EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY
The Last Flag
(Race the Dead Book 1)
(Race the Dead Book 1)
by Wren Cavanagh
The Last Flag by Wren Cavanagh is currently on tour with Silver Dagger Book Tours. The tour stops here today for an excerpt and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
What would you do to pay the bills; to survive, or to just get rich, would you compete against other teams in a quarantined town filthy with zombies wanting to bite out your throat?
Emma and Lewis sign up for the race, they need the money to save his life. But they won't just be racing the dead, the surprise blizzard, or the other contestants.
Because anger and vengeance know no bounds and, like everyone in the blighted town, they become pawns in a game of retribution.
The contestants become nothing more than live entertainment to viewers who watch and judge their every move in the town of Prideful as they race each other to arrive alive to a final flag. The team that makes it will get airlifted out alive and go back home richer for it. The others walk back to a pittance and, if they are not careful, they won't get out at all.
Excerpt
The helicopters lifted off from their respective locations at the town’s cardinal points. For the landings, the pilots made a show of finding a good spot, good editing would do the rest. It would create the impression of action and urgency where there wasn’t much of it; for ‘safety’ the pilots hovered close to ground and let the members of the four teams jump out of the open doors. All a show—a few ladders and some thick blankets thrown over the barbed wire would have worked as well. Or cutting a hole in the fence. But cutting through it would have caused legal issues, worse, the noises might eventually draw out some of the town’s current inhabitants. And everyone wanted intact fences between them and the turned.
The players now had two days to reach as many flags as possible. They would be told how many flags the other teams had, for added pressure. If they went past two days the cash pot would drop hourly by hundreds of thousands of dollars. A million today not being what it used to be, the contestant had better be hauling ass.
The video streams from the aerial drones, the helicopters, and the cameramen showed that most of the teams had gotten quickly organized once they hit the ground, and trotted off without a hitch. With one exception: The voice of the senior editor came in through Tom’s headset.
“Tom, first fuck up.”
“Great, who is it?”
“Joe from Striker,” replied the man as he zoomed in on the feed for the team.
Tom nodded, he looked at the fallen man on his tablet and opened his microphone. His voice came in over the video feed. “It looks like we have a player down. A player in danger! And that can put his team mates in danger. Joe Rosling from team Striker is on the ground and not getting up! Team striker has hit the ground and is already behind. Joe Rosling! Joe, looks like you got hurt there.”
Joe, the Army vet, tall and wiry, with wild shoulder length brown hair tied back in a pony tail and biker mustache, sat grimacing on the ground. He looked embarrassed and his lips formed a tight white line on a face from which pain had already drained all color.
“Just a sprain. I’ll be okay.” He gasped through clenched teeth and killed any credibility his reply might have had. Joe tried to get up and held his hand out to Lew for support. With the other man’s help he
struggled to his feet, but when he tried to put weight on the hurt foot he gave a sharp cry and fell back on his ass.
The awkward silence and frustration was palpable as the camera feed streamed on and minutes passed. Ross Boulez, the team’s assigned cameraman, panned in on the reaction of the team members.
Embarrassment, anger and impatience were the predominant emotions.
“Think you can keep going, Joe?” Tom asked. “Your team is waiting on you. Do you need to be extracted?”
The man shook his head. “I'm good.” With a pained, tight lipped expression and Lew’ help, he managed to get back up and started walking. Emma and Lew clapped and patted him on the back, but they looked doubtful. The team left at a slow trot that soon turned into a slow walk, and then to a funeral procession pace march as Joe limped along and kept up as best he could.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
“… I find this book very enjoyable and a breath of fresh - if gory - air. Imagine if they threw zombies into Survivor and you’ll get a rough idea of the reality show within The Last Flag by Wren Cavanagh.” ~ dragonet711
“This was a short book worth a read. First of all, the pacing was great and kept me reading. I also really liked the character development and the overall plot. It had enough of a twist to the story to make it stand out from your usual zombie story. Another thing I really enjoyed was the transitions from perspectives that made it lots of fun.” ~ Chelsea O.
“I liked the humor in this book, and the action and I especially liked that Cavanagh manages to make a trite subject like zombies interesting again.” ~ MB
“I enjoy the humour and never quite know what is coming next of this author ... she is going from strength to strength and manages to create brilliant visuals in my mind. This is like a breath of fresh air in an otherwise tedious ‘real’ world.” ~ Aku – The Dragon Slayer
“I enjoyed the book. It has its ups and downs, but was enjoyable all the way. I'm not a zombie fan, as the genre is same old thing over and over, but this little twist in the zombie genre is a realistic version of what I could see happening. Hunger Games meet The Walking Dead is my take on the story.” ~ Tia H
About the Author
Wren Cavanagh, that would be me. Also writes under the pen name Junior Sokolov.
An artist and writer from great North West.
I am grateful that I have this opportunity to share my work and imagination with you. Growing up, my head was always stuck in a book or a comic book (before they got fancy and got the moniker “graphic novels”).
More often than not, those books were filled with monsters, werewolves and vampires.
Then the likes of Godzilla showed up, along with their brethren, born from the very justified fear of the atomic bomb and its consequences.
And that is what I love. Escaping into worlds of monsters and heroes, and sometimes they are one and the same! Letting my imagination run along and bring into the narrative what I see around me every day.
I hope that you will enjoy my stories. Find in them a temporary and enjoyable escape of your own.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card or one of two audiobooks or ebooks of The Last Flag by Wren Cavanagh.
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