James Patterson - Toys

Copyright 2011 by James Patterson

Excerpt from 10th Anniversary copyright 2011 by James Patterson

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Little, Brown and Company

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First eBook Edition: March 2011

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-316-09737-6

Cross Fire

I, Alex Cross

Alex Crosss Trial (with Richard DiLallo)

Cross Country

Double Cross

Cross

Mary, Mary

London Bridges

The Big Bad Wolf

Four Blind Mice

Violets Are Blue

Roses Are Red

Pop Goes the Weasel

Cat & Mouse

Jack & Jill

Kiss the Girls

Along Came a Spider

The 9th Judgment (with Maxine Paetro)

The 8th Confession (with Maxine Paetro)

7th Heaven (with Maxine Paetro)

The 6th Target (with Maxine Paetro)

The 5th Horseman (with Maxine Paetro)

4th of July (with Maxine Paetro)

3rd Degree (with Andrew Gross)

2nd Chance (with Andrew Gross)

1st to Die

Tick Tock (with Michael Ledwidge)

Worst Case (with Michael Ledwidge)

Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge)

Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge)

Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel

Witch & Wizard: The Gift (with Ned Rust)

Daniel X: The Manga, Vol. 2 (with SeungHui Kye)

Maximum Ride: The Manga, Vol. 3 (with NaRae Lee)

Daniel X: The Manga, Vol. 1 (with SeungHui Kye)

Daniel X: Demons and Druids (with Adam Sadler)

FANG: A Maximum Ride Novel

Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

Maximum Ride: The Manga, Vol. 2 (with NaRae Lee)

Daniel X: Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)

MAX: A Maximum Ride Novel

Maximum Ride: The Manga, Vol. 1 (with NaRae Lee)

Daniel X: Alien Hunter (graphic novel; with Leopoldo Gout)

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidge)

The Final Warning: A Maximum Ride Novel

Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Maximum Ride: Schools OutForever

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

santaKid

Toys (with Neil McMahon)

Dont Blink (with Howard Roughan)

The Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund)

Private (with Maxine Paetro)

The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard)

Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)

Against Medical Advice (with Hal Friedman)

Sail (with Howard Roughan)

Sundays at Tiffanys (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

Youve Been Warned (with Howard Roughan)

The Quickie (with Michael Ledwidge)

Judge & Jury (with Andrew Gross)

Beach Road (with Peter de Jonge)

Lifeguard (with Andrew Gross)

Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan)

Sams Letters to Jennifer

The Lake House

The Jester (with Andrew Gross)

The Beach House (with Peter de Jonge)

Suzannes Diary for Nicholas

Cradle and All

When the Wind Blows

Miracle on the 17th Green (with Peter de Jonge)

Hide & Seek

The Midnight Club

Black Friday (originally published as Black Market)

See How They Run (originally published as The Jericho Commandment)

Season of the Machete

The Thomas Berryman Number

For previews of upcoming books by James Patterson and more information about the author, visit www.jamespatterson.com.

For Kimmy partner in crimes of passion

NM

Many species have become extinct because of human destruction of their natural environments. Indeed, current rates of human-induced extinctions are estimated to be about 1,000 times greater than past natural rates of extinction, leading some scientists to call modern times the sixth mass extinction.

Encyclopedia Britannica

A material object for children or others to play with (often an imitation of some familiar object); a plaything; also, something contrived for amusement rather than for practical use.

The Oxford English Dictionary

I WILL NOT forget this moment for as long as I live, which, in truth, might not be that long anyway. I pop the ominous disc labeled 7-4 Day into the player and sit back on the dusty, threadbare couch in my parents cluttered fallout shelter at our beloved lake house in the north country.

I figure that something titled 7-4 Day cant be good news.

And it isnt.

Wham!no slow reveal, no fade-in. There are just bodies everywhere. Human beings are slumped in car seats, collapsed on sidewalks, lying on the floor in front of the counter at a once popular fast-food restaurant called McDonalds.

Next comes a classroom in which high school students and their teacher are just lying, pale and bloated, at their desks.

A construction worker is dead in a cherry-picker, and it is possible that his eyes have actually popped from his face.

A postman is sprawled on a porch, the mail still held dutifully in his hands.

A towheaded girl is dead on her bicycle at the bottom of a roadside culvertand this finally brings tears to my eyes.

Its as if some master switch has been thrown, turning off their hearts and brains just as they went about their daily lives.

Not everyones dead though.

In one indelible scene, elevator doors are pried open and a screaming, traumatized businesswoman emergesat least seven corpses of business types are visible behind her.

There is some hope at least.

A few hundred survivors are gathered at midfield in a baseball stadium, possibly in New Chicago. The camera pans around. Horrible! The pitcher is dead on the mound, his face buried in dust. There are uniformed bodies at the bases, in the outfield, in the dugouts. The stands are filled with fifty thousand forever-silent fans.

Im light-headed and ill as I sit on my parents couch and watch all this. Ive been forgetting to breathe, actually; my skin is clammy and cold.

Now I view a snapped-off flagpole displayed against an urban skylinea skyline of blackened, broken, and smoking buildings. Theyre like teeth in a jawbone that somebody has pulled from a funeral pyre.

Im beginning to suspect that this footage