Guest Blog~ So It Ends & So It Begins by Zero Rose
Author Zero Rose is on my blog today talking about his two novels, So It Ends and So It Begins. Two books but one story that carries through. He will be sharing an excerpt and author interview too. So, sit back, read, enjoy, and learn about two new books and their author!
SO IT ENDS
Priestess foster mom and her divinized orphan. Mysterious mass killings worldwide and hordes of rampaging autistics signal end-times. Ecocide overrides optimism. A desperate deceit secures their safety. Massive civil unrest through the plague of elders. Child firefights through the plague of youths. Narrow escape by guiding lights. Sky; black and electrical. Universal extinction and environmental decay. A band of inexplicable survivors; the last people on Earth. Hopeless romance. Symbols in the fields. Cataclysmic weather displays thoughtless ghosts in the rain. A menacing hell hound roams. A cuddly kitty-cat stays close. Enchanted circumstances. Waiting to die without any answers. Visitors at dawn on 12:21:2012.
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SO IT BEGINS
Through the portal into cosmic revelations and ascension; traveling wormholes to worlds far away. Humans becoming heavenly inherit celestial dramas; the Pleiadian melodrama. The reversion point is at the end of outer space. Decadent devil-may-care despair nightmare. Sensual passion manifestations; clones born of stolen love’s buckling truces. Explosive inevitabilities. Deities with dual identities; below as above. Marauding revenants. Solid seas. Alien entourage. Descension. Gargoyles. Pain. Anguish. Malicious boy-master of ouroboros; sickened by despair. The time of Baphomet the devil and Yah the creator and the enlightening Angelica crew, too. Draco; dragon of apocalypse. The moon- it burns to ashes. The final expulsion of Osaze from the realm of pure light. The birth of the Pale Mystique; a new realm of total darkness.
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Excerpt:
Aden awoke with an explosion of pain in his face and the sound of glass shattering audibly in a distant way. He sat up in the hotel room bed shrouded in darkness, the details visible only by dim light coming from the bathroom doorway, where Elizabeth stood holding her wrists close to her neck with her fingers pushing down on her ears. He could feel the warm blood from his forehead trickling down his face.
“Liz. What the hell? Why would you do that? Are you Ok?”
The blonde haired, blue eyed, girl wore only a long t-shirt and she looked afraid. No longer beautiful he noticed. Not in that light and not under those circumstances. She was not ugly, just frightening. Very different. She did not respond to him. Instead, from her throat hummed low pitched moans.
Aden got up slowly and cautiously without having to think about not making sudden movements. There was no light to turn on. She had broken the lamp on his head and it wasn’t there when he reached for it. Staying close to the wall, he observed her not moving. Getting closer, he touched her arm. She didn’t respond at all. He took her by her upper arms and positioned her scared face in the bathroom light so he could look into her eyes. Elizabeth quivered and looked past him, into the light bulb. He pushed her bodily into the room and against the bed, bending her knees so she would sit down. Still she pushed on her ears with her fingertips. He hit the light switch and wondered what to do.
He put on his jeans. The whole mess was over. There would be no great escape anymore. Somehow he had known. The unrealistic demands of the girl to get to Arizona were no longer a priority. They couldn’t stay in Burlington any longer. They had starved too long; all that day and all of the day before. But Elizabeth had begged him and pleaded with him to stay there. She was afraid of the world outside and he was too. The hotel room was a minor sanctuary. Over the last day things had become unstable. They were on the fourth floor of six and almost constantly the building shook to its core. The vibration of gunshots could be felt and the din of screaming coming from all directions heard almost nonstop.
Only one other place seemed like an option. He had no food and no way to get any. They had to go.
Elizabeth was unresponsive to his verbal and physical attempts at communication. The confused stare of his catatonic girlfriend was unbearable and he knew it was his problem alone. She was gone. Where to, he had no idea. But gone, he saw that clearly. The bitch was a useless moron anyway. He searched through her bag for clothes to dress her in and wondered if it would be wrong to have sex with her in that condition. Not right then, but in general, if she didn’t come out of it.
He dressed her in jeans and a sweatshirt, taking care to make sure she stayed warm enough in extra layers, and pulling the hood over her head.
He put on an argyle sweater vest over his chest and a hooded sweatshirt over that. Looking out the window he couldn’t see much. The street lights of the city were dead. Several buildings like the one they were in were illuminated- by generators he presumed. Also, there always seemed to be at least one fire burning somewhere or other. Those fires sometimes illuminated entire sections of the city.
Throughout the nights the streets were eerily quiet and still, not unlike the days, save for the screams that broke the silence, and the only constant sound was the homogenized hum of a hundred, maybe a thousand, generators. The only real sign of life out there. Lights may have been left on but the generators needed refueling. And lights ran on generators. Irrelevant chattering monkey. For those last few nights he had watched the people scurrying about then and again and he was about to be one of them. Not much of a surprise, really.
Him and Elizabeth had each packed a bag with clothes; all that survived the fire. Crash-pad gone up in flames- who knew why? With no place to go they’d met a leather clad punk kid in the street by the hotel who had let them stay in his place while he skipped town. Their turn. He stuffed all the belongings strewn about, mostly clothes and a few keepsakes, family photographs, into the bags.
Aden had a black pickup truck with a full tank of gas in the parking lot. Hopefully he had enough fuel to get to the resort. Elizabeth stayed catatonic but he could manipulate her body into following him and he secured their luggage on his shoulders. In one hand he held her wrist and in the other he grabbed the machete. Only then realizing he hadn’t cleaned the blood off of his face.
He pulled her along briskly through the hall to the stairwell and they made their way out to the ground level where the door to the parking lot was. The grounds appeared safe and they exited immediately having not seen anybody lurking around. The cold air blew over his face and buzzed haircut. The two bags were thrown into the bed of the truck. The red thread lightning jolted around the strange cloud mass as thick as he had seen yet. He couldn’t imagine what the fuck was happening. Whatever; soft prayers to a dead god he never believed in anyhow were uttered under his breath as he helped his ruined woman into shotgun.
“God help me. God help me. God help me.”
No more options. Elizabeth had aided him to fend away the hopelessness but there were no more options. He was so hungry. Surely he was driving to a place he wasn’t welcome and how were they going to receive him? There was no way to know. NO MORE IDEAS. OUT OF IDEAS. NOTHING LEFT TO DO. NOWHERE LEFT TO GO. NOTHING LEFT TO DO. NO MORE IDEAS. “God help me.”
He threw the machete into the bed, opened his door, and felt strong hands grip his throat and begin choking the life out of him. His heart rate skyrocketed with adrenaline as all his muscles tensed simultaneously. Jumping into the air Aden hoped to topple his assailant but their feet stood firmly in place. With one of his hands still on the edge of the truck bed he pulled against the attacker’s force, somewhat aware that his feet were no longer on the ground. Pulling harder and harder his vision receded but he got his free hand to the machete, struggling to grip the handle.
Swinging it was an immediate problem; he couldn’t hit the head of the large man choking him. Desperately he chopped down into the person’s calf. Over and over; he could feel the hands on his neck loosen only slightly and he couldn’t see anymore. Managing to get a foot up onto the side of the truck he kicked off to jump away. The man’s grip did not let up but there was, for an instant, space between Aden’s back and the man’s chest. He rotated the blade to point behind him and as he fell back he thrust in with the only strength he had left. They both tumbled to the pavement and he pulled the steel out of the assailant.
Aden rolled away as fast as he could and crouched on his knees, swinging frantically even though he couldn’t see what he was swinging at. Once the man was struck, more blows were delivered with little idea of where they were landing. He only had the impact of the machete hacking flesh and cracking bone as guidance.
Vision somewhat came back and he jumped up to his feet. The enormous man writhed. Aden chopped away into the neck until there was no chance of survival; the head all but severed from the shoulders.
Choking, coughing, and gasping, he got up into the truck and slammed the door shut, wondering if he were hurt.
The ignition turned over and the V6 truck revved to life. He shifted into reverse, rolled backward, and then put it into drive, thumping over the body and hauling away as fast as he could.
All the buildings that were usually illuminated in white and gold were black and casting shadows. Like a creepy concrete forest everything seemed haunted. For all the hell going around, the new energy was invigorating. That’s how he would have described it anyway.
In little time he was heading south on Interstate 89.
The glowing green clock in the dashboard read 3:48. The adrenaline slowly subsided, his hands stopped shaking, his breathing slowed, and he turned on his interior light. Poor fucking Elizabeth. He watched her. Move. Talk.
“Liz. Say something.”
She only looked ahead at the road with a helpless snarl.
He reached over and put his hand on her leg. She did not react. Her fingers twiddled. One hand on the armrest of the door and the other on the seat beside her; she spasmodically retracted and extended her fingers. Squeezing her leg more forcefully he hoped for a reaction and got none. In frustration he squeezed her hard, once, enough to hurt her and she squealed jaggedly and curled up as close to the door as she could; squealing and smacking herself in the face.
“Liz. Stop. Stop it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” But she wouldn’t stop. She was panicking and Aden watched her dumbfounded and horrified.
She continued to shriek and slap herself in the face. He pulled the truck over on the snowy shoulder of the highway, engaged the parking break, and took both of her hands into his own. Elizabeth struggled against him, jerking around in her seat.
“Breathe Liz. Breathe. Calm down. You have to stop.” She wouldn’t stop and time slowed as the seconds struggled to pass. Her noises got quieter and her resistance became less forceful. Soon she was only shuddering and moaning. Aden reluctantly released the girl’s delicate hands with intense relief that she didn’t slap herself again.
Without waiting another second he engaged the truck and pulled off down the highway. Lightning flashed red through the dark sky, and he felt sick with worry. Like he had felt since even before the crash pad burned down. Like the whole world had felt for what already seemed like eternity.
When he first heard about all the shooting spree killers, even the one in Burlington, he was blowing lines and playing dice and he had made jokes about how maybe it was the end of the world.
Where would he go and what would he do if the resort didn’t work out? He had nowhere, everyone was dead, and he could get murdered at the drop of the hat if he only took a wrong turn.
Weariness weighed heavily upon his face, his shoulders, and all his muscles. Hunger pangs were no longer a problem, they had ceased. He focused on the last meal he had had. A can of mushy green beans he split with Elizabeth a day and a half ago. Her fear had kept him from going out to search for more food. His own fear too.
He was tired. Or fatigued. The notion of death had been on his mind constantly recently and was fast becoming less unsettling. Acceptance seemed like the right word. The desire to keep going on the way he had been took second place to the desire to get it over with.
Cars were abandoned here and there but no living souls were seen. After I-89 he got onto Route 2 where the road got tighter and windier. Elizabeth moaned to herself the entire time. Like a confused person with a fever.
“Baby, it’ll be Ok. It’s all going to be Ok,” Aden said without looking at her, only leaning his head against the window of his truck. There was a subtle flash in the trees but he noticed it well. An illusion.
He noticed the cliffs on the side of the road and suicide struck him as appropriate. What hope did he have? There was no hope.
A white orb flew down from the right; out in front of the truck and off to the left.
“What the fuck was that?”
A hallucination obviously. He forgot about it a moment later. His mind was exhausted the same as his body. White light didn’t matter.
Then the trees illuminated beside him as the light came glowing back into view on the left and stayed around that side of the road. It was about the size of a bean bag chair and intensely radiant. The woods it flew through were lit comparably to a flood lamp facing all directions. The radiance seeped into the beams of his own headlights; dim by comparison.
The light moved out in front of him, taking the road’s curves about seven seconds before he reached them and staying that distance ahead.
Hope. Thank god. Something. A life ring. Something. Even if he drove off the cliff right then, he had seen that light. That light was the greatest sight he had witnessed in his entire life. Serenity and hope unreal.
Looking to Elizabeth he saw her staring vacantly at the dash, hunched against the window.
“Are you seeing this?” he asked. She had no response. Her big blue eyes were still. He could see her so well. The trucks interior was illuminated and she was dead. “Oh fuck!”
When he glanced back at the road he could see nothing other than the overpowering white light that caused him to press down on the brake and clutch. Less than a second later the light lifted and took off through the tree tops, flying swiftly out of sight.
Aden pulled the truck over and parked, flicked the interior light on, and looked at the dead girl. Her head limp when he moved it by the chin to look closely at her. He pulled her over in his arms, blew air into her lungs, and performed CPR to no avail. The voice of his CPR instructor came and went, “CPR doesn’t bring them back. CPR only keeps blood circulating until a shock can be delivered…” She was gone. Gone still; he had really lost her back at the hotel. After deciding to not put her in the bed for fear she would come back to life, he settled the corpse into the passenger seat, wrapped her head in a dirty t-shirt from the floor, put the truck in gear, and continued on his way.
Regardless of the circumstance, his complete re-invigoration could not be ignored or denied. No more hunger and no more exhaustion. Only a new determined focus to get to his destination. Driving too fast and ignoring the possibility of black ice under the packed snow he fish tailed around the curves in the road. Soon he found the right turn he needed; Justice Road.
Route 2’s presence had receded from the rear-view and he was deep in the forested winding mountain road when the world illuminated as bright as if the sun were high in the sky. Except this light was even more intense and whiter, like daylight. To the left and even more so to the right the terrain dropped off hundreds of feet. The road ran along the crown of a ridge; down the grade the snow radiated under the intensity of the light. Outside of his illuminated area, in the far distance, all was black.
The fear confused him. The fact remained that anything was better than the reality of the situation as he knew it. The intense fear felt calming to him. Like water so hot it feels cold.
The light moved away from him further off into the distance of his one o clock position; maneuvering through rising and falling peaks; shining like a pinpointed high noon on a clear day; a cloud of sunlight moving away from him and leaving him once again in darkness. Eventually the light moved far enough away to give him a more accurate perspective. Aden had been trying to make out the source of the light. His presumption was the orb he had seen previously was creating the light cloud. Except he couldn’t see that orb. It seemed possible, since the orb was small and white, the illumination at hand drowned it out.
It flew away, nearly all the way to the visible horizon, then it seemed to stand still, and blinked in and out of existence a couple times before disappearing completely. All was dark but the red threads of lightning overhead. Aden looked carefully out at the scene from his truck running through biting wind along the mountain top. His eyes regained night vision and focused on the place the light had blinked out at where he noticed smaller lights glowing. Those were more usual, like the color of street lamps, coming from the resort.
About the Author/Interview:
The #1 worst selling author in the nation is Zero Roze. Behind the poorly designed book covers, past the disinterested marketing efforts, beyond the absentee readership, and through the abandoned pseudonyms; there are tales unlike any to have been told before, in a voice unlike any heard before, with a style unlike any seen before. Just one break away. The future… of North American literature… is… a rose.
My characters are fortune tellers, essentially, and I was a student of divination to begin with. Any research I did corresponded to research I would have been doing regardless. ‘Write what you know’ is sound advise. I put out a novelette when I was 19 about the ancient Inca. That was a miserable story to write because I had no idea what I was talking about.
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I hope you all had fun! I sure did!
A big thank you to Zero Rose for stopping by today.
~H.A.B.