March Giveaway Madness #6: Mercy by Jay R.

Mercy by Jay R.:

After a war shatters civilization, society collapses into hunter-gatherers who fight the elements, mutated beasts, and one another in a desperate struggle for survival. Can Alex, a tiger, learn to have the mercy to save and protect Jen, a young wolfess whose technical knowledge is their only means of escape?

***Leave your NAME & E-MAIL in a comment below for a chance to win 1 of 4 e-copies (PDF or HTML) and 1 Signed Print. Drawing to be held 3/15/12***

Excerpt:

No books remained; they’d all been used up within the first year after the war for fires. And with the death of books came the death of the family—no longer able to provide for their cubs, most parents simply turned them away before themselves disbanding into the barbarian free-for-all that was existence.

Others simply gave up completely and made meals out of their children.

The tiger had personally been witness to this on several occasions, though he couldn’t—or, more accurately, he wouldn’t—remember it.

Censoring one's own thoughts was the only means by which to live. More than once, the tiger had veered dangerously close to suicide, simply by asking himself why he ought to live. Wouldn’t it be easier, after all, to just hurry fate along and end it all?

The only way to avoid such dangerous thinking was to keep one’s mind strictly on the material world. All that mattered now was finding that next cache of food and weapons and eliminating the next threat that appeared.

Non-physical health was as pertinent to survival as mercy: it was entirely irrelevant. All the survivors had to apply a cruel scalpel to their own psyches, slicing away anything that was a potential liability. What was left... wasn’t much. They were all simply shells of beings, as cold and dead as the world around them.

The tiger wasn’t entirely sure why he continued to walk. It was cold and wet and he was tired. Any of the houses in his immediate vicinity were, doubtlessly, just as good as those ahead of him—

He froze instantly and kneeled, raising his weapon. He peered through its scope, as rain dripped off its barrel, continuing to puddle at his feet... but there was nothing. A quick glance behind him, just in case—nothing, as well.

Reasonably satisfied that he wasn’t being trapped, he stood, slowly, tilting his head. His nose was twitching…

“That’s... beans... and rice. Smoke... a fire. There’s someone else here.”

Another person. Another person doubtlessly with a gun of their own, and, quite probably, more energy and wit about them than him. Avoiding them and simply finding shelter to wait out the storm, that could be wise...

But a sudden, loud clash of thunder rejected that plan for the tiger. No lightning had preceded it; that wasn’t unusual. Perhaps, then, it wasn’t even thunder, that roaring boom that echoed across the city from the sky, but it didn’t matter. These days, it simply didn’t pay to ask pointless questions.

It was really starting to rain, and though he’d lost any real concept of what wet and cold were long ago, even he realized that if he stayed out for long his body would simply cease to function. He needed to move faster.

So, engaging in an act that could have been called praying, though the tiger was no longer aware of any religion or any God that might exist, he started to run. Water sprayed from where his boots touched the ground and his eyes fixed on where his nose told him that sweet, delicious scent was coming from.

He was going to eat. And to do that, he was going to kill.

***Leave your NAME & E-MAIL in a comment below for a chance to win 1 of 4 e-copies (PDF or HTML) and 1 Signed Print. Drawing to be held 3/15/12***

Buy Link: 

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/jayr/mercy.html

Contact the Author:

http://jayrcreative.com/