Excerpt + Giveaway: The Burnouts by Lex Thomas

I am really excited to share an excerpt from the first chapter of THE BURNOUTS, the third book in the Quarantine series.  First, here’s a little bit about the book:

Excerpt + Giveaway: The Burnouts by Lex ThomasThe Burnouts Series: Quarantine #3
Published by Egmont on July 22, 2014
Genres: Young Adult
Goodreads

When an explosion rocks David and Will's suburban high school one morning, a deadly virus is unleashed on the school. After a year of quarantine, with no adults around, the students have created their own society. All of the social cliques have developed into gangs-The Nerds, The Geeks, The Freaks, The Sluts, The Skaters, The Burnouts, The Pretty Ones, and The Varsity-and each gang provides a service with which they can barter for provisions. Without a gang, it's almost impossible to secure food, water, territory, or supplies. In the final installment in the Quarantine trilogy, the brothers are reunited on the Outside and it appears as if, for once everything is going right. But inside the school, Lucy is alone with no gang and no hope, until the Burnouts welcome her into their filthy arms.

 

 

“I thought you were dead,” Will said.

“I’m sorry,” David said. “I can’t imagine what that was like for you.”

David wore a gas mask. His breath was loud through its filters. He breathed slow and steady, like an iron lung. The mask wasn’t like the ones that Will had seen the military wear. Twin black cylindrical air filters hung off the chin, and a clear plastic face shield allowed Will to see all of David’s face from his lower lip up. His eye was smiling. There had been so many things Will had regretted not saying to David when he’d found out he was dead, and now he was at a loss for words.

Will looked around the overdecorated Airstream trailer. It hadn’t been the worst place to count down the hours until he was virus-free. The place had a bed, a kitchenette, an eating nook with seating for two, and a couch. Orange light from amber bulbs in thrift-store lamps warmed the room. Floral design contact paper covered the countertop. Plaid curtains over tiny windows looked out to black night. The trailer had definitely been decorated by one of the mothers, by a chorus of mothers, maybe. There were comforting touches everywhere. Ruffles hanging off things, embroidered pillows, fanciful books aimed at middle schoolers. Newsprint hangman and Mad Libs activity booklets like you see in truck stops. There were teddy bears. Four bears to be exact—a black one, a polar bear, a koala, and a hot-pink one that was half the size of the others. He’d found them arranged in a line at the head of the bed. The fridge was plastered with Disney cartoon refrigerator magnets. There were decorative wooden signs hanging, with words like Love and cheerful phrases like Tomorrow is a new day.

“Who told you I was dead?” David said.

“One of the kids from the outside, the Saints, he said he saw a body with a white eye patch in a house that sounded like ours. I didn’t know what else to think.”

David sagged and shook his head. “I never imagined that you’d hear about that.”

“Hear about what?” Will said. “I don’t understand.”

David started to say something and then stopped. His good eye wandered toward the kitchenette window. Will’s stomach started to knot.

“Ugh, so dramatic.” Will said. “You’re killing me over here.”

David laughed. Will had forgotten what that sounded like. It was a good sound.

“When I got out, it wasn’t what I’d expected. There was no one in town. Not even the military. I limped through downtown, and every store was empty, every house deserted. I felt like I’d never see another human being, but then I did.”

David swatted away a fly that had landed on his face shield.

“Two guys in haz-mat suits in a red pickup truck. They saw my white hair and must have assumed I was still infected, ’cause they fired on me. I ran, but they started hunting me

through town. I barely got away from them, and when I did, I headed straight home.”

“To our house?” Will said with wonder. He’d spent countless nights in McKinley thinking of their family home. Sometimes, imagining he was there, in his room, had been the only way

he could get to sleep. “Is it the same?”

David winced. “Dad was out of town when the infection hit, so our house didn’t get boarded up like the others. The windows were all shattered. The front door was hanging off its hinges. I went in and the living room looked like a drained pond. Junk on the floor, black mold all over the carpet. Animals had shit on the coffee table. The old couch was torn to pieces.”

Each detail stung Will anew. He and David and their parents had played Pictionary and eaten pizza on that couch more times than he could remember.

“I found that old family photo on the mantel. Remember the one that Mom made us all wear Charlie Brown sweaters in?”

Will had always hated that photo. He looked like an idiot in it, but it had always made his mother laugh. Hearing about it now, he longed to see it again. He was starting to forget whather face looked like.

“Do you still have it?” Will asked.

“I wish. I was sitting in the easy chair by the big bay window—”

“The comfy chair?”

David smiled. “Yeah, the comfy chair. I was sitting there, staring at the picture, when this kid comes stomping down the stairs. White hair—infected.”

“He was living in our house?!” Will said, outraged.

“Oh, yeah, he’d set up shop, all right. He was wearing four sets of my clothes and waving around Mom’s butcher knife.”

“And you didn’t have a mask or anything?”

David shook his head, dead serious. “I held my breath.”

“Jesus.”

“He started shouting, ‘Yo, this is MY spot! Who the hell are you?’ Then he stopped right in front of the bay window. He looks at me sideways, lowers the knife to his side, and goes, ‘I know you. . . . You’re in all the pictures.’ Then the window exploded. Out of nowhere. Machine guns blasting, and the kid got drilled with bullets. Dropped dead.”

“Holy shit.”

“I peeked out the window, fucking terrified, and I see the red pickup truck and those two hunters again, heading for the front door. My lungs were burning, I thought for sure I was going to die if didn’t run for it, but I also knew that they’d tracked me to our house. If they saw that they’d killed someone else, they’d keep on hunting me. That’s when I got the idea. The dead kid was about my size . . . so I grabbed a shard of glass and shoved it in his eye, then slipped my eye patch over it. I felt like my lungs were gonna pop. I jumped out the window and booked it out of there.”

David sat back as the story settled over Will.

“Whoa.” It was all Will could manage to say.

“I was just trying to throw the hunters off my trail. I never wanted you to hear about it. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” Will said. “I think I’ll get over it.”

He was downplaying it for a laugh, but the truth was, having his brother back felt like a miracle.

“I missed you,” Will blurted out, and then felt awkward.

“Missed you too, shithead.”

Will laughed. But then there was that uncomfortable silence again. The walkie-talkie on David’s hip squelched and he turned it down.

“How long have you been working with the parents?” Will said.

“A while.”

Will almost didn’t ask, but he needed to know. “Were you with them when they trapped us back inside?”

David shook his head. “But . . . I can understand why they did it.”

Will couldn’t hide his shock. “Really? How can you possibly say that?”

“Nothing’s like it used to be, Will,” David said. “The whole country’s . . . sick. They’re not afraid to murder infected teens—laws or no laws. These parents here, all they want to do is protect their sons and daughters from the maniacs out there.”

“What about the maniacs inside school?”

“Like the ones that pull kids’ heads off in front of their dads?”  Will sank in his seat. He felt his cheeks warm.

“I told you it was an accident,” Will said. “I never would have done that on purpose, believe me. But the guy gave me no other choice! He said I couldn’t leave without Sam. Sam was already dead, so I did what I had to do.”

David’s face didn’t offer the forgiveness he’d hoped for. “I’m not gonna lie . . . it’s a problem. Sam’s dad pretty much runs the farm. And he doesn’t like you, to say the least.”

“Do they make ‘sorry I pulled off your son’s head’ greeting cards?”  David stared at Will blankly. Will felt a pinch of dread.

Maybe the joke was in bad taste, but come on, this was Sam they were talking about. David burst out laughing. It made Will trust him again, really for the first time since he’d discovered he was alive. Will smiled. If David was still the guy who hated Sam, then he was still his brother.

“Don’t worry,” David said. “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”

Tomorrow you can visit Live To Read for a review and giveaway!

lex Lex Thomas is the pen name for the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies. Their first novel, QUARANTINE: THE LONERS, earned a starred review from Booklist, and Huffington Post Books praised it, saying, “You will not be able to put this book down.”
Lex received a BA in Drama and English from the University of Virginia and has worked as an actor, director and writer. Thomas graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and now writes, and exhibits his realist oil paintings in Los Angeles.  Lex and Thomas met in a writers’ group in Los Angeles. Their friendship developed as they tried to blow each other’s minds with clips from bizarre movies. In 2005, they became a screenwriting team, and found that writing with a friend is much more fun than doing it alone.

Find Lex Thomas onlineWebsite*Twitter*Facebook

 

Egmont is generously allowing me to give away a SIGNED,  finished copy of THE BURNOUTS to one lucky winner!  You must be 13+ to enter and it’s open to residents in the US or Canada.  Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Kate

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5 responses to “Excerpt + Giveaway: The Burnouts by Lex Thomas

  1. Tammy

    I own the first book on my Kindle but haven’t started it yet. I better get busy if book three is coming out.

  2. Hillary R.

    I can’t wait to read book 2 so I can get to this one right away! I really liked book 1 and hope the last two are just as good or even better ^_^

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