Title: Edge of Mercy
Series: Mercy
Author: C. C. Marks
Published: July 31st 2012
Publisher: Timbercreek Press
Ebook
Pages: 159
BLUB
EDGE OF MERCY
Charlie hides her true identity, but her very presence places everyone around her in danger. With no other choice but to remain where she is, she stays with a community that might not be as benevolent as it appears. In this new and dangerous version of the world, where a friend might be an enemy and an enemy might be a friend, seventeen-year-old Charlie protects her baby sister and herself from grotesque monsters outside the community as well as human ones inside. Will the truth she discovers about her protectors save her or ultimately doom her to a fate worse than death?
EXCERPT
EDGE OF MERCY
My life wasn’t a freaking animated fairy tale like the ones in movies or on television long ago. I knew that very well, thank you very much. Movies and television were gone now. No more radio, no more Internet, no more tests of the emergency broadcast system. All gone, and we were back to basics, back to primal earth in a never-ending game of predator versus prey, and we were no longer the predators. Trust me, it was no fun being the prey.
In the community, I’d had bad days. I’d had days where I questioned if I really had an advantage inside the protected walls. But tonight took it to an extreme level. Night in the compound terrified me, what with sure death constantly clawing to get inside. Yet, this night eclipsed them all.
I covered my ears, gritted my teeth, a bubbled scream trapped in my chest. A tight hold on my emotions kept my fear from popping free in a loud, long wail. But just barely.
Others around me didn’t possess my level of control, especially Zeke, who sat beside me. His breaths came labored and loud to my ears. Part of me itched to reach a hand out, to reassure him that this night would pass like the ones before with all still safe inside, the sun rising on a new day. But I didn’t currently do girly, and I was no longer Charlotte Baker. Here, I was Charlie Little, the boy the community took in, along with a baby sister and a dying mother, a little over six months ago. If they ever thought differently, I wouldn’t last the night.
Screeches and clangs bombarded the combination wood and chain link metal fence surrounding the brick structure. We cowered in windowless cells inside. My hands firmly planted over the sides of my head, I couldn’t make myself pull them free. Sure, our security protected us well. The fence was electric and the building reinforced from the inside, but tonight, something was different. The creatures never attacked with this much intensity, and a wish to crawl into the deepest, darkest hole and hide there until it all ended crept over me.
It would end. It always ended.
Zeke’s muffled voice penetrated my flimsy hand armor, and I shifted my gaze to meet his. His dark-brown eyes were wide and expectant.
“Right, Charlie?”
Right? I hadn’t heard a question, wasn’t sure I could focus on anything he wanted to know now. My response--a shake of my head.
He pulled one of my hands free from my ear and asked, “It’s worse than before, right?”
Before? Before what? Before tonight? Before I stumbled through the community gate? Before the world turned to blood, survival, and hiding at night, always hiding at night?
“I don’t know, Zeke. Is it?” The panic in my voice remained buried by the jarring crashes outside.
“Yeah. It’s worse. Something’s changed.”
I looked at my lap. The truth would show in my eyes, so I didn’t dare look at Zeke. “They’re becoming more aggressive.”
Like last winter. Last winter, I came face-to-face with a draghoul. Then I fought through a horde of them to get here. My fear wasn’t from ignorance. I’d seen them up close, and they were beyond frightening. Their exteriors weren’t that much different from when they were once human. And they were once human, as unbelievable as it was. But the transformation into a monster was permanent and dreadful. The pale sallow skin, the glazed, souless eyes, the malicious teeth were a vision I would never forget. The fact they used to be people we knew, some we loved, made the sight of them all the more devastating.
He continued, “But why? They’ve always lurked just outside. They’ve never tried to get inside before. It’s like…they’d claw through the metal and concrete to get inside, I mean more than before.”
An explosive bang vibrated the walls and I jumped. God, I hated the night. It was too real, a reminder that humans no longer ruled the planet, a reminder that we were no longer the dominant species. My hands shook, and I lowered and squeezed them between my thighs to keep them out of sight.
Zeke’s whispered words carried across the room to the opposite wall. “What do you think, Thomas? You’re the smart one. Is it worse?”
I chanced a look in Thomas’s direction and felt more than saw his intense dark-eyed gaze burn into me. So often, he just stared, and questions lingered behind his intelligent eyes. Sometimes I wondered if he knew or at least suspected the truth. Life could always get worse for Star and me if he worked out my real identity. We wouldn’t survive in the forest again, and we had nowhere else to go.
His gaze turned to his cousin Zeke’s. “No doubt, it’s worse. It was only this bad once before, last year, in September and October.”
Zeke pressed, “What’s bringing them so close?”
“I don’t know, but the Council will figure it out and fix it.”
“You’re right. The Council will fix it.” The Council! My mouth tightened to a thin line as they mentioned the Council.
GUEST POST
BLOG I WRITE DARK AND DREAMY
Kelly Clarkson says it best with her new song, “Darkside.” Everybody has a dark side.
I’m an optimistic, humor-loving, and humor-full person. Yet, my writing might make you wonder about the truth in that. You see, I write dark and dreamy. I always have. My early poetry and stories always had a shadowy, sinister bent to them, much like my latest book Edge of Mercy. Often people worried about my state of mind (*snort* not much has changed there), but in the end, they realized writing about the darker side of life was an outlet for me. It’s a way to get out my own anxieties and fears, without actually having to experience what I worry about. That, by far, is where my dark side comes from.
Yet, I also have that dreamy side, and maybe that’s what keeps me sane. The truth is, I want a happy ending. I want things to work out by the close of the story. So, in my writing, though it is dark, there’s an element of hope. You can trust that my main characters, like Charlie, will eventually make it through the darkness. I don’t think I’m giving anything away there. I put my characters in some pretty bad situations, and I’m not saying how they’ll make it out, but there will always be a glimmer of a satisfactory resolution, where their dreams, their hope, leads them out of the darkness.
MY REVIEW
EDGE OF MERCY
The following review is my opinion and not a paid review. I received a copy of Edge of Mercy from the author for review.
Charlie lives behind the walls of the community that protect them from the monsters on the outside. Only males are allowed to live inside the community. The monsters are drawn to a certain hormone that only females have. Charlie has to hide who she truly is from everyone or face being thrown outside with the monsters.
The community is run by a group of old men called the council. Charlie knows that everyone is hiding something and is determined to find out what it is. There is a reason that there is no females in the community. She finally learns their secret as to why there is no females living in the community. With this knowledge she knows that she is going to have to take her little sister and leave before they find out her true identity.
I loved how C.C. Marks made the monsters (zombies as we would call them) different from all the other stories with zombies. Although it did make the story extremely interesting I didn't like how the council ran the community. Edge of Mercy was a page turner that kept you always wondering if they were going to find out that Charlie was a female.
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It all started with an old fashioned typewriter. When my family brought it home, all those stories and characters rolling around in my head could finally get out. The press and click of the keys satisfied in their own right, but when I pulled out a finished page, I knew this was for me. Since then, I’ve graduated to a laptop, but the stories still find a way out.
I’m a breast cancer survivor, a teacher, a wife, a mother, and from the very beginning—a storyteller. Always a hint humorous and honest to a fault, I love to make people laugh, smile, and have “a-ha” moments. My goal in life is to achieve tact and stop procrastinating. The battle wages on.
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