Mr. Shoyer was able to avoid the clichés that have become standard fare in this sub-genre and managed to pump some fresh blood and brains into the genre. He is hard at work completing his follow up to OUTBREAK: THE HUNGER, which will be a direct sequel that takes place two years after the events of the first novel.
Excerpt from:Outbreak: The Hunger
The retention pond looked like the aftermath scene in any war movie ever filmed. There were mangled and broken bodies piled on top of each other and an eerie stillness hung in the air.
Death had visited the Austin Zoo today.
The animals’ attack was vicious and quick. In a flash, families went from enjoying a beautiful day looking at the animals and talking about what they were going to do for lunch, to running for their lives and watching their loved ones being torn apart by the very animals they had enjoyed moments ago.
The attack started in the petting corral with children walking among the goats and llamas and petting them. A few kids had snuck in some food pellets to feed the hungry critters. Madison was the first child bitten by a goat. She was there with her parents and grandmother and had snuck some food into the petting corral. She was eleven years old with long, curly dark hair, and her blue eyes that set against her dark hair, seemed to glow.
Madison had some food pellets in her hand feeding a goat. Her dad had warned her not to feed too many of them while inside the pen. Her dad, Jesse, stood on the other side of the fence. He wasn’t crazy about the petting corral, and felt that goats and llamas were filthy animals, but his little girl loved to go in there and feed them. She told him on the drive to the zoo earlier that morning that she wanted to be a veterinarian. “That’s what she wants to be this week,” he thought to himself as he smiled.
“In a flash.” This how most things happen, in a flash. One beautiful fall day in September, people were going to work and just living their lives. Then in a flash, an airplane slammed into the World Trade Center setting off a series of events that forever changed the lives of every American. The “flash” moment occurred here with the tiny bite from a goat.
Jesse heard his daughter let out a yelp as she shook her hand back and forth. “Are you okay, sweetie?” he yelled from behind the corral’s wall. Madison’s mom and grandma, who were in the corral, walked over to Madison.
“Yeah, I think so,” Madison answered her dad. “The goat bit me,” she continued, sounding both surprised and a little angry.
Jesse looked at his wife. “She’s fine,” his wife, Michelle, said after looking at Madison’s hand. “Just a little nip. Your dad told you to be careful feeding the animals in here.”
From the corner of his eye, Jesse saw something, no, someone, fall in the corral. Soon afterwards, he heard his mother-in-law scream.
“Beverly,” Jesse shouted, “where are you. Are you all right?” There was no answer.
“Jesse, get in here,” his wife screamed. Jesse jumped over the fence and into the corral and ran over to where his daughter and wife were. All around the corral people were starting to scream, as they were either bitten or knocked around by the animals in the corral.
“What the shit?” Jesse said out loud. He then heard his mother-in-law scream behind him. Turning quickly, he saw her on the ground trying to protect her face from the llama standing over her. The llama was slamming its nose into Beverly’s face, and Jesse could swear that he saw the llama bearing its teeth.
“Get Madison out of here, Michelle,” Jesse said.
“What the hell is going on here?” Michelle asked, scared to death.
Jesse had no idea what was going on. “Just get her out of here.”
Jesse turned to help Beverly but saw he was too late. Three other goats were now with the llama attacking his mother-in-law. He picked up a rock and threw it at the group of animals. The rock slammed right into the head of one of the goats. The goat just lifted its head and looked straight at Jesse.
Then Jesse saw the blood.
He turned pale white as he realized the animals weren't’ just attacking, they were feeding. The goats had torn off Beverly’s ears and were trying to get their teeth inside her eye sockets. The llama had torn out her throat and was chewing on it as if it had been eating the pellets Madison was feeding it seconds ago.
Madison! He turned away from Beverly knowing there was nothing he could do to save her. Looking around, he saw that the corral had become a slaughterhouse. Two potbellied pigs were chewing on a dead little boy’s foot, while elsewhere in the corral, four sheep were feasting on a father they brought down. Jesse almost threw up as he watched the sheep chewing out the man’s cheeks, tearing the meat from his thighs, and tearing off and chewing the man’s genitals.
He saw his wife and daughter running for the corral’s exit. They were just feet away when something jumped down from an overhanging tree and took his wife to the ground. It was one of the monkeys they saw earlier. But they were on the other side of the zoo, Jesse thought. How the hell… my God; are all the animals out of their cages?
His wife started screaming as the monkey sunk its claws into her head and neck and started tearing out clumps of her hair. Madison stood just inches away watching her mother pointlessly trying to fight off the monkey. Jesse ran over with a branch he picked up and was trying to find the right moment to hit the monkey. Michelle thrashed back and forth not giving Jesse a steady target. As a last resort, Jesse pushed his wife hard into the tree next to them to try and jolt the animal off his wife. The impact made the monkey dig its claws into Michelle deeper, and with one of its free paws, sunk its claws into her eyes.
Michelle screamed so hard that Jesse thought she would pass out from a lack of oxygen. Jesse finally reached out to grab the monkey and he was met with what felt like a cannonball hitting him in the chest. A longhorn steer came out of nowhere and slammed into him. Madison was screaming. He tried to move but he was pinned against a tree. He tried hitting the longhorn on the head, but the steer didn’t seem to notice the blows. He slid his hand down and suddenly froze in terror. The steer had impaled him through his chest and into the tree. He felt his blood slowly coating the steer’s horn.
Madison was still screaming as the longhorn twisted and shook its head. Jesse was being torn apart against the tree while his wife lay silent on the ground at his feet. A large Galapagos tortoise was eating its way into Michelle’s stomach. Before Jesse blacked out, he noticed his daughter had stopped screaming. When he looked for her, he saw that two Axis deer had her on her stomach and they were tearing away long, bloody strips of flesh from her back.
The last thing Jesse did was cry.
About Scott Shoyer
I'm a horror writer who has no limits on where I go. My ideas come from everyday situations and then I put them through my twisted filter to hopefully shock and disgust you. My first novel, OUTBREAK: THE HUNGER, is now available from Severed Press. I love writing about zombies and more "human" monsters and have many ideas for more novels, short stories, novellas, and scripts (I even have a bizarre graphic novel about Steven Seagal as a time traveling, butt-kicker fighting evil). Slowly, I'm getting these warped ideas out of my head.
IMPORTANT LINKS
Scott currently has 2 short stories published in 2 different horror anthologies, Headshots Only and Tales of Bigfoot. He also runs the popular horror website www.anythinghorror.com where he writes reviews of horror films, novels, video games, and conducts great interviews with some of the most interesting people in the horror industry!
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OUTBREAK:THE HUNGER BOOK DETAILS
- Paperback:206 pages
- Author: Scott Shoyer
- Publisher: Severed Press
- Release Date: April 19, 2015
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1925225941
- ISBN-13:978-1925225945
- Product Dimensions:6x 0.5x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces
- Order your copy here
OUTBREAK: THE HUNGER[Kindle Edition]
- Format: Kindle Edition/ebook
- File Size: 3657 KB
- Print Length: 212 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
- Publisher: Severed Press
- Release Date: April 13, 2015
- Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00W39LDZW
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
- X-Ray:Not Enabled
- Word Wise: Not Enabled
- Order from amazon.co.uk here
Customer Reviews
Parents Beware
- By: Ursula K. Raphael VINE VOICE on April 20, 2015
- Format: Kindle Edition
- Outbreak: The Hunger by Scott Shoyer is a parent's nightmare: trying to protect your child when you can't even protect yourself. Shoyer lures readers down the rabbit hole with an intense setup, only to have the rabbit tear our guts out as the characters fight for survival, page after page. The action scenes are quick and brutal, but the "calm" parts are anything but soothing. Shoyer dangles false hope in front of readers, then unleashes a flurry of death and dismemberment, slaughtering his characters, piece by piece. It will be a long time before I take my son to the zoo again...
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading
- By: Kimberly Cable on April 28, 2015
- Format: Paperback
- Can't Stop Reading. Although not my typical genre of reading material, it had me at the cover and kept my attention the whole way through. Every time I felt I had a handle on what was to come, I turned the page and found a twist that never crossed my mind!! I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading, regardless of your normal story preference, you will not be disappointed. Can't wait for book 2.
Great Read
- By: Amazon Customer on April 19, 2015
- Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
- This was an exhilarating read. The author brings a new and terrifying twist to the zombie horror genre. I read this book in one nail biting sitting. The unimaginable horrors of this story will keep me up for many nights and will have me looking at my beloved pets with a wary eye. Great read.
