Rachel Aukes - Deadland's Harvest

While there are plenty of “Purgatorio” Easter eggs in this novel, I also intentionally broke from Dante Alighieri’s storyline to stay true to the Deadland Saga. For example, this story does not start on Easter but instead starts exactly six months after Easter. For ease, I labeled the name of the first section “Purgatory” rather than the various levels of ante-purgatory.

I kept true to the themes and symbols in “Purgatorio” as much as possible. Here are just a few images you’ll find similar between the two stories:

In Purgatory, Clutch, Wes, and Cash hide from a herd of zeds (representing the penitent) traveling slowly, “like a flock of sheep.” Later in Purgatory, Cash needs two keys to unlock their path to continue. In this case, one key opens the hangar, and the other starts the airplane.

In Pride, Cash, like Dante, is guilty of the first deadly sin, which others have suffered for.

In Wrath, black smoke erupts on the Aurora when the Lady Amore shoots flares at the barge.

In Greed, the earth trembles as the herds arrive.

In Gluttony, the starving zeds (again representing the penitent) surround the Aurora , which represents the fruit tree forever out of reach and surrounded by a river.

In Lust, the Fox survivors are so desperately eager to be free from zeds, they set a fire that burns out of control and leads to their punishment. The survivors, representing the penitent, walk through flames as they struggle to escape the fire, the punishment for lack of self-restraint.

For the full list of Easter eggs, visit my website at www.rachelaukes.com.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Stay tuned for Deadland Rising, where Cash, Clutch, and Jase journey through “Paradiso,” the final poem of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

About the Author

Rachel Aukes is the bestselling author of 100 Days in Deadland, which was named one of the best books of 2013 by Suspense Magazin e and one of the best zombie books by the Huffington Post . She also writes romance under the pen name Berinn Rae, including Stealing Fate, a USA Toda y recommended read. Rachel lives in Iowa with her husband and an incredibly spoiled sixty-pound lap dog. When not writing, she can be found flying old airplanes and trying (not so successfully) to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.

To be notified when Deadland Rising and other books come out, sign up for Rachel’s email list.

Acknowledgements

With many thanks:

To my editor, Stephanie Riva, for taking a decent story and making it so much better.

To Glenda Moleski for working miracles. I couldn’t have done it without you.

To my husband for hanging in there through all the crazy times.

To Sarah Lyons Fleming for your genius and humor.

To Al Rowell for the fantastic help and great ideas.

To Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Michael Koogler, Amber Schmidt, and Linda Tooch for the helping out on the ugly first draft.

To the Bards of Badassery—Elle J Rossi, Cynthia Valero, and Beth Ciotta—for keeping me from falling off that cliff.

And especially to all those making sacrifices to keep our world safe.

Copyright 2014 Rachel Aukes

Surprisingly Adequate Publishing

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

Kindle Edition: May 2014

Edited by Stephanie Riva – RivaReading.com

Cover image (background) © shockfactor – Fotolia.com

Cover image (soldiers) © Adrian Hillman – Fotolia.com

Warpaint font © Chepi Devosi – ChepiDev.com