Sometimes a setback opens a new opportunity.
Kindle Vella, a reading platform through Amazon, was a great way to begin writing or to try an episodic series for your fiction or non-fiction. After boosting it for a little over three years, Amazon discontinued the program in February 2025 and allowed all creators to download their content.
For me, that meant taking my zombie novel “Doe” down and figuring out what to do with it.
As with a lot of Kindle Vellas, “Doe” was unfinished, and while I do plan to complete this past-faced thriller with romantic elements, I’d love to hear your takes.
Today, I share an excerpt of “Doe.” Let me know if you like it. If you do, I’ll post exerpts over the summer. Call it your Summer TBR!
Doe: Zombies at the Border
Synopsis: In this ripped-from-the-headlines romantic horror thriller, Doe Santiago, a Chicago EMT with a gift for healing, gets a strange message from her brother, Luis. He has been detained at the Mexican border with his daughter, Jasmine, in the midst of a viral outbreak that is turning victims into flesh-eating creatures. When Doe heads South to locate her brother, she never thought she'd find a conspiracy that would threaten the world.
Prologue
The Center for Disorder Deterrence Notes from the Field, dated August 13, 2021:
Mumps in Detention Facilities that House Detained Migrants — United States, September 2020–August 2021
On October 1, 2021, five confirmed cases of mumps among migrants who had been transferred between two detention facilities were reported by the facilities to the Texas Department of Municipal Wellbeing Services. By December, eight Texas detention facilities and six facilities in five other states had reported 67 mumps cases to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Health Service or local health departments.
Forty-four percent (394) of cases were reported from facilities that house ICE detainees in Texas.
Chapter 1: A new partner
Doe Santiago looked over at her new partner, Hiram, ran her hand through her short curly hair, and sighed.
“Rookie,” she thought and clicked her tongue against her teeth.
She wasn’t looking forward to training the newbie. “Probably young and dumb,” she said to herself.
“Where do I stash my gear?”
Hiram’s question interrupted her thoughts.
She didn’t speak, just pointed up. Her gaze met his confused expression and she sighed loudly.
“Bunks are upstairs.”
He smiled and found the stairway towards the center of the fire station. She sized him up as he passed: pale skin, buzzed hair, tall, muscular but more athletic than bodybuilder.
“Wiry,” she thought.
She rolled her big, brown eyes. Why did she get stuck with him? She was perfectly fine making runs on her own.
Doe chuckled under her breath, knowing that would never last. Her partner and best friend, Karen, left weeks ago after finishing RN training to become a full-time dialysis nurse. Doe hated losing her, but this was her calling; Karen loved the patients more than the day-to-day ups and downs of EMT life.
“Besides, it’s not like we’ll never see each other again,” she thought. In fact, they had planned a night out at the end of Doe’s rotation this week.
Hiram walked back into the room and looked at her. He was awfully young, she thought. At 18, he was nine years younger than she was. In EMT years, that was a long time. In Marine years, a lifetime.
“So, what are you?”
No! No, No, No.
He did NOT just ask the question she had heard dozens of times, did he? Like most people, he didn’t mean any harm, but how rude. Sure, she knew she looked a little different: her coffee-with-cream complexion, curly hair, and high cheekbones screamed Latina with a little something extra mixed in.
“I’m a Christian,” she smiled, sweetly, adding, “What do you mean, what am I?”
Hiram flushed. “I didn’t mean anything.”
“Yeah, right.” This boy was not making a good impression.
The firehouse in Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side was abuzz with people today. The officers were all in the training room in some kind of secret meeting, and the rest of the crew was working out, taking naps, or cleaning the fire trucks in the apparatus bay. As an EMT, she got a reprieve.
She strolled into the TV room off the dining hall and smiled.
“Lucky me! Got the room all to myself,” she thought and collapsed into a chair.
Genetics from a Latino father and an African American mother kept her proportioned. Her hourglass figure was a desirable thing to have for many women. Doe didn’t crave attention, however. It could be a vulnerability for a woman who worked in a man’s world.
She wrapped her long legs over the side of the chair and relaxed, pulling out her tablet. The day was fairly quiet, but she knew that, too, wouldn’t last. They were bound to get a call, but while she had the time, she logged on and read the latest post from the Centers for Disorder Deterrence Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
If anyone asked what she was reading, she lied and said the latest copy of Vogue Magazine. She didn’t want to be labeled a nerd or wonk. Her fellow EMTs begrudgingly studied procedures and policies in spare moments, but most didn’t bother to read such arcane stuff from the CDD.
Doe was different. She was curious about viral diseases after her tour in Iraq ended. Her unit flushed out some aggressors in Makhmour only to find a flesh-eating disease on the rampage in the village.
It was nasty but fascinating. She was hooked. When she came back to Chicago, she started checking out the MMWR. Studying this fantastic parasite, she almost wished she had agreed to her father’s wishes and gone to medical school after she finished up her degree in biology at Northwestern University. But service called, and she had followed her father’s path into the Marines.
“Clang, clang, clang, clang!”
The call operator announced it was a highway wreck, and not one in need of a ladder.
She and Hiram were up.
Doe stashed her tablet and jumped into action, but Hiram was still upstairs.
“Get your gear and boots on and get down here now!”
She barked. Hiram slid down the pole, smiling. He was excited. It was his first official run.
“Wipe that goofy smile off your face!” she said, “and let’s go!”
Will Doe and Hiram connect as partners? What’s happening with that parasitic disease? Come back next week for Chapter 2.
Your writer friend,
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