Title: The Safe Zone

Series: The Survivors #2

Author: Amy Marsden

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 03/05/2024

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 91500

Genre: Horror, Lit/genre, horror, action, post-apocalyptic, interracial, bisexual, gay, paramedic, PTSD, soldiers, photographer, Paris, found family

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Description

When Jennifer and her group of survivors arrived at the castle, she thought they were safe at last. With strong walls and strong soldiers surrounding them, the threat of infected became negligible, and she could finally relax for the first time in what felt like forever. But the need for a cure outweighed Jennifer’s personal comfort, and the castle didn’t have the facilities needed to synthesize a vaccine from her blood.

She should have known safety wouldn’t last.

Back out in the world plagued by infected, Jennifer and her group head to Paris, where they could begin to find a cure for the virus that decimated humanity. But things don’t go according to plan, and they are left scrambling to get away with their lives.

Determined to find a safe place to hunker down and ride out the worst of the apocalypse, Jennifer and her broken but hopeful group return to the UK. Once there, they soon find that the infected aren’t the only threat.

A story about found family and overcoming the odds, The Safe Zone is the thrilling conclusion to the Survivors duology.

Excerpt

The Safe Zone
Amy Marsden © 2024
All Rights Reserved

12th January

When the world ended, Heather was fishing.

She didn’t know anything was amiss for hours as she sat by the tranquil water, her mind blissfully empty of thoughts. Fishing allowed her to destress; she liked to imagine the river carrying her worries away as she stretched her legs out. Her serene morning came to an abrupt end as the first bodies drifted by, and she jumped to her feet, adrenaline pooling in her stomach.

Her phone, which had been switched off in her bag, showed six missed calls from her wife and three each from her brother and nephew. Ringing back proved fruitless. She packed her equipment away as quickly as she could, her shaking hands belying her efficient movements. Panic stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth, and dread made breathing difficult. She raced back to her car—

To find it wasn’t where she’d left it.

Heather couldn’t hold back the terror any longer. Shouts and screams crowded the air all around her. What’s going on? Her town was usually a quiet place. She made her way onto the street, resolving to run home if needed, and stopped dead in her tracks.

Madness greeted her wide eyes.

Everywhere she looked, chaos reigned. People fought each other in the middle of the street, running in all directions, damaging cars and buildings. Even as she watched, a man lunged for another, punched him in the stomach, and bit into his arm as he doubled over in pain.

The paramedic in Heather froze, and she’d seen a lot in her twenty-year career. A tyre blew out on a car, causing it to flip, and all three occupants had walked away without a scratch. A five-car pile-up where no one had walked away. She’d held a thirteen-year-old boy in her arms as he bled out from a knife wound. She had lost count of the number of babies she’d delivered. She’d seen the best humanity had to offer and the worst, and the scene unfolding in front of her was up there with the worst.

The panic flooding her veins was thankfully tempered by her training, and her body got to work before her mind had a chance to catch up. The man who had attacked the other had left him slumped on the ground, so Heather dashed over to him. She dumped her fishing equipment at her side.

“Hi, there,” she said as she checked around him for danger. “I’m Heather, and I’m a paramedic. Can you tell me where you’re hurting?”

The man’s glassy eyes blinked as he struggled to focus on her. “My arm,” he croaked.

Heather identified the bite wound immediately. It looked nasty already. She reached into her bags for her first aid kit—she never went anywhere without one—and pulled out some gloves and alcohol wipes as well as gauze for bandaging it. She cleaned the wound as quickly as she could, but she never got the chance to wrap it.

A heavyset woman tackled her from behind, and the two of them went sprawling over the injured man. Heather banged her head against the concrete, her vision flashing white as she struggled to right herself. Nausea hit her stomach, but she didn’t vomit, thankfully. Damnit!

The woman wasn’t there when Heather pushed herself into a seated position. She didn’t know where she’d gone, and frankly, she didn’t care. Pushing aside her head injury—she could feel blood seeping from a cut, but it wasn’t bad—she looked around for the injured man. He was nowhere to be seen either.

Cursing again, she regained her footing only to have to jump out of the way of two men grappling with each other. What on Earth is happening? She ran back to her bags, pulled her phone out, and rang her wife again. Still nothing. With a frustrated growl, Heather shoved the phone into her pocket and straightened, determined to run home.

She didn’t get far.

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Meet the Author

As a child Amy loved reading and writing, so naturally she graduated with a degree in biomedical science and has worked in a microbiology laboratory ever since. Her passion is writing however, and she started her first novel while still at university. When she is not writing about surviving apocalypses, exploring space, and conquering magic—all featuring LGBTQ characters—she can be found reading or playing games about those very things. She lives by the sea with her wife and fifteen-year-old cat who still runs around like a kitten.