Chapters (51)
- Book 2 of The Newsflesh Trilogy
- MIRA GRANT
- BOOK I
- Point of Infection
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- BOOK II
- Vectors and Victims
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- BOOK III
- The Mourning Edition
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- BOOK IV
- Immunological Memory
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- BOOK V
- The Rising
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Coda: Living for You
- Twenty-seven
- Acknowledgments
- extras
- meet the author
- introducing
- BOOK I
- From the Dead
- One
- Contents
- BY MIRA GRANT
- Praise for Feed
- Copyright
Dave was wrong about one thing. We didn’t have ten minutes. The building went up in a pillar of flame six minutes later, along with every other structure in its immediate vicinity. Slag and ash rained down on the entire neighborhood. Collateral damage for a major urban outbreak; the only way to be sure the infection wouldn’t spread.
We were outside the quarantine by that point, outside the kill zone, but the light from the explosion was still enough to hurt my eyes. I pulled off to the side of the road and kept watching it all the same. When the glare got to be too much, I put on the extra pair of sunglasses George always kept in a case clipped to her handlebars, and I kept watching.
I kept watching while Oakland burned, and a good man burned with it. A lot of good men, I’m sure, but only one who’d answered to me. The first man lost on my watch, instead of on my sister’s.
“All right, George,” I said. “Now what?”
For once, she didn’t have an answer.
BOOK II
Vectors and Victims
Life’s more fun when you take the chance that it might end. I have no regrets.
—DAVE NOVAKOWSKI
A martyr’s just a casualty with really good PR. I’d rather be a living coward any day.
—GEORGIA MASON
—transmitting? You fucking useless piece of crap, don’t you cut out on me n—
—fixed it. I hope that means I fixed it. If this is getting out, this is Dave Novakowski reporting live from the headquarters of the After the End Times. Well. This was Dave Novakowski reporting live. By the time this report finishes bouncing to our servers, and Mahir sees it and clears it by the boss, I’m going to be long d—
—shit, the sirens just stopped. That means they’re not letting evacuees out anymore. Too late, ha-ha, joke’s on me, couldn’t get out if I wanted to. I take my hands off the controls, the building goes into lockdown. I stay here, I can let people out—or I could, if there were any people left—but I can’t escape. Irony in action, ladies an—
—dalene? Even if this entry stays in-house, I know you’ll see it, some. God, Maggie, I’m sorry we screwed around so much. We should’ve just gone for it. That’s what people ought to do. They should just go for it. I loved you a lot. I loved my job a lot. I guess that makes me one of the lucky ones. I guess—
—can hear the bombs now; I can hear them coming, I can he—
—From The Antibody Electric, the blog of Dave Novakowski, April 12, 2041. Unpublished.