A few months ago I was honored to be invited to participate in Moon Books’ first-ever horror anthology, Horror Anthology 2015. I decided the right story for the book would be a short story I wrote called Death Bringer Jones. The reason I chose this story was because I felt it captured the spirit of the anthology. For Moon Books, the anthology was to be the first of hopefully many such collections. And for me, Death Bringer Jones had evolved into something much bigger than I had ever anticipated it would when I first lay pen to paper.
I originally wrote the story back in 2014 based on the germ of an idea I had for a post-zombie apocalypse anti-hero of sorts. By anti-hero I mean that Jones had never intended on becoming any type of hero. He originally started out as someone no more special than any of the rest of us. But circumstances being what they were in a zombie-infested world he found himself reluctantly thrust into the role of zombie slayer. His legend grew to the point where he was depicted in stories, comics and graphic novels as a muscle-bound larger-than-life super hero.
At the time I had decided to write the short story I had no plan or idea where it would go or where it might lead; I was just writing a story to see what might happen. At the completion of the story I came to the realization that I was not yet finished with Mr. Delbert Bertram (D.B.) Jones, aka Death Bringer Jones, Zombie Slayer.
I decided to make the Death Bringer Jones character a part of the second book in my Dead Kill series; Dead Kill Book 2: The Ridge Of Change. Since the short story takes place in the same universe as the DK series, it worked out perfectly. I took the original short story and modified it, morphing it into a dream sequence chapter in the novel. Soon more chapters followed and to my surprise Death Bringer Jones became an important character in the book.
At this point I won’t say much more about Dead Kill Book 2: The Ridge Of Death as it will be published by Sunbury Press within the next month or so. I don’t want to be responsible for publishing any spoilers. By the way, the book is currently available for pre-order on the Sunbury Press website at Dead Kill Book Two The Ridge of Change.
I continued to be captivated by this character and wanted to do more with him. The Dead Kill series takes place in the future, a decade after the 2043 zombie virus outbreak known as the Z43 virus. By that time humanity had been victorious over the hordes of undead to the point where zombies had become nothing more than a nuisance; although still quite deadly. The Z43 virus resides in living humans and activates at the time of death, so there are always new zombies to contend with.
I decided it would be cool to write a book which chronicled the life of Death Bringer Jones from the origin of the outbreak in 2043, through the zombie wars and eventually culminating in his appearance in Dead Kill Book 2. That book, Death Bringer Jones, Zombie Slayer is currently a work in progress and at this time I have to admit it has a very good chance of becoming a series of its own.
So when you read the story Death Bringer Jones, in Moon Books’ Horror 2015 anthology, understand it’s really not the end of Death Bringer Jones, but just the beginning with many more adventures to come.