wordslong. Not 99, not 101, but 100 words precisely.

Having to hit that kind of word count can bea bit challenging, but after a little practice it begins to flowrather easily.

So I worked on a few drabbles and becamequite hooked on the style. Of course, since just writing 100 wordswasnt enough, I asked myself, Self, could drabbles be strungtogether in a longer narrative?

Thus, the Drabble Novel was born!

Well, there was a little hit and miss in thebeginning

Basically I started writing charactersketches, action scenes, plot twists, really, anything that poppedinto my head, just to see if I even had a novel in me. After ahundred or so of these disjointed snapshots of the idea in my head,I realized I actually had something. Something that I couldlegitimately write and call a Drabble Novel. So I dove rightin.

Now, the actual process of writing the novelwasnt quite so free for all. Pretty much I would write 100 words,go over it a few times, then a few more times, then a few moretimes, until the pacing and wording was just right. Then Id printout that page and move onto the next 100 words. I was pretty muchdoing what all writers say not to do: I was doing final edits as Iwrote. Yep, I was polishing one piece before moving onto the next.And there really wasnt any other way to do it.

You see, in the beginning I couldnt hit 100words on the first pass. Usually I would hit 183 words or 217 wordsthen have to chop, chop, chop. Some of my best prose was axed inorder to keep the story strong. As I became more experienced withthe flow of the style, I would actually hit 100 words about sevenout of ten times on the first try. Which actually made my jobharder because I would re-read the piece and realize somethingdidnt work and almost have to re-write the entire thing to get theright flow and pacing and still hit 100 words.

Ill tell you one thing, you learn economyof words when writing a Drabble Novel! There really aint no spacefor flowery description and exposition. You have to get to the meatof the matter right away and stick with it. Dont dilly dally.Every single word counts.

So, thats the nuts and bolts of a DrabbleNovel.

I put my heart and soul into this novel andwent a tad cooky writing it, but I loved every word of it.

I hope you do too.

-Cheers,

Jake Bible

February 2011

It would be decades after the restructuringof human society before records were found declaring that the virusthat caused the zombie apocalypse was not the first. It wasnt eventhe second.

According to scientific records, there hadbeen at least four earlier outbreaks of related viruses. Governmentorganizations had been successful in all cases until the finalvirus. Prevailing theory was the viruss mutations finally outranthe scientists.

The final mutation was all the virus neededto survive.

It is unknown how many people were spreadingthe virus among the worlds population before the first carrierdied and re-animated.

***

It is believed that every member of thehuman species became a dormant carrier of the virus. Thus, everyhuman that died came back as a re-animated corpse. No cure could befound, no recourse.

However, worse than the fact that peopleknew their body would come back as a voracious nightmare, was thediscovery that a bite from a zombie would mean death andre-animation within 24 hours.

And that those bitten became contagiouswithin twelve hours, infecting friends, family, co-workers, anyonethey in turn bit.

And bite, they did. No exceptions, noremorse, no reasoning.

Madness was unleashed.

***

Only one thing could be confirmed regardingthe virus: everyone infected became a zombie.

No one was spared. No matter what anti-viraldrugs were used, immuno-suppressants, gene therapies, nothingworked. Nothing even slowed it down.

Once the living died it took less thantwenty minutes for the corpse to re-animate with only two things onits mindless brain: kill and eat.

Killing seemed to be its first priority.Feeding would not distract the virus driven undead from their needto kill. Too many citizens learned the hard way, thinking a zombiewas distracted by flesh; thinking they had a chance.

***

The zombies the virus created were notshuffling, foot draggers, but active, homicidal, very hungryre-animated corpses bent on killing every human they could andfeasting on their flesh. They were unbelievably strong andfast.

They were driven to kill, first andforemost. This insured the supreme dominance of the virus.

Feeding was secondary. And feeding on freshflesh was the key. While never proven substantially, the belief wasthat the zombie was able to feed off the energy still stored. Old,decaying, rotten flesh was of no interest to the zombies. Thus theydid not feed off each other.

***

The zombie physiology differed greatly formits original human form. No longer were organs needed for survival,since they could not digest or process what they caught.

All energy, all sustenance went intobuilding and maintaining connective tissues.