LEGENDARIUM Read online

  LEGENDARIUM

  By

  Michael Bunker

  And

  Kevin G. Summers

  LEGENDARIUM

  Fiction Disclaimer:

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © Copyright 2014 by Kevin G. Summers and Michael Bunker

  All rights reserved

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without the written permission of the author.

  Cover Design: Jason Gurley

  http://www.jasongurley.com

  For information on Michael Bunker or to read his blog, visit: http://www.michaelbunker.com

  For more information on Kevin G. Summers or to read his blog, visit: http://kevingsummers.com/blog/

  To contact Michael Bunker or Kevin G. Summers, please write to:

  M. Bunker

  1251 CR 132

  Santa Anna, Texas 76878

  LEGENDARIUM:

  A Bombo Dawson/Alistair Foley Adventure

  By Michael Bunker & Kevin G. Summers

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Hugh Howey Must Live

  Chapter One: The Drawing of the Two

  Chapter Two: Through the Looking Glass and into the Fire

  Chapter Three: Beyond the Stars

  Chapter Four: The Face of the Deep

  Chapter Five: The Pugilist

  Chapter Six: Or, The Whale

  Chapter Seven: The End

  Author’s Note - Kevin G. Summers

  Author’s Note - Michael Bunker

  Connect with the Authors

  Prologue

  Hugh Howey Must Live

  Hugh Howey was hungry. The New York Times bestselling author used a bony finger to scan the books on his luncheon tray, but he had trouble deciding exactly what he wanted to eat. Nabokov again? Nah, how many times a week can you eat Nabokov? There was some O’Henry here and a book of Chekhov plays… those looked good. Ahh, here was Henry James’s Travel Writings. He picked up the volume and sniffed it. Delicious. A literary/culinary delight that would satisfy him perfectly until the evening meal. As he opened the book, ripped out a page, and shoved it into his mouth, he was just thinking that for supper he’d have some Neil Gaiman, or perhaps he’d dip into that A.G. Riddle book that was storming the charts.

  Hugh hadn’t seen his friend Bombo Dawson since they’d parted at the airport in London back in January. That was after the two authors had saved England—and probably the whole world—from an infestation of zombies that ate only good writers. He thought back on that crazy time with a bittersweet mixture of sadness and nostalgia. The two men had raced—well, walked briskly; it was still more than enough to leave Bombo gasping for breath—through London’s darkened streets during the height of the zombie infestation, being chased by thousands of writers-turned-zombies.

  Luring the zombies to the Tower of London had been simple enough. The zombies were all former writers—good, talented writers—who’d been infected with a virus that caused them to want to attack and consume other good authors. These undead scribes were the product of a British military experiment gone horribly awry. So Bombo and Hugh had been used as bait, to lure the biters to their re-death.

  The ploy was as implausible as it was farfetched, and had been designed by some mid-level pencil-pushing wonk who hadn’t slept in two days, but ultimately it was successful… at least, mostly so. Unhappily, in the midst of the mission, New York Times bestselling author and all-around great guy Hugh Howey had been scratched on his leg by the zombie formerly known as Sue Grafton.

  Now, he was mostly zombie-ish. Mostly.

  He wasn’t all the way dead. At least, not yet. His transformation from unassuming author to unassuming undead zombie was moving along painfully slowly. He’d only just begun to stink. And Bella, his dog, had started to chew on his fingers and toes a bit now and then.

  He’d received such a low dosage of the virus from the undead Sue Grafton that his body had, so far, been able to fight it off. So, in a way, it was like he had a long-term zombiesque cold. His condition was slowly getting worse, but he was still in the fight.

  His wife, along with the lawyers at Simon and Schuster, had decided to chain him to his desk inside his Florida home so he could keep writing—and to keep him away from any well-meaning persons who might choose to smash his brains in with a pitching wedge. And so he wrote; and frankly, his fans couldn’t have been happier. His already prolific output had multiplied, which satisfied everyone involved. Sure, he didn’t do many unboxing videos anymore. Not since that time when he’d unboxed his GRIT Omnibus, and the overwhelmingly delicious smell wafting from the box had caused him to rip into the books hungrily with his teeth, without any thought that he was recording the video to put up on his blog. Nobody wanted to see that.

  The bestselling author of The COTTON Omnibus also agreed—as a gesture to the memory of Sue Grafton and as a gift to her legions of adoring fans—to ghost-write the next novel in her famous alphabet series. It just so happened that Ms. Grafton had become a zombie before finishing her “W” novel, so Hugh had just put the finishing touches on the next, absolutely and undeniably awesome Sue Grafton title…

  “W” is for WOOL

  He thought it was catchy. Probably no one else would. What kind of name was that for a book? Sounded like a scouring pad, or a sweater of some sort. Would followers and fans of the book be called “Woolites”? Oh well, in literature, he thought, there was no accounting for taste.

  Hugh’s “office” was a room in his cozy Florida home near the beach. Though he was chained to the desk, there was a bathroom attached to the office, and when the need happened to arise—even zombies had to go sometimes, and boy, those John Grisham and Stephanie Meyer novels went straight through him—he could use the bathroom. His chain was just—long—enough.

  The bathroom was mostly unspectacular, but it did have ceramic tile and a claw foot bathtub in case he had a particularly sweaty day of writing. Now, as he tore out another delicious page from Henry James’s Travel Writings, the door to that bathroom swung open, seemingly of its own accord.

  Hugh felt the hunger pains grow worse as a hooded figure emerged from the bathroom. Well, maybe not from the bathroom so much as from a glowing, ethereal light that glowed forth from the bathroom.

  The figure was dressed in white robes and wore atop them a long, white cloak. The figure’s face was cast in shadow, but from the rumbling in his gut, Hugh Howey was certain that this was an author of great renown. In fact, he knew that whoever this figure was… he or she would be delicious.

  The head tilted slightly and Hugh knew that the figure was sizing him up too. “Are you the international bestselling author Hugh Howey?” said the figure in white. It was a man; there was no sense in pretending otherwise. That’s not to say that a woman would be inferior in any way, just that this otherworldly, perhaps magical being, just happened to be a man. okay?

  Hugh Howey nodded slowly, his blue eyes fixed on the figure standing before him. The man, who was unusually tall, drew back his hood to reveal a face framed by a mop of blackish-brown curly hair. Kurt Vonnegut.

  Hugh dropped the book he’d been eating—a tiny piece of one of the pages still bulged from his mouth—and pointed at the specter. “Kurt Vonnegut?” he mumbled. Howey’s voice shook a little, and he didn’t know whether he should kneel down or genuflect or… you know… offer to give Vonnegut a high-five or something else appropriate like that. He’d seen a lot in his lifetime, but having
a dead author—one of his favorites, mind you—step out of his crapper in a glow of heavenly light was unusual to say the least. He could tell right away that Vonnegut was no zombie, but he was still quite dead.

  So it goes.

  Howey choked down the rest of the page he had in his mouth, and Vonnegut smiled. He looked younger than he had when he’d died back in 2007. As a matter of fact, he looked just like he had in his author photo on the back of Slaughterhouse-Five. “This is probably a big surprise to you,” Vonnegut said. “God knows, it was a surprise to me when Mark Twain showed up at my house on Cape Cod back in 1971.”

  “Excuse me?” Howey said.

  “Never mind,” said Vonnegut. “Close your mouth, son. Being mostly dead, you’ll start to attract flies sooner or later, and zombie or no, flies aren’t a good part of any diet. Now listen up. I’m here as a representative of the Legendarium. Ever heard of it?”

  Hugh closed his mouth and shook his head no.

  “Didn’t think so,” Vonnegut said. “The Legendarium is a library, but not like the one down the street from your house.” Vonnegut gazed around the room and then nodded at Hugh. “Say, Hugh, this is a nice house.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anyway, the Legendarium… it’s a metaphysical library. It exists at the nexus of the multiverse, at the point where all stories intersect.”

  Hugh nodded his head and then shrugged. “Of course it does.”

  “Are you being obtuse, Hugh?” Vonnegut asked.

  “No, sir,” Hugh said. “I’m just sitting here thinking that… of course there’s a bad-ass super library out there, now that I’m becoming a zombie and can’t really visit it.” He pulled his chain and rattled it for Vonnegut.

  “You’ll get to see it someday. I’m sure of it,” Vonnegut said.

  Hugh shrugged again. “Probably not. Certainly not as long as I’m in this condition.”

  “I can dig it,” Vonnegut said. “But all of that is neither here nor there right now.” Vonnegut stuck his hands into the deep pockets of his white cloak. “As I was saying: there exists this… super library, as you called it. It exists out there, and every story ever written comes together at that one, critical point, at the nexus of the multiverse. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Not a bit,” said Hugh Howey.

  “They should’ve sent C.S. Lewis,” Vonnegut grumbled. “He could have explained this better than me. But I wanted to meet you.”

  “Me?” asked the exceedingly humble bestselling author.

  “I read your fanfic,” Vonnegut said.

  “Oh,” said Hugh Howey. He flushed, if such a thing was possible for a zombie. “I… um… Kindle Worlds asked me to write that and…”

  “I loved it,” Vonnegut said.

  “You did?”

  “At first I was skeptical about other people using my characters,” Vonnegut said. “You know about the whole thing with Venus On The Half-Shell, right?”

  Hugh Howey nodded.

  “But then I read a few of the fanfic stories, and… wow. Your story had me in tears, Hugh.” The two authors just stared at one another for a few seconds before Vonnegut took a deep breath and continued. “Anyway, the Legendarium is in trouble, and I’ve been sent to recruit some authors to defend it.”

  Hugh looked at the chains binding him to his desk. He thought about the zombie virus that was slowly eating away at him from the inside. He knew he was in no condition to save this Legendarium. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t think I can help you.”

  Vonnegut scowled.

  “Besides,” Hugh said, “turning me loose in a library right now would be like taking George R.R. Martin to an all-you-can-eat buffet. No one wants to see that.”

  Vonnegut took a closer look at Hugh Howey, and as he drew nearer, Hugh had to resist the urge to lunge at the great writer. The desire to get a taste of the man who’d written Slaughterhouse-Five was overwhelming. He’d really be the Breakfast of Champions, Hugh thought to himself. He laughed at his own joke and realized that he was glad that he was chained. He’d never forgive himself if he ate Kurt Vonnegut. He didn’t stop to wonder whether one could actually eat a ghost at all.

  “You look like something the cat dragged in,” Vonnegut said. “What happened to you?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Vonnegut frowned. “Maybe another time. For now, I need a few heroes to save the world. If you can’t help us, can you suggest anyone that can? It has to be a writer, and it has to be someone really good. Someone with heft… you know? A serious author with an overwhelming hunger. Someone with literary gravitas.”

  Hugh Howey smiled as he thought of his new friend, Bombo Dawson. He said, “I think I know just the person.”

  Chapter One

  The Drawing of the Two

  Breakfast on the terrace is a great idea—provided that three, and only three, requisite circumstances are met. First, the weather should be pleasant. That one is a given, and doesn’t merit much comment. Second, pests of all kinds—this includes bugs, children, and dogs—should not be present at such an important time. Third (and this was the big one), rules… well… they should be kept to a minimum.

  It’s just plain un-American, that’s what it is, Bombo thought. Choices shouldn’t be this hard, and what kind of person buys a dozen assorted donuts and then tells you that you can only pick one? What kind of thing is that?

  Carol, Bombo Dawson’s new wife, had her largish man on a tight leash, gastronomically speaking. She’d completely failed in her attempts to get him to trim his voluminous beard or to shower more often, but she’d insisted that he go on a diet. She was concerned about his weight. He wasn’t concerned at all about it, but she was. Apparently his performance in the harrowing three-mile chase—from the offices of The Colonel Magazine to the Tower of London, while being chased by writer-eating zombies (who had impressive stamina, he’d thought at the time)—caused Carol to be of the opinion that perhaps Bombo wasn’t in the best shape of his life. But who is? he thought. I was in the best shape of my life when I was twenty, and since then it’s gone downhill. But it’s sure been an enjoyable downhill ride. The thought of now eating only one donut sickened him. Communism, that’s what it is. I’ve married a communist.

  As if she were reading his thoughts, just then Carol pushed open the sliding glass door and joined her new husband on the terrace. She nonchalantly sprayed him with a can of Febreze, an act that had become something of a ceremony between them. In fact, he’d come to expect it, and he’d even grown to appreciate the linen and sky aroma. Like Pavlov’s dog, whenever he smelled that particular scent, he knew that Carol was around, and that things were mostly right with the world.

  She pointed a finger at Bombo. “Are you going to just stare at them, or are you going to pick one?”

  “You’re a commie, aren’t you, comrade?” he asked.

  Carol’s jaw dropped. She was used to her husband’s eccentricities already, but that didn’t stop her from being shocked at the things that came out of his mouth. “What? Bombo? Me, a commie? What are you talking about?”

  Bombo narrowed his eyes at Carol and pointed a finger back at her. “Right now, without thinking about it, Carol—just spit out an answer. In which city would you rather live: Volgograd? Or Stalingrad?”

  “What? I don’t even know what you’re asking me, Bombo.”

  “Ha! Trick question!” the chubby author said. “They’re both names for the same city, Carol, and you wanted to say Stalingrad, I could see it in your little pinko eyes. But you knew that if you said Stalingrad, you’d be exposing your communist underbelly!”

  Just then, the phone started to ring in the house. Carol’s head turned at the sound, and Bombo took advantage of the diversion to grab two donuts: a crème-filled and a chocolate-covered with sprinkles. He’d already swallowed half of the crème-filled donut and was walking by Carol through the still-opened door when Carol began her protest. “Bombo!”

  “Don’
t deny it!” Bombo said, his mouth filled with donut and vanilla crème as he shuffled, surprisingly dexterously, past Carol, “I should have known better than to get a wife in Great Britain. That place is crawling with commies…”

  Ding.

  “Stop calling me a commie, Bombo!” Carol started to argue but Bombo interrupted her with a chocolate-covered finger stuck in front of her face. “Hold that thought, comrade. My phone just dinged.”

  Bombo reached into the pocket of his red flannel shirt and produced a device the size of a pocket calculator which contained a computer more sophisticated than the machines used to put a man on the moon. That’s assuming, of course, that you believe a man actually walked on the moon. Bombo still wasn’t completely sold on that particular notion. He slid a chocolaty finger across the face of his phone and began to read. His body tensed noticeably and Carol took an involuntary step back.

  “What is it?” Carol asked, her bellicose tone from moments before evaporating like superheated water.

  “Someone just gave a one-star review to Anne Askew In The Tower,” Bombo said. He blinked back tears as the words of the review twisted in his heart.

  “Let me see that,” Carol said. She took the phone and read the review. As she was wholly occupied reading, Bombo smiled to himself and moved stealthily to the box of donuts. He took a Boston crème and bit into it without thinking, allowing the combination of chocolate and pastry and vanilla pudding to soothe his troubled spirit.

  “Whoever wrote this is a complete wanker,” Carol said. “He’s probably—hey, are you eating another donut?”

  Bombo shoved the rest of the Boston crème into his mouth, spilling a bit of pudding into his beard as he did so. “No,” he said with his mouth full.