“Sorry!”
But he wasn’t really sorry. The messenger was only nervous, terrified to deliver the news he carried.
The man reached the large white church guarded by two of his counterparts in the front.
“I have to see him,” the messenger said.
“Not right now,” one of the guards said.
The messenger handed a piece of paper to the guard. The guard swallowed, stepping out of the way before handing the note back.
“Thank you,” the messenger said.
He entered the church, illuminated only by the creeping sunlight and some candles spread throughout. Past the twenty-five rows of pews, sitting behind a desk atop the stage was the man he had come to see. The messenger swallowed as he lumbered down the center aisle, approaching the altar.
The man sat still behind the desk, never looking up as the messenger approached. He kept his nose to a piece of paper, a pen in his hand as he wrote furiously.
Arriving at the front of the stage, the messenger removed his hat. “Sir, I am sorry to disturb you, but I have an important message. It’s about the Vultures. It’s about Judah, sir.”
The man behind the desk stopped writing. He slowly looked up, the gaze he gave the messenger the only sign that he could step up onto the stage.
The messenger walked up the stairs and approached the desk. He handed the folded piece of paper over.
Laying it down in front of him, the man behind the desk unfolded it and read it. He said nothing. After a moment, he looked up again. He stared at the messenger before glancing at the door.
“Oh, yes, sir,” the messenger said. He hurried off the stage and down the center aisle, only looking back once.
The church door shut, and the man behind the desk sat there in silence. He picked the message up and crumpled the piece of paper in his hand, breathing heavily but saying nothing. With his other hand, he removed the necklace from around his neck.
He positioned the purple pendulum an inch above his palm, and in his mind, he asked it only one question.
“Will I find the man who did this?”
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Afterword
I wasn’t so sure I was ever going to write another zombie book.
It’s not that I don’t like zombies. I love zombie books, movies, and video games! But after finishing my Empty Bodies series and then its companion novel, Empty World, I thought I had written enough about the undead. That series had a unique take on zombies, which was vital to me when I started writing it. I didn’t want to just tell “another” zombie story. I love post-apocalyptic fiction, and I have a lot of different types of those stories I want to tell during my lifetime. Most of them don’t include zombies. So I thought I was done.
Until I met Jon South.
I met Jon one day while in the shower (hang with me here.) As my often co-writer, business partner, and most importantly, friend, J. Thorn will tell you, I come up with all my best ideas while in the shower. And Dead South was no exception. I had been planning an entirely different post-apocalyptic series—which I still plan on writing as well—when this character came to me.
Last year, I fell in love with Netflix’s The Punisher and Jon Bernthal’s portrayal of the iconic Marvel character. I binged two seasons over a couple of weeks between writing, reading, hanging with family, and serving my video game addiction. Other than a brief time as a child, I’ve never been a big fan of superheroes, though, in fairness, The Punisher doesn’t check most boxes of your typical superhero. He’s simply a broken man wanting to avenge the death of his family and find some sort of justice in a cruel world.
As I thought more about the concept of The Punisher and particularly the way the Netflix show told his story, I decided a character like Frank Castle would make an awesome protagonist in a post-apocalyptic series. I racked my brain for only around a minute when I asked myself, “What if The Punisher were in The Walking Dead?” and that’s where Dead South started. As a side note, I realize while writing this that Jon Bernthal was in both of those shows…weird that I didn’t make that connection before.
That concept obviously evolved, and Jon South is by no means a carbon copy of Frank Castle. As I wrote this book, he became his own character, eventually growing more empathetic to the world around him. And other things influenced this book. For example, while planning and writing this book, I played through the video game Days Gone. Its zombie world and narrative had a significant impact on this book and will throughout the whole series. I even wrote most of the book while listening to the game’s soundtrack.
So here I am, again writing a zombie series and having a blast doing it. Though, I have to admit that it’s a little strange writing this amid a global pandemic due to the Coronavirus outbreak. How ironic is that for a post-apocalyptic author?
I want to thank you, the reader, most of all. I’m glad you’ve decided to come along for the ride with me, Jon, Brooke, and all the folks from Hope’s Dawn. Stick around and see what happens next. This is going to be a fun ride!
Zach Bohannon
March 28th, 2020
Also by Zach Bohannon
For a complete list of books by Zach Bohannon, click or visit:
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About Zach Bohannon
Zach Bohannon is a horror, science fiction, and fantasy author. His critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic zombie series, Empty Bodies, is a former Amazon #1 bestseller. He lives in Tennessee with his wife, daughter,
