The following is an excerpt from The Chronicles of Max Blood - Zombie Hunter which should be available early 2010 from Dark Moon. This is the first chapter of the book and is only a rough draft, so please be lenient in your crticism here. We are only including it here because we have had several requests to do so. Enjoy!

Chapter One

 Max knelt down behind the stone fence leading into the cemetery.

The sun had long since made its departure from the horizon and the ghostly silver image of the moon faded in and out through the mist.

“Why the fuck are graveyards always foggy?” Paco Jones asked.

“Just to scare the piss out of you,” Ray Martinez said with a grin.

“First, of all I ain’t scared,” Paco retorted. “And second of all, that was a rhetorical question?”

“What kind of question?” Skeeter Glick asked.

“Rhetorical,” Paco replied. “Shit. And here I thought I went to a bad high school. Where’d you go? Mongo High?”

“Never heard of it,” Skeeter replied.

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Paco declared and then he quoted from the movie. “Candy gram for Mongo? Silver balloons?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Skeeter asked.

“Never mind,” Paco muttered. “Shit. You’re almost as dumb as Frank Drebin.”

“Frank who?”

Ray laughed softly.

“Would you guys shut the fuck up!” Max snapped. “My pants are getting wet from kneeling here in the mud and my head hurts from listening to a bad Abbott and Costello routine. And don’t ask me who they are, Skeeter.”

“I know who Jim Abbott is,” Skeeter replied. “He played for the Yankees. Threw a no-hitter against Cleveland in 1993. I think Costello was on that same team.”

Max and Paco just looked at each other and shook their heads. Ray clapped Skeeter on the back and reached in his pocket for a cigarette.

Max grabbed his arm and shook his head.

“Those things are gonna kill you, Billy Ray. Besides, somebody might see it.”

He actually meant ‘something’, but he left it unsaid. They all knew what he meant.

Billy Ray put a the cancer stick between his lips, but didn’t light it.

The snap of a branch quickly returned their attention to the graveyard.

Max put a finger over his mouth and pointed off to his left.

Through the mist staggered a figure.

“It’s either a zombie or the minister’s drunk again,” Billy Ray whispered.

Max smiled.

He pulled his arm out of the sling of the crossbow and a bolt from the ‘ammo’ belt at his side.

They had learned over the past few weeks to kill as silently as possible. Especially in areas that were more likely to be areas of  infestation. Graveyards seemed to be one of those areas. Shopping malls and subways were also high on the list. Ridership on the New York subway system had dropped dramatically over the past few months.

Just yesterday there had been a  story on the news about an old geezer who had died of a heart attack near the Castle Hill stop in the Bronx. That wasn’t the tragic part. He had re-animated a few minutes later and killed three more passengers until a little old lady had driven the tip of her umbrella through the top of his skull.

Max loved his crossbow. Of course, he also carried a  British Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife in his belt and a Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol in a holster on his left hip.

Paco preferred his Mossberg 500 12 Gauge sawed-off shotgun. Luckily for him, Federal regulations on such things had been eased since the outbreak. Of course, he probably would have been carrying it anyway. It had been one of his favorites even while he had been running with the 9th Street Coyotes. His close in fighting weapon of choice was a KM 2000 combat knife.

Billy Ray was the wild man of the bunch and that was saying something. All he carried was an old German Luger that his father had brought home after World War II. Other than that, he loved snapping a zombie’s neck.

Max had told him more than once that he was gonna get himself killed that way someday.

Billy Ray had just laughed.

Skeeter usually just grabbed whatever was lying around.

Today he wore a Browning 9 mm in a holster on his right hip and a shiny machete he’d ordered from some catalog.

Yep, they might quite a crew.

But they had been highly effective since starting their business.

At last count they had 223 zombie kills to their credit.

Although it hadn’t been planned that way, the business was now very profitable.

There were lots of people out there who either didn’t have the heart to dispatch a family member themselves or who had lost track of a zombie member and wanted them ‘helped’. Actually, they didn’t want them to wander home sometime in the middle of the night for a light snack of brains. Zombies didn’t have much in the mental processing department, but they somehow remembered familiar places.

And that’s what brought them here.

Mrs. Emily Proctor had hired them to find and ‘dispose’ of her husband. He had died after cutting off his hand in their basement while sawing wood to make his wife a new cabinet. He had bleed to death before being able to call 911. He had already re-animated by the time his wife had returned home from the store. She had barely escaped out the back door with her life. She had left the door open and he walked out and disappeared into the woods behind their house.

Max looked at the picture in his hand.

Nice looking fellow, he thought. Wonder what he looks like now?

He didn’t know if the picture would do much good. Mr. Proctor had already been on the loose for over a week. Decomposition took place slower than normal in the undead, but it still occurred.

“I’m going around to the right,” Max told his crew.

And it was his crew.

He kept waiting for Paco to challenge his authority, but so far there’d been no trouble. He liked Paco and he was one hell of a fighter, but they were from different sides of the track. While Max had been practicing with his band (Bloodhounds and Bodies) in the garage, Paco had been dealing drugs in Harlem.

“Paco,” he said. “Keep the Mossberg handy. Skeeter and Billy Ray, hang loose. I’m going to try to do this quiet in case Mr. Proctor has friends hanging around.”

“How do you know it’s Mr. Proctor?” Skeeter asked.

“This is where he buried his mother just last month. I hope it’s him anyway. His wife wants proof of the ‘disposal’ before she pays us. He’s wearing a gold watch with an inscription bearing their anniversary date.”

“Why do I have to stay here?” Billy Ray whined.

“Because that stupid Luger of yours jams every other time you use it,” Paco retorted. “Last time out you almost got us killed.”

“Ya, but I snapped that mutha’s neck like a pretzel, didn’t I? Sweet!”

“You’re sick, Billy Ray,” Paco told him.

“Maybe so, but your sister really, really liked me last night.”

“I ain’t got no sister, bro,” Paco informed him as they watched the shadowy figure stumble around in the moonlight. “You must have been with my grandma.”

Max silenced them again.

“Here I go,” he whispered.

“Can I videotape it?” Skeeter asked.

Max frowned.

Skeeter had quite the collection of DVDs recording their exploits. He claimed he was going to edit them some day and make a movie.

“Whatever turns your crank,” Max replied.

Max skirted along the edge of the stone wall and the only sound he made was the squishing of his Nikes in the wet grass and dirt. He kept a firm grip on the crossbow. The bolt was already locked into firing position. Glancing back, he could barely make out his team through the fog which was becoming more dense as the evening deepened.

He entered through a stone archway and stepped off the graveled walk when the crunch of his feet startled him. Hopefully their prey hadn’t heard. He squinted his eyes and could make out the silhouette of the zombie fifty odd yards to the right.

The quite undead Mr. Proctor, formerly an accountant by trade, was bumping into a rather large headstone and had not yet figured out how to maneuver around it.

“And now he can’t even add one and one,” Max whispered to the grave next to him.

Crouching low, he darted quietly to the cover of a huge old oak tree.

“Close enough,” he whispered.

“Probably,” a voice in the dark answered.

Max felt his heart lose a beat.

He turned, finger tightening on the trigger mechanism.

“Hey, dude!” Billy Ray grumbled. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!”

Max almost couldn’t stop his finger from reacting.

“Shit, Billy Ray! You nearly had a crossbow bolt sticking out of your chest!”

“C'est la vie,” his compatriot remarked with a shrug.

“Do you even know what that means?” Max asked.

“It’s a Shania Twain song,” Billy Ray replied. “You know. Somebody stop me -- I need another coffee -- Like a hole in my head.”

“I don’t know,” Max replied. “I don’t follow country.”

“Oh, that’s right. You had a grunge band or something.”

“Grunge is dead,” Max informed him. “We were just sort of indie garage.”

“Whatever,” Billy Ray declared. “If it don’t have a banjo or a fiddle, it ain’t music.”

“Glad to see you’re so broad minded.”

“That’s just the way I roll, dawg,” Billy Ray quipped.

Max glanced out into the evening again. His zombie accountant was still trying to find a way around the tombstone in his path.

“I thought I told you to hang back?”

“That’s like trying to tell a rooster to stay out of the hen house, cuzin,” Billy Ray said.

Max shook his head.

“Just be quiet. I think I can hit him from here.”

He put the crossbow back against his shoulder and lined up Mr. Proctor’s head in the weapon’s sights. He squeezed slowly until he felt the sudden release of the bolt.

The bolt zipped through the distance in a split second.

The zombie staggered for a moment and then toppled over the top of the headstone, the bolt stuck dead center in the middle of his forehead.

“Frack that shit, dude!” Billy Ray exclaimed. “Max 1, zombie 0.”

“Quiet! Our zombie might have friends in the area.”

“Well, bring ‘em on, dawg. You shouldn’t be the only one having fun tonight!”

“Shut the fuck up, Billy Ray!”

Billy Ray crossed his arms and began pouting.

That was fine with Max as long as he was quiet.

Billy Ray pulled his lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette that had been dangling from his lips.

“Let’s go get the watch,” Max said as he slung the crossbow over his shoulder. “And my bolt. Those things aren’t cheap.”

What happened next took place so fast that Max could not clearly recall although Paco and Skeeter swear it all happened in slow motion.

A second zombie seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Before Max could respond, the undead thing had grabbed Billy Ray by the arm.

It had been dead (or rather undead) for quite some time. Flesh hung off its face in huge patches until parts of its skull gleamed through the moonlight. The bones of his hands were poking through the decaying flesh of his hands as the creature tugged at Billy Ray’s arm.

Max pulled his combat knife from his belt, but his buddy gestured for him to stay back.

“No worries, bro!” Billy Ray bellowed. “I got this fuckin’ shit head.”

Billy Ray grabbed the Luger from his belt, took steady aim and pulled the trigger.

Click!

“Shit,” he said.

Max stepped forward, but Billy Ray motioned him back again.

“This ain’t no time to play around, Billy Ray!”

“I told you I got this. Jeez, I hope Skeeter is still shooting. This is gonna be some sweet footage!”

He spun around until he was behind the zombie and reached around to grab his chin.

One simple twist is all it would take.

But it didn’t work out that way.

His arm wrapped around the zombie’s neck, but not before the undead creature bit savagely into Billy Ray’s forearm. Unfortunately, Billy Ray had left his leather jacket in the truck. Didn’t want to get it dirty, was what he had said.

The shirt he was wearing was much too thin and the zombie’s yellowed, broken teeth tore through it and into Billy Ray’s flesh quite easily.

Billy Ray screamed and pushed himself away from his decomposing foe.

“Goddammit!” Max roared. “Goddammit it all to hell, Billy Ray!”

He pulled the Walther P99 from his holster and put three slugs into the back of the zombie’s head. The shots echoed through the graveyard and a flock of birds (or maybe bats?) took flight from the old oak tree. At this point Max really didn’t care about the noise.

The creature stood there for a moment tottering back and forth. Max put two more bullets into his skull which was already half blown away. It flopped to the ground like the sack of shit it was and lay still.

Max kicked it savagely two or three times out of frustration and then finally turned to his comrade who knelt on the ground holding his bleeding arm.

“I... I fucked up good,” Billy Ray whispered in a ghostly voice. “You kept tellin’ me cigarettes were gonna kill me, Max . Guess they did in a way.”

Max could hear Paco and Skeeter running up the gravel path.

They were speechless as they gathered around.

Max sat down beside his buddy ignoring the cold, wet grass underneath him.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Billy Ray was sobbing.

It was terrifying to see the change in his personality.

“Max ?” Billy Ray said in a soft voice as he tried to pull himself together.

“What is it, Billy Ray?”

“I’m sorry...”

“No worries, buddy.”

Billy Ray coughed.

“Skeeter?”

Skeeter looked lost. The two had known each other since high school. Billy Ray had even caught the winning touchdown pass from Skeeter in the State Championship game.

“Hey, Billy Ray, how’s it hanging...”

“Low and to the right, dude,” Billy Ray replied after another fit of coughing. “Skeeter? Will you... you know... do the honors... when I...”

Skeeter licked his lips and glanced at Max .

Max nodded.

“Sure...” Skeeter said softly.

“With the Luger? It’s kinda special, you know...”

“As long as it don’t misfire,” Skeeter said with a half-hearted laugh.

Billy Ray tried to return the laugh, but it turned into a series of long, deep coughs.

“Jeez, I’m scared, Skeeter.”

Skeeter actually reached out and took his hand. It was so un-Skeeterlike that Max had to wipe away a quick tear.

“Hey, Paco?” Billy Ray whispered.

“I’m here, brother,” Paco said. “Whatcha need?”

“My porn collection is all yours, buddy.”

Paco chuckled.

“My name ain’t Buddy...”

A few minutes later he was gone.

And then they just had to wait.

Max and Paco left Skeeter with his friend and began a patrol of the cemetery to make sure there weren’t any more undead lurking in the area. Skeeter sat with his friend’s Lugar in his hand with Billy Ray propped up against one of the headstones.

Watching...

Watching...

Nearly an hour later, Max and Paco wandered back to their van.

“I need a beer,” Paco said as he leaned up against the front fender.

“You always need a beer,” Max replied.

“Ya, but tonight I really, really need a beer.”

Max nodded.

A few minutes later a single gunshot rang out from the cemetery.

Paco and Max both jumped.

“Guess the Lugar didn’t jam,” Max said as he kicked at the dirt.

A few minutes later Skeeter walked out of the graveyard.

His slid the Lugar into his belt as he opened the door of the van.

“Fuckin’ zombies,”  he muttered. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge...”

 Copyright © 2009 Stan Swanson and Stony Meadow Publishing