Meet My Villains from Paranormal Privateers. Villains are some of my favorite characters. Meet two of the best in here. Plus, my book’s on sale. My book is .99 from August 6th until August 13th. Get your copy by clicking here.
Paranormal Privateers is my longest and most complex novel. The first villain you meet is Omar Ogala, a Somali warlord in charge of coastal piracy, but he has ambitions to take over the whole country.
If you don’t know my Paranormal Privateers heroes, I tell you all about them here: For each heroic zombie, I’ll give you a description from my book, My Undead Mother-in-law.
Now, let’s meet Omar Ogala.
Meet My Villains from Paranormal Privateers – Omar
Omar Ogala entered. A tall, burly man, he carried a grenade launcher. “I had your backs, men, in case they jumped you.” His round face and bald head showed a grim smile. “I’m proud of you for bringing them in. Zombies are no joke. Cabdi, come here.”
Cabdi, the supreme leader’s chief bodyguard, stepped up carrying a rocket launcher. It didn’t carry the normal antitank shell, but a bulkier one Dirac didn’t recognize.
“Ali, you open the feeding door, and then Cabdi will fire in.”
“Supreme Leader, are you going to kill them?” Dirac asked. That wasn’t their usual procedure for hostages. They kept them alive to prevent an undue military response and to maximize the ransom.
“You’re Dirac, aren’t you? No, the rocket shell won’t kill them, probably. It’s a fléchette shell with salt water, to dezombify them. Don’t worry about killing them. Worry about them staying alive and zombie.”
Ali opened the small steel door on the bottom of one side of the shipping container, used for feeding prisoners. As soon as he unlatched it, he slid it up enough for the shell to enter, and Cabdi fired.
Even outside the container, the exploding shell made Dirac’s ears ring.
“Check and see if you got them. If not, fire another shell.”
Meet My Villains from Paranormal Privateers – Omar – Part 2
Cabdi rotated a steel disk above the feeding door and peered into the smoky darkness. He shone a flashlight in, then closed it.
“The women are gathered around the man who caught it,” he reported to Ogala.
“Fire another shell. We can’t leave any in a zombie state.”
Ali opened the door again, and again the concussion battered his ears. What was it like inside there? How could they still be alive?
“Check again.”
Peering in, Cabdi reported, “They’re all down, and they’re all bloody.”
“Good. That’ll hold them. Now let’s go to my conference room and call for ransom. You’ve got the phones, Ali?”
“Right here, Supreme Leader.”
Meet My Villains from Paranormal Privateers – Synthia
I examined my cell methodically. A drainpipe, two inches in diameter. A toilet. A hard bed. A steel door with hinges on the outside. I’d probably need to escape from somewhere other than this cell. Once they established a routine with my interrogation, I’d look for escape routes.
I chuckled to myself. Synthia Smith was my true name, in the sense it matched my birth certificate and other current identification. Before Synthia Smith, I was Rachel Rathbone, and before that Quinella Quincy, and so on, through the alphabet. My earliest memory was a toddler named Betty Botter. I had to be cute and pickpockets. Who knew what my original name was? Changing identities was standard procedure for me with each new assignment.
This had been my most challenging operation, and I’d almost pulled it off. Those damn zombies! Had I blown up Harrods, the demands for billions in exchange for each national landmark’s safety would have been credible.
They had no idea of the bigger picture—and they wouldn’t get it. My terrorist cover story was completely true, but neither the terrorists nor Scotland Yard knew they were merely a means to an end. It was the truth: total subjugation of the United Kingdom was a reasonable goal for one like me, a child of the world’s greatest criminal.
I knew more about Papa Smith, my ostensible grandfather, than any of my siblings. I think I actually touched his feelings as a loving granddaughter, and I think he shared more with me than with any of his other crime-lord grandchildren. Of course, he might be manipulating me, just as I tried to manipulate him. That was the most reasonable assumption, especially if we were actually related.
Meet My Villains from Paranormal Privateers – Synthia Smith, Part 2
Regardless, I felt fond of him. When I overthrew him and took over his crime empire, I thought I’d keep him alive. I enjoyed our talks via our secured video line. When he’d shared Sid Boffin’s failure with me, I clapped in delight as he praised me for staying in touch with him. I think that was genuine emotion and not an act. It was hard to tell sometimes.
A motion on the floor caught my eye as I sat on the bed. A cockroach crawled up the drain and onto the floor. Surprising. Usually, Britain kept their prisons pest free. Then another. Then a dozen more. And then, hundreds.
This was not normal cockroach behavior. They did not come into the light in hordes. I sat cross-legged on the bed and watched the swarm with fascination. They climbed the door, walked its steel perimeter, and went back down the drain as others came up.
Curious, I nabbed one using my lightning reflexes. Examining it, I saw a metal dot under its thorax and a narrow tube attached to its abdomen. A pungent, acidic smell came from the tube. I looked back to the door. The acid ate a narrow trench in the door’s perimeter, right where the cockroaches still marched. Near the ceiling light, I saw mist curl away from the door.
Meet My Villains – Synthia Smith, Part 3
Modified and controlled cockroaches—like Sid Boffin’s cyborg-controlled animals. I’d read his Ph.D. paper as well as the Midley Beacon‘s declassified reports on his battles with the zombies. Since Sid was dead at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, this could only be one of my siblings or Papa Smith trying to rescue me.
Using my perfect memory of the twists and turns when they’d led me here hooded, counting my steps, and remembering the doors, I was confident I could retrace the route.
The last of the cockroaches marched around the door, leaving its trail of acid. They etched the door perhaps a centimeter deep. Couldn’t be much left.
I knocked on the door. Yes, it felt like a centimeter thick, and it echoed like it was almost cut through. Then someone knocked back, much harder.
“I’m here!” I called. I assumed this was my rescuer.
“Step back,” grated a curious, tinny voice, like it was coming through a small radio.
I stepped away.
CLUMP! CLUMP! Two metallic thunks hit the other side of the door. Then, SKREERK! The door tore off like the lid of a tin of meat.
I didn’t expect what I saw. A male silverback gorilla filled the doorway and the whole hallway beyond. Thick armor covered his body. Casually, he placed the door scrap against the hall.
“Follow me,” he said.
Readers Speak About Paranormal Privateers
Action, humor, refreshing zombies; Yes please!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 1, 2022
This series is the first I have read of Andy Zach’s and I am glad I picked it up! The series continues with lots of action, characters continue to be developed, humor, and the zombies are still not mindless shells ambling around awaiting an axe to the head. Still a refreshing take on zombies as a whole. I look forward to what Andy writes next! Audio Version: Phil Blechman and Raven Perez do a great job with their respective characters and the overall narration.
Nemesis
A virus did that?
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 9, 2020
Whew! Lots of stories within stories with a wink of incredulity as we read along the pages. Tongue-in-cheek adventures, modern day villains’, and zombies; wait, are they still zombies or not?
Yep, we have that zombie virus run amok with various creations to transform them back and forth. How much of a zombie body do you need to regenerate?
Gung-ho leader of the group Diane Newby, husband George, are charging on fighting crime with the discreet eye of the government as their silent partners. Somali pirates, Harrod’s London Store with real bulls in the china shop, parasitic cyborgs, virus-antivirus, bacteria, and other minute details tangle the story line into a braided rug of conspiracies and innovative solutions.
And little do they know, but their arch enemy is among their group.
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