QSFer Nick Wilgus has a new sci fi/horror book out:
High school juniors Billy Gunn and Rory Wilder return from a weekend camping trip to find a mysterious plague has wiped out their small town of Port Moss, Mississippi. The question of why is only the beginning—especially when the dead refuse to stay dead.
Figuring out what happened is job one for Billy and Rory. But complications quickly set in. Not only do the dead rise, but a freak storm threatens torrential downpours as winter looms. And enormous ships appear in the sky, bringing with them alien visitors with technology never seen before.
Left without electricity and modern conveniences, Billy and Rory must figure out a way to navigate horrific zombies, advanced alien life forms, and apocalyptic storms, as well as deal with their growing love for each other in a world gone mad.
Excerpt
“I’M TAKING a swim.”
Hoping I sounded nonchalant as I stood on the sandbar at
the edge of the river, I stepped out of my shoes and pulled off my T-shirt, pleased to see that I was browning nicely. The tan helped to hide my skinniness. I dropped my walking shorts, hooked my thumbs into my underwear, and eased them down very casually.
Naked as the day I came forth from the womb, I turned to look at Rory Wilder.
“You coming?” I asked.
“Aren’t you afraid someone is going to see you?” he asked with a frown.
“Not really. Freddy and I used to come here all the time and go skinny-dipping. No one ever saw us.”
“Freddy?” he said with skepticism. “The one who moved to Atlanta with his family? The one who blew up frogs with firecrackers? That Freddy?”
I smiled.
“Well, if Freddy thinks it’s okay,” Rory said sarcastically.
I offered a casual, almost dismissive grin, feigning an indifference I did not feel as I turned and waded into the chilly water of an early September morning in rural Mississippi. I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder. Rory would either follow or he wouldn’t, and I’d either have the chance to finally see Rory Wilder in all his naked wonderfulness—or I wouldn’t. I’d seen him in the showers at school of course, but I wanted a little bit more than a quick glance. I wanted the whole enchilada. I wanted to take my time enjoying it, which either meant I was “naturally curious” or a little pervert, or perhaps a bit of both.
We’d just spent our second night in my small two-man pup tent on a Labor Day weekend fling before winter began to settle in and school got underway in earnest. We’d done lots of fishing, building fires to cook bass and crappie. We’d watched the stars come out, listened to forest noises, scared ourselves with talk of wild boars and bears and wandering mad men a la Deliverance. We’d argued over the merits of new country, which I couldn’t stand but Rory loved. He’d yet to meet a Luke Bryan song he didn’t immediately claim was the best thing since the invention of the iPhone.
At night we’d crawled into the tent and slept side by side.
In the dark, I listened to him breathe, listened as he shifted his weight around to get comfortable. I wanted to reach out and touch him. Heck, a lot more than that. I wanted to get naked and crawl into his sleeping bag and press my body against his. I wanted to make love to him. But I had never made love to a guy, didn’t know how. Had seen pictures of course; there was plenty of porn on the Internet. But I had never actually made out with a guy. Since Rory and I were only fifteen and juniors at Port Moss High School, it wasn’t like opportunities for sexual adventures threw themselves at us.
Rory and I had been best friends since the first day of eighth grade. We hung out at the mall, played games at the arcade, saw movies together, even had a few sleepovers that we never told anyone about for fear people would make fun of us. We didn’t call them sleepovers. They just happened. We got too involved in an Xbox game or something at my house, and then it would be two in the morning, and we’d camp out on the floor of my bedroom.
All very innocent.
Now it was Sunday, our last day.
I stood waist deep in the cool water and turned to look back at Rory.
Rory had shyly removed his shirt, revealing his pale chest with its strong, well-defined muscles.
“Come on, you big fat chicken,” I called.
“Aren’t there snakes in the water or something?”
“It’s too cold for them,” I said, which was probably a lie.
“I better not get bit, Billy Bob.”
“Nothing’s going to bother you, Ro Ro.”
Rory removed his shorts and underwear in one go, glancing at me somewhat sheepishly as his nakedness was revealed. Rory had a lanky swimmer’s body, his arms and legs thick with muscle. Blond hair hung in his eyes. His body was pale. His chest sloped down to a flat belly. His patch of blond pubic hair was hard to see, but that was not the case with the flesh that hung beneath it, which was, I thought, the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my entire life.
I trembled as I turned away and swam out into the deeper water. It was almost too cold for swimming—it was September, after all—but I didn’t care.
Deadworld Book One
Buy Links
DSP Publications: Click Here
Amazon: Click Here
Author Bio
Nick Wilgus grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in a variety of small towns in Michigan. The child of an alcoholic father whose drunken binges left the family in constant poverty, Wilgus has lived and worked all over the world, including almost two decades in Bangkok, Thailand, where he worked as the chief subeditor for the Bangkok Post.
He sold his first short story to The Horror Show when he was seventeen, and has since published more than a dozen novels and a screenplay. He was nominated for a Lambda award for his first gay fiction title (2003) and also received a Best Screenplay nomination by the Thai Film Association (2012) in addition to being named one of the best general columnists in Mississippi (2011).
His work focuses on those thrown away by society and he freely admits to using humor to cope with life’s absurdities.
He currently lives in Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace of Elvis.