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    Kings of the Castle: A Stay Dead short story
    Kings of the Castle: A Stay Dead short story
    Kings of the Castle: A Stay Dead short story
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    Kings of the Castle: A Stay Dead short story

    By Steve Wands

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Keith, Connor, and Kayla must band together to survive a world overrun by monsters. The only adults they see are the dead ones outside trying to eat them, until one day a stranger comes looking for a safe haven. The kids let him in, but will they be able to get out? And if so, will be as one of the living, or the living dead?

    Short Story, approximate word count: 14,500
    Also comes with a sampling of Horror Stories: A Macabre Collection

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSteve Wands
    Release dateMar 15, 2011
    ISBN9781458073754
    Kings of the Castle: A Stay Dead short story
    Author

    Steve Wands

    STEVE WANDS is a comic book letterer working on top titles at DC Comics, Image, Vertigo, BOOM! Studios, Random House, and Kodansha Comics (to name a few). He also designs, inks, and illustrates for those, and other, companies. He’s the author of the Stay Dead series, and is a writer of short stories. When not working he spends time with his wife and sons in New Jersey. Oh, and he drinks a lot of coffee.Steve has just wrapped illustrating The Fallen for Cemetery Dance Publications, which is written by Bram Stoker Award winning writer Brian Keene, based on a story by Richard Chizmar and Jonathan Schaech, colored by Gabriel Cassata.His work appears in titles like the mega-hit manga Attack on Titan, All Star Batman, Batman, Cognetic, Black Road, Descender, Frostbite, The Flash, Trinity, The Spire, Gotham Academy, FBP, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Supergirl, Action Comics, Garfield, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Next Testament, Peanuts, Six-Gun Gorilla, and many others.

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      Book preview

      Kings of the Castle - Steve Wands

      KINGS OF THE CASTLE

      A Stay Dead short story

      By Steve Wands

      * * * * *

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      Published by:

      Steve Wands on Smashwords

      Kings of the Castle (A Stay Dead short story)

      Copyright © 2011 by Steve Wands

      Cover Design and Layout by Apparatus Revolution

      http://www.staydeadrev.com

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      Thanks

      I’d like to thank Martin Gray, a wonderful journalist in the UK, for reviewing Kings of the Castle on his excellent blog. You can read the review there for yourself, after you’ve read the story yourself, of course:

      http://dangermart.blogspot.com/2010/01/stay-dead-by-steve-wands-review.html

      * * * * *

      KINGS OF THE CASTLE

      A Stay Dead short story

      * * * * *

      The power had gone out a few days ago. Keith and Connor had adjusted quickly to it, but were scared regardless. Their parents had yet to come home from work, it had been days, so many in fact, that the kids forgot how long of an absence it was and assumed they were never coming home. Keith, the older of the two, suggested that they had become monsters like the ones outside. Keith went so far as to say, maybe space slugs had taken over their brains! Connor laughed at the idea at first and then cried. They both cried, and eventually their tears ran out and their bellies ached.

      The last few days had been a crash course on what not to do. They had feasted on sugary goods, candies, snacks, and had suffered the consequences of such poor choices. They also neglected to brush their teeth and shower, at least at first, then, gradually Keith began to remember the many lessons taught to them by their parents and teachers. Health and hygiene began slowly making appearances the past two days and they were close to becoming responsible kids once again.

      The young warriors worked together to push various pieces of furniture around to barricade the doors. They locked the windows and drew the blinds shut. The two kids basically turned the entire house into a fort strong enough to withstand the space-slug driven monsters that sometimes wanted to get in. There were a few instances where the monsters tried to get in, and one almost did. Keith had found flashlights and Connor knew where their mother hid the lighters so they could light candles when they needed to. The power had gone out before and that’s what they always did. Their father would get the flashlights and their mother would light candles. They always thought it was cool when it happened, but they didn’t think it was cool anymore.

      They turned their bedroom and bunk bed into a headquarters where a spare sheet and blanket draped overhead to form a makeshift tent from the top of the bunk to the closet door. Connor kept a toy gun in the waistline of his camouflage pajamas and he held one of his walkie-talkie’s from their Spy-Child set that Keith had originally gotten as a present but decided he was too old to have fun with, so he handed it down to his brother. Keith now had the other half of the set clipped onto the waistline of his pants. Connor also left his stuffed animals in various parts of the home to act as guards, Munk-Munk (a bright pink creature that looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a spider), for instance stood guard at the top of the stairs.

      The two of them sat in the center of their headquarters, with two flashlights positioned on the ground in an attempt to illuminate the comics they tried to read. It was much easier during the day but neither one of them could sleep. Keith gripped the pages of a well-worn issue of Green Lantern and Connor was stumbling his way through an issue of Action Comics. As Keith was hoping his hero would shine his emerald light upon him, a light came through the window. It wasn’t an emerald light, but it was a light all the same, and a blinking one at that. After a few more blinks Keith put down his comic and walked over to the window. Connor paid him no attention as he furiously followed the mayhem on the page, bouncing from word balloon to word balloon.

      As his little eyes peeked through the blinds he noticed the light blink again and again. Just past the trees and beyond his neighbor’s window was Kayla thumbing the light to her flashlight. Their homes were right next to each other, a distance not more than ten feet with a row of thin trees between them. Keith pulled the blinds up and began waving like a lunatic on a sugar rush. Connor couldn’t help but toss his comic to the side and see what the big fuss was all about. When he saw what his brother had seen, he acted the same way. Kayla waved back and shook her flashlight triumphantly. Keith and Kayla had been classmates since they began schooling and occasionally they would all hang out together. Keith wondered if her parents were taken over as well. Kayla disappeared from the window for a few minutes and the two young boys clung to the windowsill waiting for her to reappear. When she did, she had a large piece of yellow construction paper with the words ‘trapped in my room, sooo hungry’ written in red marker. Keith’s eyebrows furrowed as the gravity of Kayla’s situation hit him. Though he was still too young to fully grasp the situation he knew she needed food and he had to figure out a way of getting it to her or getting her to it. Connor continued waving.

      …to be continued in Stay Dead: Kings of the Castle Part 2!

      Keith continued to pace back and forth tapping himself in the forehead with his flashlight. After a dozen or so taps to his head he left the room in a hurry and headed to the basement. He quickly returned with a spindle of twine and a roll of duct tape. Connor looked at him quizzically and then returned to staring out the window at Kayla who looked sad, sick, and excited all at

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