Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) (35 page)

Funny thing, as I watched the snow fall on the living and the dead, I was struck by a rare
optimistic
thought. If everyone gets the virus, maybe someone with half a brain and a healthy attitude really will try to find a cure. And then, who knows?

A cynical view of humanity? Maybe. Or maybe you just have to be dead to think that way.

Life is wasted on the living.

Praise Kyua.

Born in the Bronx,
Stefan Petrucha
spent his formative years moving between the big city and the suburbs, both of which made him prefer escapism. A fan of comic books, science fiction, and horror since learning to read, in high school and college he added a love for all sorts of literary work, eventually learning that the very best fiction always brings you back to reality; so, really, there’s no way out.

An obsessive compulsion to create his own stories began at age ten and has since taken many forms, including novels, comics, and video productions. At times, the need to pay the bills has made him a tech writer, an educational writer, a public relations writer, and an editor for trade journals, but fiction, in all its forms, has always been his passion. Every year he’s made a living at that he counts as a lucky one. Fortunately, there’ve been many.
Ripper
, which is sort of like the Harry Potter books but with no magic and with a serial killer, is available now.