Guest post – excerpt: Above Ground by A.M. Harte
A.M. Harte writes twisted speculative fiction, such as the post-apocalyptic Above Ground and the zombie love anthology Hungry For You. She is excellent at missing deadlines, has long forgotten what ‘free time’ means, and is utterly addicted to chocolate. She lives in London, a city not half as foggy as some seem to think.
Book blurb:
The first glimpse of sun may be her last.
When Lilith Gray goes above ground for the first time, she hardly expects to stay there — much less be trapped on the surface with no way home.
Hunted by trackers and threatened by the infected, Lilith is on the run, desperate to return underground. Her only hope for survival lies with a taciturn werewolf with a dark agenda of his own.
Lilith’s old carefree life has been reduced to one choice:
Adapt. Or die trying.
Excerpt:
“You saved the wrong girl.”
Emma’s eyelids were heavy. She blinked, blinked again, stared at the solid metal ceiling with blank incomprehension. Her body ached, and every time she tried to focus her vision swam sickeningly. Where was she? What had happened?
“There was no other girl to save.” The second voice was smoother, more a steely tenor than a rumbling baritone. Neither voice was familiar. Emma closed her eyes again. Took slow, deep breaths. There was a dull thudding pain at the back of her head. Was this a hospital?
“You’ve put the entire operation at risk, King,” the first man snapped. “You should have brought Lilith, or nothing.”
It was the sound of a familiar name that tugged Emma into consciousness. She opened her eyes again, gingerly turned her head to the side. She was lying on a cot in the corner of a rectangular room. Large screens covered the opposite wall, showing surveillance footage of countless bodies crawling and twitching, or worse—not moving at all. One camera had been knocked askew and was pointing at a wall instead, directly at a large, dark liquid smear.
The memories returned in a rush: the theatre, the spatter of blood, the sharp grins of the vampires. She’d passed out, hit her head, and Lilith… Lilith had been kidnapped, no doubt eaten, her best friend gone forever because Emma had been too weak to fight. It could have been her to die, and yet here she was, bruised but safe, watching the silent carnage on-screen like it was just another horror film. Emma tore her eyes away, her stomach churning.
The blood had no effect on the two men standing in front of the monitors. The first was tall, in his late forties, wearing a white lab coat that only highlighted his broad shoulders. His clothes beneath the lab coat were plain but there was a confidence to his stance that exuded power. His companion, on the other hand, was wearing all black, his body thin and angular, with features that fell just shy of pretty to seem, instead, masculine.
The thinner man turned to the screens, tapped a few buttons on the console below them. One of the lower monitors faded into a radar display. There were two pulsing dots on the map: one at the very centre, and one on the right, moving towards the edges of the screen.
“There she is, Dr Gray,” the thin man said, pointing, and Emma dared to hope that Lilith was okay. The man crouched lower, traced the dot with his finger, his black jacket riding up to reveal a tranq gun holstered in the small of his back. “I can track her down, bring her back.”
“And lift your topside ban, King?” Gray scoffed. “I think not. No, you will deal with this little mess you’ve created.”
Meaning her. Emma closed her eyes, tried to even her breathing. Best to feign sleep while she thought through her options. She’d been rescued from the theatre, by mistake, it seemed. Were these men secret police? Terrorists? And what could they possibly want from Lilith?
Kindle US – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009YA879S
Kindle UK – http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009YA879S
Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16090171-above-ground
