Outbreak One: Washington Territory

The Dying of the Light

by Jason Kristopher

In the winter of 1872, Captain William Trace and his men were ordered to investigate a series of unexplained attacks on local citizens in the remote villages of the wild and untamed Washington Territory. What Captain Trace found was pure nightmare fuel, and what had started as a simple reconnaissance mission had become something far, far more.

For Captain Trace, the winter of 1872 was about survival, not just of the body, but of the mind. For who could look at monsters such as these and not come away... changed?


This 4,800-word short story is a supplemental short story, a 'deleted scene.' Read more about AEGIS, the walkers, and the zombie apocalypse in Jason Kristopher's "The Dying of the End" and it's sequel, "The Dying of the Interval."

Genres: Zombies

35 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 3, 2011

About the author

Jason Kristopher is the award-winning author terrifying readers with zombies in The Dying of the Light , thrilling them with 1940s noir in Loco Moco , and harrowing them with boy-meets-gryphon-meets-robot adventure in When Iron Wakes . With the love of his life and the dog that rescued him by his side, he plots his next traumatizing stories from Florida beaches.

Read more about Jason on his website and get exclusive early access to snippets, behind-the-scenes cool stuff on Patreon.

Reviews

[Brandon Heyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

As stated by a previous reviewer, Kristopher's zombie world is an amazing take on things and I cannot wait for the next books to be published. Also similar to the feelings of the previous reader, this short story fell short. Had it been packaged with "Dying of the Light" and "Whatever Happened..." I would probably think much more highly of it. There is nothing wrong with it in the literary sense, it is just that it feels incomplete when taken apart from the rest.

Truthfully, it doesn't fill any holes, and the (very short) plot seems as either an exploration into the full plot of Dying of the Light or a reflection of it. Group this with other various shorts and you'd have a winner, by itself, a bit of a snooze.

[Ben Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

First things first. I would not recommend reading this if you haven't read the first novel of Jason's The Dying of the Light series. What this does, is take events that were described in the book and expand on them, giving them a greater sense of context within the metaplot that he is building. That said, I don't feel this was as strong as his other short story tied into the world, or the novel itself. It felt a little abrupt and rushed at the end. I think if he would have taken his time and written a little bit more, he would have had a homerun with this one.

[The TBR Pile *Book review site* · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://thetbrpile.weebly.com/1/post/2...

It would be great to read more fiction set in this particular timeline of the infestation but whether this is something the author has planned remains to be seen. What is known is that this is just the first of a series of related stories that the author intends to release at a later date in a separate volume. And if the rest of the stories are as good as this, then fans will have nothing to worry about!