Jill Williamson
Where Adventure Comes to Life
If I was going to be the leader, I couldn’t freak out like some middle schooler because Jaylee had picked Zaq. I had to be a man about this. Deal with it. Move on.
Be cool, McShane.
I was debating whether to walk away or say something scathing when Zaq’s hand slid down to the girl’s waist, revealing the number 14 on the back of her shirt.
It was a young woman. She stopped when she saw me, her face a pale mask of shock. She was Asian, and her hair was long and straight and messy. She was wearing a filthy white blouse and a pair of short jeans, the kind that end midway between a girl’s knee and ankle and have a special name that I can never remember no matter how many times Lizzie explains it to me. She was also barefoot and wore a silver toe ring one of her middle toes.
All this I noticed in the space of a breath.
“Please don’t shoot,” she said, her English perfect.
I lowered my rifle. “I’m not going to—”
She ran, sprinting past Logan and me as if her life depended on it.
“Williamson crafts a complex and vividly portrayed epic fantasy reminiscent of George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series but less edgy and with a Christian worldview. Loosely following the events in the Old Testament, the author depicts a society in which paganism and superstition are deeply ingrained prior to the coming of the Savior.” –Library Journal
I knew we shouldn’t have stopped at Target. I knew it!
My heart lurched inside. I had my right fist around the barrel of my gun, my left hand on the handle above the door. I let go of the handle, hoping to get my hands into position on my rifle. Lost my balance and slid out of the truck. My hiking boots twapped on the pavement.
“Don’t do it, boy!” Shotgun Man yelled. “It ain’t worth it. Leave the rifle in the cab and walk away.”
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“You’d better.”
“I have an aunt in Flagstaff,” Krista said, as we made our way out of Phoenix. “You think you could swing by there? See if she’s… you know… home?”
No way, was my first thought as I recalled the Flagstaff zombie people. But that wasn’t really fair. We had to pass through Flagstaff anyway. “What part of Flagstaff?”
“University Heights. It’s right when you come into town.”
I glanced at her—at the thick black sharpie lines around her eyes. And I thought Jaylee wore a lot of make-up. “Yeah, we can stop. I want to stay out of the city as much as I can. Too many people.”
“Are you scared?”
Some things are so shocking, they scar for life, like the time my dad hit a dog that had run out into the road. Dad had stopped to check on it. He told me to wait in the car, but I didn’t listen. I was ten at the time, and when I saw that dog… Well, I still have nightmares about that poor animal. And I know I’ll have nightmares about Zaq’s family for the rest of my life.
Still. It was the right thing to do. I know that much. And I think it gave Zaq some closure that I might never have with my mom.
It had taken a while, though, to dig the grave—we buried them together. By the time we got back to Logan’s place, it was almost five. We were both covered in dirt and sweat. I wanted a shower more than ever. And I also wanted to find a dark closet and hide for a few hours, to try to deal with the madness piling up in my head.
No time for that, though. Had to keep moving.
“Elijah?” a soft voice said.
A girl’s voice. Sounded like Lizzie, but…
“I can’t see,” she said. “I thought the power had come back on.”
I can’t believe it’s almost here. I got my first author copy of King’s Folly! I love how thick it is. To celebrate, I’ll be having a Facebook release party and hosting some online contests. Stay tuned for more information!
Chapter 4
I wanted to yell out that I was home—see if anyone answered. But I didn’t want those guys on the street to hear me, so I spoke in my regular voice. “Mom? Liz? Sammy?”
I tried the light switches. Nothing. There weren’t a lot of windows in the front room of our house, so I dropped my pack and walked to the kitchen. Empty.
“Mom?”
I found the junk drawer and Dad’s big flashlight, then headed down the hallway to the bedrooms. Lizzie’s was empty—bed made. She was a neat freak anyway, so that didn’t surprise me. Mom and Dad’s room was empty too. Their bed had been stripped down to the mattress, which was weird. I whistled for Sammy, my golden retriever, but he didn’t come running.
I pushed my panic down deep as I checked the rest of the house. No one was there. I found Mom and Dad’s bedsheets in the drier. She must have left in a hurry because she didn’t tend to leave such tasks unfinished.
I tried to stay calm, but my insides were twisting, and all the liquid was crawling north to my mouth and eyes. I ran into Mom and Dad’s bathroom and stood over the toilet. I breathed deeply, trying to stifle the nausea. The smell of bleach hit me, along with the faint smell of something fishy.
“Of all the unbelievable, psychotic…” Riggs went on to declare exactly what kind of men those two were, using just about every colorful metaphor I’d ever heard. He cranked the wheel and turned left on Leroux Street, but slammed on his breaks about ten yards in. A few more colorful metaphors pulled my gaze out the front windshield.
A body lay in the middle of the street. Behind it, the rest of the street was gridlocked with empty vehicles. The smell of fish was overwhelming.
Jaylee sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh my gosh, look! By the mural!”
In conjunction with the #WeWriteBooks series I’m writing over on the Go Teen Writers blog, I’m posting the chapters for THIRST on this blog. Subscribe by clicking here. And if you want to get caught up, here are the links for what has been posted so far.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter 1
“First!” I jogged up the split log steps of Deadwood Lodge and yanked on the antler door handle. It didn’t budge.
“This ain’t a race, boy.” Andy Reinhold, a retired US Army Ranger, our guide, and owner of Wilderness Way Adventures, clumped up the stairs behind me. “What? Is it locked? It shouldn’t be.”
I cupped my hand against the glass window on the slab door and peered inside. “The lobby is dark.” I shrugged off my pack and let it fall to the planked porch. My shoulders loved the weightless freedom. The twelve-day extreme survival training camp had been awesome, but I was ready to go home.
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