Adam Mansbach has written some acclaimed literary novel , as well as the collide with satiric small fry ’s Quran Go the screw to Sleep . And now , he ’s release a zombi novel calledThe Dead Run . We’ve got an exclusive chapter extract , plus a glance of the vivid novel prequel . Check it out !
First of all , above is a dialog box from the Dead Run prequel in writing novel , The Dead Run : The Legend of El Cucuy , which will be available for free at some detail soon . Here are a couple more peek :
And here ’s an exclusive chapter from the leger :
C h a p t e r 4
For Galvan , the key to go prison house was ritual . Routine . Break the months down into hebdomad , the days down into hour . Anticipate any small pleasure . Ignore anything and anyone that was n’t on the schedule .
At six thirty , he fire up up . Half an minute before the rest of the population — because he could , because it was a determination he was still allowed to make . He bask the restrained , then drip to the cement story for fifty close - grip button - ups , fifty even , fifty broad . Two hundred sit - ups , a hundred dips . Shave . Wash off in the sink , buss the picture of his girl hang over it , where the mirror would have been if this were the material world . It service the same design a mirror would have : it confirmed his existence .
Get dressed . Notice that he was thirsty . Relish the thought of the repast to come , unappetizing as the food might be . piece a Song dynasty .
The song was crucial . He had to have one by seven , when the door opened and the march down to the cafeteria lead off . The song was the theme medicine for the day . He ’d roleplay it in his head again and again , really get to sleep with it . Sing it in the cascade , head for the hills to its beat in the yard , use it to tune up out trouble . In eleven months and twelve days , Galvan had never cull the same song doubly .
They ’d hit him with seek execution , five counts . Given him ten days on each , to be served at the same time . If he could keep his head down , he might be out in five . He had another four years ’ worth of songs in him , he was reasonably certain .
But not another nine .
There was a wireless in his cell , a cheap transistor another American had eliminate down to him when the cat catch out last summer — dude name of Jimmy , closest affair to a ally Galvan had made in here . The only stations it got played narcocorrido , a kind of Mexican country music full of storey about drug runs and robberies , murders and delimitation crossings . Plenty appropriate for this position , but fucking unlistenable . He would ’ve turn over anything for some music that meant something to him . Some Johnny Cash , some Run - DMC , some War . Something .
A rap song got you the furthest . More lyric to recite , a good tempo to run to . But Galvan had somewhat much exhausted all the tunes he ’d develop up driving around L.A. to — and besides , all those so - shout out gangsta tunes were easygoing than baby hoot compared to the reality of life in here , where vatos slit each other ’s throats over disrespectful eye impinging and the Barrio Azteca and Federación Sinaloa occupied the yard , the cafeteria , even the library at different times of sidereal day to minimize the likelihood of their obliterate each other .
Where the fetor of corruption repose heavy over everything and Department of Justice was something you bought , if you wanted some . Where combine bosses sit in steel John Cage commanded ground forces whose firepower the police , the U. S. Army , could n’t match even if they wanted to .
Which they did not . Instead , one hand washed the other , and everybody else stayed douse in turd .
Kodiak Brinks , Galvan decided . “ receive to the Ruckas . ” He only know the first poesy , if that . But the rest would come . It had all day .
I ’m kickin ’ the illest dogshit / surround by loathsomeness . . .
The bar open , and Galvan walk down the tier , toward the stairs , optic darting left , right , leave . Who ’s in front of me ? Who ’s in back ?
I slide through the drama / Use my eyes as my armour . . .
The only cause he was still alive was that the men who mattered had been dull in deciding what to make of him . Galvan kept to himself , act upon out like mad . A gringo , but not here for drug . show respect but was n’t weak . lie with how to handle himself . The first affair Galvan had done when he arrived was straightaway - study the population until he found a guy as much like himself as potential , a concentrated - ass loner . Then he ’d pluck a engagement and kicked the piss out of the dandy , as in public as potential .
Best affair he could have done , but it was wearing off . And doing it again , Galvan knew , would not help . Prison was ennui . vehemence was stand-in . Alone was vulnerable .
The last calendar month had been buildup : taunts , catcalls . Nothing so direct that the codification of the prison house dictated he had to fight over it . But closer and close . It was the weakest members of both gangs who tested him , skinny eighteen - year- olds with bad teeth , little more than court jesters . Or pawns . spendable flesh , the form of vatos whose lifetime expectancies had doubled on the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. they ’d been arrested . Their superiors wanted to see how far Galvan could be push before he snatch .
Galvan wondered that himself .
Known as fair and straightforward throughout my youth / Kick the accuracy , uncouth but I ’m livin ’ proof / Eye to oculus , man to man I never blink / The last motherfucker with a pail when the ship sinks . . .
They sense something on him , Galvan thought . Not fear . Innocence . These manpower , from the rank - and- file to the political boss , were here because they broke the law for money . That was who they were , and they were proud of it . Galvan was here because he ’d failed to mind his patronage . Because he ’d hear something he could n’t put up and reacted .
It was n’t a error he planned to make again .
After breakfast was the chiliad . Some people lifted weights . Others play association football . The old men and the high - ups smoked cigarettes , corrode confect bars , talked line .
Galvan function breaking wind sprints . He did n’t know why , just . It was the one risk he took , the one matter he did that draw attention . Scorn was a effective word . But he had to move , had to exhaust himself . In some vague way , he surmise that running would be important when he got out of here . In chasing down his old aliveness and induce things right .
That , and outdistancing whatever retentiveness he learn with him .
Galvan was ten minute into his workout , his breath follow in toothed pant , when a skinny child they called Payaso broke off from a cluster of inmates and bring together him . He was a low - ranking fellow member of Barrio Azteca , an errand boy . A blusterer . A catcaller . Top five on the list of people Galvan would have care to pound into the ground .
“ I get a message for you , pendejo , ” he said , already panting from the cause of catching up .
Galvan did n’t break his step . “ What ’s that , pendejo ? ”
“ El Cucuy want to see you . ”
Galvan snorted . “ Tell him I already got a lunch assignment with Santa Claus . Seeing the Easter Bunny after that , but I might be able-bodied to squeeze him in before drinks with the tooth fairy . ”
He quicken , left Payaso in the dust . El Cucuy . Shit . The mythologic bugaboo of Ojos Negros Prison . Supposedly , he be in the bowels of the place , las entranas de la tierra , half yardbird and half god . Half monster and half conceiver . Some said they ’d built the place around him . Others claimed he was the leader of both gangs , that each was an instrument of his summons and he played one against the other for reasons known only to himself . His appetence for woman was say to be prodigious ; the families of inmates exit their young daughters at home on natter years in case the tales were true .
No one ever image the guy , of course . The guard had made the whole matter up : Better not give us any trouble , or we ’ ll take you below and hand you over to El Cucuy . decade ago , credibly . Now the apologue had a life-time of its own .
Whatever this content meant , it could n’t be practiced . El Cucuy wants to see you — broadly translated , it became You ’re rifle to vanish . They ’d gotten bored with taunts , and now it was time for terror , intimidation . Mind - fuckery .
Galvan threw on a burst of swiftness . He had to save his aggression for the humans who ’d put him here , and that meant surviving long enough to rejoin the world and find him .
drop down and more / never get caught on the ropes through / The demon project low blows / I sidestep ’em in tiresome mo . . .
Galvan never envision the rock candy , or the branch that threw it . “ Órale , gringo ! ” he heard somewhere behind him , and then pain burst against the side of his head and Galvan dropped to the priming , clutch his tabernacle . Blood slicked his hired man . His vision went spangly .
Easy target , if he stay down , and so Galvan force himself to stand , wiped away the red rivulets cascading down his forehead , turned in a blind drunk circle like a cat chasing its tail . Two men were coming at him from the rightfield , the weightlifting area . He profess not to see the first one until he was cheeseparing , then ducked the man ’s jive , came around his back , and dropped an elbow onto his kidneys . He crumpled . Galvan kneed him in the face as he went down . He would n’t be getting back up .
The other guy was bigger . One of the biggest . Gutierrez . An enforcer , brutal . Famous as a rapist . He was on top of Galvan before the gringo live it , shockingly quick for his size . He depart decent for the cervix , with both hands — no bunk , get it over with tight .
If he ’d pushed Galvan down , choked him from above , used the leveraging his body append , it would have been . Instead , all that practicality went out the windowpane , and he went for the glamor shot : lifted Galvan off his feet , like Homer Simpson when he choke Bart . Galvan reared back and kicked him in the nuts with everything he had , and the behemoth dropped him , doubled over . Galvan hit him with a right-hand hybridization , snapped his oral sex sideways , then follow with a left .
All that bought him was fourth dimension to breathe . Gutierrez was built for this ; he was n’t close to done . A roundabout had constitute around the three of them , the noise cacophonous . Galvan had see this before . The circle was a joke . You think you were crusade one man , two workforce , but the truth was that every inmate form that perimeter was a potential combatant .
The sport was to deliver the stunner coke unseen .
He get word somebody running at him , whirl , and crack Payaso in the jaw , sent him whirl into the rubble . The whirl was bullwhip incisive , and for an instant , it quiet down the yard . Then Galvan was on the land next to him , with no mind how he ’d experience there except that it seemed to involve getting hit in the face . He scrabbled to his human knee . The noise crest . This was when the shiv came out .
Then the speech sound everybody was waitress for ripped through the atmosphere : three admonition gibe from the rifleman post in the watchtower drop the yard .
The buckshot kick up flair of dust , and the circle loosened , disperse . Galvan stagger to his foot , only to be lay categorical on his back by a precaution ’s baton . They were everywhere , joystick flashing , use up people down .
Galvan catch a blow to the head and felt himself go limp . The cries of the other inmates reach him as if from far away , the sounds swim through the haze that filled his head .
Payaso ’s voice cut through it all .
“ Please , please , I ’m begging you , ” the kid wailed through his busted human face , the words distorted by pain sensation and terror , as the guard rained down blow after blow .
“ pour down me if you want . Just do n’t take me to El Cucuy . ”
Welcome to the Ruckus .
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