DAY FIVE OF 'Week Of The Undead' Presents: Rachel Higginson

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Rachel Higginson is the creator of The Star-Crossed Series, Love & Decay Novella Series, The Starbright Series, The Siren Series, Bet on Us and more! She is also the co-creator of the podcast "Zach & Rachel Take Over the World."


She was born and raised in Nebraska, but spent her college years traveling the world. She fell in love with Eastern Europe, Paris, Indian Food and the beautiful beaches of Sri Lanka. She came back home to marry her high school sweetheart and now spends her days raising four amazing kids. In the few spare moments she has to herself, she is either reading about other worlds or writing her own.

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The Rachel Higginson Interview

What do you do when you’re not writing about the end of days?

I have four kiddos that I chase around all day. They are a handful. But they do a very good Zombie walk. I also write a couple other paranormal series! The Star-Crossed Series, The Starbright Series and The Siren Series.  

Tell us about your latest book?

Title: Love and Decay, Season Three

Brief run down in your own words:

So, Love and Decay is a novella series that follows Reagan Willow and her merry band of Parker brothers through a post-apocalyptic, Zombie-filled world.

Reagan and friends have fought Zombies daily, gone up against the Colony- the super scary human-run regime trying to control what’s left of humanity- and lost friends and enemies.

Now, they’re on the run from Matthias, the leader of the Colony. He wants nothing more than to serve them to Feeders for lunch and get revenge for his dead wife and son. In order to dodge Matthias’s revenge, Reagan and friends have to work their way across the deadly desert of Mexico, fight against armies of Zombies and dodge new threats like Cannibals and Cartel. Reagan is used to fighting to survive. But fighting beside the man she loves but can’t be with might just be the hardest battle yet.  

Release date: December 12th, 2014

Anything in particular that you want to say about it? Where did you get the inspiration from? Favourite characters? Tell us something unusual.

Love and Decay has to be one of my most favourite things I have ever written. I had no idea I would love writing about Zombies as much as I do! Or finding so many creative ways to waste them.

The inspiration to write Love and Decay actually came from my husband! One day he said, “You know what you should do? You should write a Zombie series like a TV show and have it come out as novellas.” And I said, “That is the craziest idea I’ve ever heard. Nobody will read that.” Fast forward six months and he’d repeated the idea enough times that he’d forced me to think about it. Basically, he tricked me. Ha! Slowly I built the plot in my head, decided Zach wasn’t so crazy after all and came up with the two week, episodic style. Honestly, it’s kind of an adrenaline rush to write it. I just love it.

I’m not sure if I can pick a favourite character! Gah! That’s like picking a favourite child. And it’s not that I don’t have a favourite kid… it just changes on a daily basis.

Just kidding!

Okay, so favourite character? Definitely, Reagan. She’s just so badass. Plus, I love her sarcasm. Then there’re the Parkers. And how do I pick one of those??? Hendrix is definitely up there. He’s all smouldering, moody alpha male. But then there’s Vaughan, my natural leader and laid-back hero. Nelson knows what he wants and goes after it. And then the younger brothers, Harrison and King, who are turning into my favourite mix of hilarious and courageous. I cannot forget Haley, Tyler and the little sister, Page. Oh, and Miller!!! Seriously… this cast is just too great. I love them all.

And no story is anything without a great bad guy! And this one has more than just Zombies. Matthias is terrifying to write. He’s the kind of evil that could really exist and that probably scares me more than anything.

Maybe the award goes to Kane though. So complicated. And broken. And confused. And secretly heroic. He definitely was one of my favourite characters ever to write.

Something unusual? I get really into my stories. Sometimes I can’t eat for hours after writing. I get so grossed out by it! And I have “weapons” that I keep nearby to help conceptualize the action scenes. And by that, I mean fake weapons that I really use just to get hand-positioning right. Like an air-soft gun that doesn’t even work… But I want to make sure that when Reagan holds a gun in a tight situation that it’s actually physically possible. It should be noted that my office is right in front of our picture window. My neighbours have to think I’m completely bonkers.    
 
What are you working on next and when can we expect to get our greedy little mitts on it?

To celebrate Halloween, I wrote a small novel in mash-up style. I plucked a few characters from my other paranormal series and threw them in my Zombie world. So Reagan gets to fight alongside some witches and Greek Sirens in order to stay alive! It’s just for fun! But killing Zombies with handguns was one thing. Killing them using magic is an entirely different beast.

The mash-up is called Magic and Decay. Look for October 27th!
http://bit.ly/Magicanddecay

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 Excerpt: Love and Decay, Season One, Episode One

Oh, god.

The smell was the worst. The absolute worst.

It wasn’t enough that I had to pick my way through dismembered and half-eaten bodies, or that at any moment one of them could spring up from the ground and make an afternoon snack out of me.

It wasn’t enough that I hadn’t had a shower in over a year and a half, hadn’t worn eye liner in even longer than that and my hair was somehow simultaneously disgustingly greasy while frizzing into a perpetual fluff ball.

Oh no, that would never be enough. My ugly tan work boots were a size and a half too small, I ripped my too big Grateful Dead t-shirt off a very, very dead man, and my jeans…. or what was left of my jeans was the last of my stash from my once excessive closet.

After all of that- and I mean, the shower alone should have been enough suffering for any living being to suffer through- it was the smell that got to me.

Putrid, rotting flesh from both the dead that littered the ground around me and the remnants of stench that lingered in the air when the Feeders were finished was what triggered my gag reflex and watered my eyes. There weren’t enough words in the English dictionary to describe my revulsion, or the way my empty stomach flipped with every breath.

I probably would have puked if I had eaten anything in the last two days.

The best thing about the Zombie Apocalypse? I was no longer addicted to sugar and caffeinated beverages.

I wiped my forearm across my sweaty forehead and re-aimed my handgun in the general area in front of me. This is the point of the story where I’m supposed to tell you what kind of gun I’m carrying, but let’s be real…. Before the end of the world I was a cheerleader at a small town school, where I was the debate team captain and student council secretary. I lived for throwing parties when my parents went out of town, making out with my football captain boyfriend and doing the occasional trip to the homeless shelter where I would put in my monthly two hours of good deeds.

I’d never even held a gun-- scratch that-- I’d never even been in the same room as a gun until the world went to shit. Who knew the cure for herpes would turn all those sexual deviants into people-eating, brain-dead, infection-giving assholes?

Not me.

The whole phenomenon gave a girl a serious complex about safe sex.

Not that I was having sex. Or would be any time soon.

I hadn’t even seen an eligible bachelor in a good six months and it wasn’t like I had exactly been interested when we passed each other with guns raised and a suspicious glint in our eyes. Although there was a sort of mutual give and take between us that could have been considered an instant connection, possibly love at first sight. I let him loot the dead gentleman that had his head literally severed from his body by Feeders, and he let me raid the vending machine offering one bag of Funions that had been smashed into pathetic crumbs.

But then we both went our separate ways and I will never know if he got eaten, turned or found the promised land of Zombie-free showers and espresso machines.

Plus, I was still pining over poor, deceased, Quarterback-Chris.

Just kidding! Quarterback-Chris had apparently been less than faithful to me during our two year relationship and after things with the government, army and general world went to hell, Quarterback-Chris tried to eat me!

So I did what any loving, devoted girlfriend that just found out she had been serially cheated on by her now zombie boyfriend would do. I plunged a butcher knife into his eye socket and when that didn’t effectively do the job, I drove over him with my mom’s Escalade until his head detached from his body.

God, I was glad I held onto my v-card.

          Could you imagine me as a zombie?

          Ugh, it made me shudder just thinking about it.

          A rustling to my left had my gun up, pointed and steady at whatever was stupid enough to make noise in a regular Feeder playground. I only had three bullets left, so this kill would have to be spot on.

          That was the thing about living in a world in which it was a very likely possibility that you could end up as someone else’s meal before lunchtime, you’ve got to be very good at shooting. Very quickly.

          So even though the most I knew about my gun was that it was a Beretta from the label on the handle, and the exact kind of bullets it took, .40 S&W- because those were an absolute necessity and I was always on the lookout- I knew exactly how to use it. I knew exactly how to get my bullet from my gun to the perfect dead zone right between the eyes.

          In fact, it was kind of freaky how good I was at killing things.

          Well, killing already dead things.

          It was like I was born for the Apocalypse. No, I couldn’t find a hot shower, figure out how to make food last longer than twenty-four hours and effectively loot a Walgreens that still had hair products available. But I could stay alive.

          I had an innate ability to stay alive.

          And in this day and age, ninety-two weeks after the first recovering STD victim bit his doctor and the world fell apart, staying alive was very important.

          Back to the rustling….

          I slowed my breathing, stopped moving completely and waited for the sound to come to me.

          One of the first things I learned about survival was that there was absolutely no need to go hunting down trouble. In the world I lived in, trouble would find you soon enough. It was better to cover your back, stay calm and have a loaded weapon ready and waiting.

          “Reagan, check this out!” Haley squealed in a loud whisper.

          “Holy hell, Hales!” I whisper-shouted back, “I almost shot you in the f-ing head!”

          She made a resigned grunting noise and I heard her mumble, “Too bad, I bet they have showers in heaven.”

          “We are so not convinced you’re going to heaven,” I whispered back while stepping over a particularly decayed body.

          Did I say the smell was the worst? I meant maggots.

          The maggots were definitely the worst.

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Happy reading book whores, 
from your horror hostess
Claire