The Machete Squad must also, and always, be thanked. Amanda Perry, Rae Hanson, Sunil Patel, Alison Riley-Duncan, Rebecca Newman, Allison Hewett, Janet Maughan, Penelope Skrzynski, Phil Ames, and Amanda Sanders were all on tap for general proofreading and plot consultation. Through their efforts is this book made incalculably better. Meanwhile, at Orbit, DongWon Song was applying a keen editorial eye to the text, Lauren Panepinto was rocking the cover design, and Alex Lencicki was just plain rocking. Thanks so much, guys. I couldn’t have done this without you.
Finally, acknowledgment for forbearance must go to Kate Secor, Shaun Connolly, and Cat Valente, who put up with an amazing amount of “talking it out” as I tried to make the book make sense; to my agent, Diana Fox, who remains my favorite superhero; to Betsy Tinney, for everything; and to Tara O’Shea and Chris Mangum, the incredible technical team behind www.MiraGrant.com. This book might have been written without them. It would not have been the same.
If you’re curious about the American yellow fever epidemic and mosquito-based vectors, check out The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, by Molly Crosby.
Rise up while you can.
extras
meet the author
Born and raised in California, Mira Grant has made a lifelong study of horror movies, horrible viruses, and the inevitable threat of the living dead. In college, she was voted Most Likely to Summon Something Horrible in the Cornfield, and was a fo unding member of the Horror Movie Sleep-Away Survival Camp, where her record for time survived in the Swamp Cannibals scenario remains unchallenged.
Mira lives in a crumbling farmhouse with an assortment of cats, horror movies, comics, and books about horrible diseases. When not writing, she splits her time between travel, auditing college virology courses, and watching more horror movies than is strictly good for you. Favorite vacation spots include Seattle, London, and a large haunted corn maze just outside of Huntsville, Alabama.
Mira sleeps with a machete under her bed, and strongly suggests you do the same. Find out more about the author at www.miragrant.com.
introducing
If you enjoyed DEADLINE, look out for
BLACKOUT
BOOK 3 OF THE NEWSFLESH TRILOGY
by Mira Grant
BOOK I
From the Dead
People like to say things like “It wasn’t supposed to go this way” and “This isn’t what I wanted.” They’re just making noise. In the end, there’s no such thing as “supposed to,” and what you want doesn’t matter. All that matters is what really happened.
—GEORGIA MASON
I honestly have no idea what’s going on anymore. I just need to find something that I can hit.
—SHAUN MASON
My name is Georgia Carolyn Mason. I belong to the vast, unspoken class of people known as the Orphans of the Rising, individuals who were under two years of age when their parents were killed. Individuals who were too young to remember anything about where they came from. My biological family is presumably listed somewhere on the Wall, living eople transformed into one more simple footnote of a dead world. Their world died in the Rising, just like they did. They didn’t live to see the new one.
My adoptive parents have raised me to question the world around me, understand the realities of my situation, and, in times of necessity, shoot first. They have equipped me with the tools I need to survive, and for that I am grateful. Through this blog, I will do my best to share my experiences and, yes, my opinions in as open and honest a way as I can. It is the best way to honor the family that raised me; it is the only way I have to honor the family that lost me.
I’m going to tell you the truth as I understand it. You can take it from there.
—From Images May Disturb You, the blog of Georgia Mason, June 20, 2035
So George says I have to write a “mission statement” for this blog, because apparently, our contract with Bridge Supporters says that I will. I am personally opposed to mission statements, since they’re basically one more way of sucking the fun out of everything. I tried telling George this, but all she said was that it’s her job to suck the fun out of everything. She then threatened physical violence of a type that I will not describe in detail, as it might unsettle and upset my theoretical readership. Suffice to say that here I am, writing a mission statement. So here it is:
I, Shaun Phillip Mason, being of sound mind and body, do hereby swear to poke dead shit with sticks, do stupid things for your amusement, and put it all on the Internet where you can watch it over and over again. Because that’s what you want, right?
Glad to oblige.
—From Hail to the King, the blog of Shaun Mason, June 20, 2035
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