Set on Anglesey, and in Bangor and Caernarfon, and in the Republic of Ireland, this is another journal, picking up, more or less where Book 3 finished. It continues the story of Bill Wright, Kim, George and Mary, and a few other characters you may remember. Though this is a self-contained story, the survivors account will continue in Book 9: Belfast, due out this winter.
I've worked out a rather fun ending to the series, though I'm not sure whether this will be in Book 11 or later. Before we get there, there's a return to the United States in Here We Stand 3, due out next year.
Speaking of which, I would strongly recommend you read Here We Stand 1: Infected & 2: Divided before Book 8: Anglesey. It will provide a bit of background to the heroes and long-dead villains, and to a few locations important to the story.
Here We Stand 1: http://amzn.to/2cFWSo8
I say that Book 8 more or less continues from the end of Book 3, the more in that statement is because the account begins in late September, when Bill... you know what, rather than trying to explain, I can just include the first few paragraphs here:
Prologue
- Elysium, the Republic of Ireland
10:00, 20th September, Day 192
Trapped.
There’s no other word to describe it.
I’m
trapped in a small room with zombies beating against the walls outside. I have
a litre of water, a handful of high-calorie ration bars that only the most
desperate of submariners would call food, and I’m alone. Unlike when I was
trapped in my flat in London, I’m not worried.
Just
over a month ago, when I wrote my last entry, I really did intend it to be the end
of my journals and a conclusion to that part of my life. I’d thought we’d found
a refuge on Anglesey, a place where we could be safe. I wasn’t completely
wrong, but that’s another way of saying I wasn’t entirely correct. I promised
Annette that I’d write an account of the last tumultuous month and, as she
insists on describing it, how she
saved civilisation. As I currently have pen, paper, and little else to do until
Kim rescues me, I might as well record it now, and there’s no better place to
start than with where I am.
I’m
a mile south of Kenmare Bay in County Kerry on the southwestern coast of the
Republic of Ireland. More specifically, I’m in the garage of a walled,
fifty-acre farm called Elysium. At least, that’s the name that’s carved into
the plaque by the main gate. According to the address at the top of an unpaid
parking ticket I found in the desk drawer, it’s called Ifreann. My Irish Gaelic is almost non-existent. The little I know
comes from a dismal childhood holiday at Caulfield Hall, the Masterton’s family
estate. It rained nonstop, and I was beyond bored as Jen spent most of that
summer visiting family friends in Monaco. I found little with which to
entertain myself other than a few books on Celtic legends. They were in
English, but with a few words of Gaelic peppered in. At the back was a
vocabulary list. Ifreann was used
often, and I always understood it to mean Hell, not some Elysian paradise.
The
garage is large enough for four partially dismantled cars parked abreast though
there’s only three in there right now. I am in the stiflingly hot office at the
side. It’s about twelve feet by ten, with a door to the outside, a door to the
garage, and a hatch leading to the roof. I’ve barricaded the exterior door with
a filing cabinet. If I listen carefully, I can hear the zombies that chased me
in here. They’re pawing and clawing at the door, but it’s sturdy and secure.
I’m safe. The reason I need to listen carefully is that two dozen more are beating
and hammering at the metal shutters that cover the entire north face of the
garage. Inside, there’s a set of sliding, transparent doors that can be opened
so the cars can be driven out. With the shutters down, there’s no light in the
garage, and no light in this office except that which comes from the hatch
immediately above my head.
Beyond
the zombies immediately outside, there are forty or so gathered in the driveway
near the fountain. There are at least that many, and probably more, near the
tennis courts and pushing their way through the trees that screen the
fifty-acres of farmland from view. North of the garage is a three-storey
mansion. I didn’t get too good a view of the building before the zombies
appeared through that screen of trees. It’s a mystery where they came from. They.
It is they, not They. I’ve only just
noticed that I’ve been writing it in the lower case.
Kim
said that my use of the capitalisation was a way of disassociating myself from
the impossible horror surrounding us. I won’t lie and say I don’t fear them,
particularly when I can hear their desiccated fingers dragging down the
brickwork outside. It’s simply that they are no longer my greatest fear. The nuclear
power plant on Anglesey could melt down. The water treatment plant could break.
The old world food stores may run out before we have productive farmland. And,
of course, there’re the threats that only come with people. I don’t mean
disease, though it is an increasingly present danger. I mean violence and
murder, and the fear and disunity those bring. That is why the undead are they
not They, not anymore. Whatever I call them, and whatever my fears for the
future, right now the zombies are my
most immediate problem.
--
Book 8: Anglesey - Out Soon in ebook and paperback. :)
