Carrie Jones had an entry on her blog recently which encouraged people to post the first page of their current work in progress. I thought that was a very good idea — so I’m going to share the first page of my Edmonton-based zombie novel, Deadmonton. I hope you enjoy it…or at least are intrigued.

This contains a fair bit of foul language, so read at your own risk.

Monday, January 14, 2008 11:06 am

The hospital was on fire. Again. Devon cursed and muttered under his breath. Goddamn homeless people. When were they going to learn not to set the fricking place on fire? When?

He leaned up against the fire truck he’d arrived at the scene in, and watched everyone scurry around. To the untrained eye it would look like chaos, but Devon had been a firefighter for long enough to know what was going on, and he knew, very soon, he’d be going in. He could see it in the way the captain kept glancing over at he and Fred.

Devon took off his helmet, ran his fingers through his raven hair and nudged Fred with his elbow. Fred turned to look at him, eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”

“We’re goin’ in, I expect.”

“Ye ever been in there?” Fred asked with a tilt of his head. Devon noticed that the skinnier man was licking his lips nervously.

“The Camsell? Yeah sure, lotsa times. The bums set it on fire every couple months. Never this bad before though,” he said, looking over at the smoke pouring out of almost a quarter of the windows.

“I hear it’s haunted.”

“Eh, people always say shit like that about old abandoned buildings – especially ones like hospitals where loads of people have died.”

“I guess so,” Fred muttered, and Devon watched his pink tongue dart out and lick at the corner of his mouth again. “I guess so.”

“You don’t believe in all that shit, do you?”

“Who me? Nah.” Fred said.

Devon could see that he was lying. Fuck, he thought. Bad enough I’m here this afternoon, but to be stuck here partnered with the rookie, an apparently superstitious rookie, it was as if the fates were conspiring against him.