My friends, on February 9, 2019, I will be launching the first volume of my new novel LAURA AND THE SHADOW KING at Amazon. It’s a kind of zombie-apocalypse military action thriller with an emotional side to it, as usual. Here’s the blurb:

In a world devastated by a rampant maddening disease, Lieutenant J.J. Berger takes his Special Operations team into Southern Portugal to search for his lost comrades.  His path will cross with a mysterious woman and her little daughter, escaping from their captors. They might hold the key to a better world.

Today, I start a new phase, that of recruiting my Launch Team. The team is made up of volunteers that will receive the whole book a month in advance and complete tasks like: download it for free when the time comes and post an honest review at the Amazon book page. Anyone willing to do that, please subscribe to the Launch Team list by clicking here:

 LAUNCH TEAM LIST.

For now, let me give you a taste of the book. In three posts I will be showing you the Introduction (Chapter 0), Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. They are all independent – you can read them as you wish. I hope you like it!

 

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LAURA AND THE SHADOW KING

0.

There had been a world before this one. In that world, Pablo had a house. A home. He had a family, a wife, two daughters. Now he was here, somewhere he had never been before, in a crowd of people he didn’t know. And how? And why?

The song in his ears. He had earphones in. He didn’t remember putting them there. Someone had given them to him. Someone had asked him to hear it. Over and over. The same song. Someone he didn’t like. Yesterday. Maybe before that. He didn’t really remember. Pablo was a confused man.

The crowd moved forward a bit, and Pablo moved with it. They were all waiting. Waiting to move through the door. For them to let them move through the door.

Pablo didn’t remember much. He remembered the girl and her mother. He remembered them. He liked them. He liked them a lot. They reminded him of before, when he had a house, a home, and a wife and two daughters. Pilar and Marina. He remembered their names. He was pleased with himself. He finally remembered their names. And his wife? His wife’s name was what? He could almost reach it. Almost.

There was a loud noise. Behind him. There was a loud noise. Pablo looked. He turned around and looked. It was a plane. A small loud jet plane taking off. “Breathe, keep breathing,” a voice told him. The song in his ears.

Someone shouted an order, and the crowd moved forward again. Pablo had never been here before, but he remembered similar crowds. Once . . . back in the past, he had taken his daughters, Pilar and Marina, taken them to . . . somewhere. Somewhere they had been happy. Somewhere like this. A place where people came out of an airplane and gathered in a crowd and were corralled through glass gates.

But that had been in the past. A past he could hardly remember. He was confused. He had something to do. He had a task. He remembered the little girl. The little girl and the woman. He liked them. They were nice. But now he had a task. There was something he had to do.

There was a strange hollow gate up there. A gate the crowd was put through. Just an empty frame in the middle of nowhere. And there were guards. Policemen, but not exactly policemen. Policemen, but with military uniforms. And a few others with rifles. People with rifles. There was something he had to do. A task. Something to do with those people with rifles. Something to do with this crowd.

When he had traveled with his family, the guards used to have police uniforms. It was different then. Before. He had lost them. He had lost them.

The crowd moved forward. Pablo moved forward.

He put a hand inside his jacket pocket. There was a task. He put his hand inside his pocket and felt the plastic thing. It felt wrong, but he had to do it. He was supposed to do it. He didn’t really know why, but he had to. When? What? Why did he have to do it?

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. There was someone looking at him. A man with a rifle. A big man, broad shoulders, brown hair, sunglasses. He was looking at Pablo. He was talking to someone else—not directly—on a radio. That was a radio. Pablo knew it. The man was talking on a radio and warning somebody. Warning them about him. About Pablo. And other guards looked at him.

Before. Before all this . . . Pablo was happy. He had been happy. He had a house, a home, a wife, Lucia, two daughters, Pilar and Marina. They traveled. They had gone through crowds together, laughing, singing, joking. They loved each other. But that was before. It was before.

The guards gave orders to the crowd. They shouted at them. Shouted things Pablo couldn’t understand. His hand closed inside his pocket. Closed around the plastic thing inside his pocket. And he listened to the song. Always the song. We hope that you choke. That you choke? Why?

Then men pointed their guns at him. Rifles and pistols. Pointed at him. And the crowd left him alone. The crowd parted and abandoned Pablo in the middle of the hall, with his earphones in his ears, and his hand in his pocket. And they were shouting at him. Things he couldn’t understand. Things he couldn’t hear.

And the man with broad shoulders was getting closer, pointing a rifle at him. Why? But there was a task. A task. And the song in his ears. And the man shouting.

‘SHOW ME YOUR HANDS! SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!’

Pablo was listening to the song. And then it stopped. It stopped. And now he could hear the shouts. And see the men with the guns and feel the plastic thing in his pocket. There was a button on that thing. And the song had stopped. And he had a task. He used to be happy. He knew that. He used to be happy. Before . . .

‘NOW!’

Now . . . Pablo thought. Now he had nothing.

His last thought was to the little girl. The little girl whose name he didn’t remember. And the woman. The nice, good-looking woman. He didn’t know why, but he thought of them.

And then he pushed the button.