Sneak Peek!

Here is Chapter 1 of the upcoming novel from the Trilogy of the Undead, ‘Faith & The Undead’

_________________________________________________________________________

“In the beginning…”
Genesis 1.1
***
Satan decided that the game was over.  He was tired of God’s pitiful hands off policy on Earth.  For eons that balance of power had been maintained, both of them forcing the other to not interfere in mankind’s development through the ages.
He still felt that God had cheated and manipulated events through the use of miracles.  Fatima, The Shroud of Turin, and most of all Jesus.  To Satan this was direct tampering in the status quo that allowed man to bring himself closer to God.  Satan also knew that he was guilty of manipulating humans to achieve his evil goals.  Terrorism, war, and famine were direct results of Satan’s stage-managing on the face of the planet, but he was tired of the small games and their pitiful payouts.
“Let’s see how God likes this one,” Satan muttered under his breath as he extended his influence out through his carefully cultivated agents of evil now roaming the Earth.  One of those individuals was his target for this particular case of interference.  A biochemist in Germany who still had leanings toward Nazism and worked toward creating das Herrenrasse or the Master Race that Hitler so adored during his time of power as the head of The Third Reich.
The young German stood over his clutter workbench combining ingredients to limit the abilities of untermensch or unworthy to procreate.
“This will work.  This will keep those bastards and bitches from breeding,” he thought as the concoction mixed on the lab table.
As he turned to grasp his coffee mug, waiting for the mixing process to finish, he knocked over a lit Bunsen burner.  The flame licked out of the overturned piece of lab equipment,the bright red and blue waving across the table like waves of a quick moving stream, igniting the  doctor’s notes that lay strewn about the workbench.  Shocked by his clumsiness, he tried to swat the flames with his bare hands, then a stained and torn work towel, and finally attempted to douse the flames by splashing his coffee onto the burning documents to no avail.  The heat increased and the licking tendrils of the fire spread engulfing the work area, heating his newly mixed virus to the boiling level. The rapid increase in temperature caused it to evaporate into the air creating plumes of the chemicals that mixed with the gray acrid smoke from the fire.
The doctor turned to run from the room all thoughts of his research abandoned, the tendrils of smoke and chemicals reaching his nose and assaulting his body with unprecedented results.  His torso jerked upright as if rigor mortis was setting in, his eyes rolled backwards into his head leaving only the whites of his eyes visible, and all bodily function ceased.  Within a split second the rigidity released, his tall form relaxed, and his eyes focused on the room that lay before him.  The only problem for the doctor now was that his eyes would never see as they had before.
Now they were a milky white, even the pupils were hard to discern.  Now they moved in all directions looking for the one thing his mind was focused on, others like him.  With amazing speed his animated corpse exited the door into the street, where he stumbled across an unsuspecting young woman.  With an animals voraciousness, he launched himself through the air and tackled her to the hard concrete sidewalk.  Reaching down with his perfect teeth, he ripped a chunk of tender flesh from her perfect pale cheek, dripping blood down the front of his white lab coat.  The woman screamed from the pain trying to alert others to her distress, but her feeble resistance only served to open her pale white neck to the doctor’s assault.  As her lifeblood pulsed down the front of her floral print dress and puddled on the deserted sidewalk the doctor moved down the street to find more essence for his consumption, his insatiable need driving him onward.
Satan sat upon his throne in Hell, bent double at the waist with his horns horizontal like a bull about to charge a matador.  His body shook with mirth as he watched his pawn wander through the streets of Berlin feeding off the living, consuming their flesh and blood.  When the young woman finally passed, Satan carefully studied her soul in Purgatory as she awaited her assignment to either Heaven or Hell.  From is observations he realized that she would not reanimate and join his army of minions.  She had the one thing that drove him insane with fury, Faith.  Her belief in a higher being would protect her from the living nightmare of roaming the Earth in search of sustenance.
Satan was also trying to create a master race, one of his own design, that contained only the most wretched of souls: an army of murderers, rapists, child molesters and most of all those who had no belief.  These dregs of society were his target.  These were his prime candidates to destroy those who believed in God or at least a higher being.
Now was his time to ravage the planet with the full force of his power, loosing pure evil upon those that could not be turned and still walked as humans.
***
Frank Payens had walked down many roads like this throughout his life after the military.  Times had been tough when he got out of the service and it was very difficult for him to adjust to civilian life after everything he had seen and participated in during his time in the Army.  As with many scarred veterans, Frank chose to drop off the map of existence only participating on the sidelines.  Working odd jobs here and there for cash, living in a shack in the woods, and hopping from one part of the country to another was his way of life.
He had traveled many paths across what he considered a great nation, but was never able to find a place of comfort to call home.  That began to change three years ago when he started to hear rumors of The Home, a monastery like retreat that only accepted veterans.  Even though it sounded like an urban legend, the stories of military monks living in a compound in New York or Connecticut seemed to popup no matter where he went in the nation.
Several years after his discharge, Frank turned to the church for strength hoping he would find something that would help him deal with the mental scars.  When he heard of the monastery he knew in his soul it was the place for him to heal.  The last time he heard about it was during his travels through Maryland and he resolved to head north and find The Home.
Now he was walking down the gravel country lane toward the large iron gates peaked with spear points that constituted the entrance to the compound.  It had taken him a few months of research and story swapping to finally find its exact location on the bluff overlooking the river.  He had camped nearby watching the large buildings, orchards and gardens that comprised the property.  A sturdily built rough hewn stone wall encompassed the area and whether it was to keep people out or in was still up for discussion.  He had waited two weeks longer out of nerves before making his presence known.  Once he conquered his edgy nerves he knew it was time to make his appearance at the gates.
When he was about a hundred yards from the gate he could feel the prickly sensation that signaled he was being watched.  He stopped his approach for a second and exhaled a deep sigh knowing that his life was about to radically change; for the better or worse he did not know.  Taking one hesitant step after another, Frank moved toward the gate watching the individuals in the towers that flanked the gate observe his approach.  He stopped with five feet left to go in his multi year search for this place uncertain if he wanted to commit to this course of action.  His training and gut instinct told him this would most likely be a permanent decision. The gates began to slowly spread open leaving a gap large enough for an individual to pass through.  A figure wearing a brown hooded robe walked from the base of the towers and stood in the narrow opening of the gate, his arms hidden by large billowing sleeves.  Frank looked the man over from top to bottom, keenly appraising the individual that stood before him.  Salt and pepper hair crowned a head held high at the top of the man’s large frame.  He exuded an aura of confidence as him he knew he was supposed to be here and exactly what his mission in life was.  There was no hostility, but also no benevolence in his posture and manner, which made Frank even more confused.
“We have awaited your arrival brother.  It is time for your healing to commence,” the monk intoned toward Frank across the small gap.
Frank dropped his rucksack to the ground and fell to his knees knowing that not only had he found the object of his search, but he had finally located the spot of comfort that he was looking for.  The place he could call home.