Taking It Back (35 page)

I shook my head. “I didn’t do anything special.”

Sarah took my face in her hands and looked deeply into my eyes. “You reminded us that we were alive once and gave us the will to live again. Don’t ever deny that because that is what you did. Everyone knows it and you should too.”

I looked down. “I lost a lot of people too.”

Sarah hugged me. “You never worried about ghosts before, why bother now? It was never your fault. You did what you could.”

She was right. We were alive and we were living. It was the best revenge we could have against a world gone dead.

As I closed my eyes and breathed Sarah in, I heard a far-off moan carried on the evening breeze. I had managed to get a lot done, but there was more work to do. I still had a promise to keep and we had more to take back.

I made another promise that day. The white flags of the dead might be still out there, but they were no longer a symbol of surrender. They were a rallying cry, to take back what we had lost and reclaim our lives and land. They had tried their best and failed.

We were taking it back. One ragged step at a time, but we were taking it all back.

I looked in and watched Jake play on the floor of the lodge. I thought about his mother, and how far we had come in such a short time. Across the river, next to the abandoned school, I saw a ragged flag flutter in the wind. I knew what I had to do for my son, what I needed to do for everyone still alive, still struggling to keep the monsters away.

I had to step up, rip the country away from the rotted fingers of the virus, and spit in the eye of the infected who haunted the darkness.

I had to take it back.

America the dead

Book 3: White Flag of the Dead Series

Coming soon from Severed Press

Sixteen hundred miles of infected territory. Sixteen hundred miles over terrain which may not have seen a living human in nearly three years. Millions of infected souls, waiting with the hungry patience of the dead.

John Talon and his crew of survivors, torn away from their loved ones by a mission of urgency, must make a journey across the country to save their one small chance at rebuilding a nation. At stake is the soul of a nation, the binding ideals which could remake the country in the hands of whoever possesses them.

Racing against time and a madman who will not allow anyone, living or dead to get in his way, John and his friends will discover whether or not America the Brave has become America the Dead.

Table of Contents

Taking It Back

Midpoint