ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chicago native Demitria Lunetta holds a BA in Human Ecology and has spent countless hours studying the many ways in which people are capable of bringing about their own destruction. In case the end is near, she always carries a good book and a chocolate bar—the two items essential for post-apocalyptic survival. In the After is her debut novel. Visit her at demitrialunetta.blogspot.com On twitter @demitrialunetta.
About In the After:
They hear the most silent of footsteps.
They are faster than anything you’ve ever seen
And They won’t stop chasing you…until you are dead.
Amy is watching TV when it happens, when the world is attacked by Them. These vile creatures are rapidly devouring mankind. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to survive—and even rescue “Baby,” a toddler she finds in an abandoned supermarket. Marooned in Amy’s house, the girls do everything they can to survive—and avoid Them at all costs.
After years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she’ll lose Baby—and much more.
Instead of a Twitterview, it seemed appropriate that Demitria Lunetta instead chose to answer one of my questions for a lengthier guest post. That question is….
How do you survive the zombie apocalypse and how does your debut novel play a role in your survival?
In the After is about survival in a post-apocalyptic work over-run with blood-thirsty, flesh eating creatures. If it’s taught me anything about surviving a similar, zombie fueled apocalypse it’s quite simply that I wouldn’t…well not as human anyway. I would do quite well as a zombie.
I imagine in the first days of a Zombie apocalypse I’d try my best to survive…but I wouldn’t make it long. I have all of five cans of food in my cabinet, no back up water supply, and the only weapons to speak of are a set of dull butter knifes. I live in a densely populated area, which would greatly increase the zombie to human ratio, lowering my odds. Survivors would fight each other for supplies, leaving little to scavenge. My best bet would be to stay inside. If I somehow managed to live long enough for the zombies to break into my apartment, I wouldn’t be able to fight them off. I could hide in my bathroom for a bit, squirt lotion to try and get them off my scent, maybe fight back with some nail clippers, but let’s be honest… eventually they would get to me.
Now you may think, up to this point, what a depressing outlook. But consider what happens next. I am bitten by a zombie. I become a zombie. Sure, there’s a slight period of adjustment, including a feverish, painful death but after that I don’t have another care in the world. I shuffle where I like, when I like. I suppose the downside is that I have an unnatural desire to ingest brains, but I’ve sadly passed up enough chocolate bars to think I can live with this craving, though I doubt I’d be able to suppress it altogether. Mmmmmm, brains.
But I digress, I’d also do well as zombie because I’m a slow human with short legs, so I’ll probably be a slow zombie. This will be especially useful if I meet up with a group of organized survivors. Sure, I’ll lunge for them, snap my teeth, but a bunch of other zombies will probably get there first, be dispatched of, allowing the survivors to flee and leaving any yummy casualties to me.
Let’s also face it; Zombies have it made. They don’t have to worry about their mortgage. They don’t care about deadlines or promotions. Heck, they don’t even mind if they lose a limb or two. They say, “Whatevs” to being covered in rotting flesh. Who knows, maybe they even like their new lives. They’re probably just trying to infect those survivor chumps so they too can live a perfect, care-free zombie life.
I might not survive the zombie apocalypse as a human, but I think as a zombie, I would totally rock it.
Find out more about Demitria Lunetta’s In the After on Goodreads.
