Dear Readers,

This series came from a writing group I started and conceptualized in November 2013, while I was living on a military base in El Paso, Texas. This story started with the character Doyle. He's been the voice in my head ever since. He somehow became me, my recently deceased father, and the soldiers around me all wrapped into one. No, I wasn't a soldier like Doyle, or a soldier at all. I had married into that life, even if just for a short amount of time. While I'd married a nightmare of a person, a monster much worse than a zombie, I aimed to make Doyle the type of person the military actually deserved, that I deserved, that we all deserve.

Stuck in this marriage, at the military base, a month after the death of my father, I was watching the movie 28 Weeks Later. After loving the character Doyle played by Jeremy Renner, I chose to make him my own and turn him into the hero of my own story.

I launched "The Colony RPG" on a role-playing site and it started me on a creative journey that, I didn't realize at the time, was capturing all of the real-world horrors I experienced over the years that followed. It became my diary and it took me years to even realize it. Every character that came from it, every twist and turn or new idea, rose from the ashes of my life.

Writers came and went, but two stuck with me since the beginning. Lis wrote and created Sophie, so I tied her into all my work with her permission. Lis has granted me the "go-ahead" to make Sophie into my own for this series and it's far better for it. Kim wrote for Hannah, also her own character, and granted me the same permissions. I've changed them a bit, but there's no way I could publish this series without including those characters in because they became such a huge part of it. With their full support, this series may not have been possible and in a darker truth, I still might not be here to see this into fruition. This story carried me, these characters became my sole outlet through tough times. Thank you both for your amazing dedication and support of these characters and for your ongoing love of this story and most of all, your friendship.

Back into the present with all that is happening in 2020, the parallels to this story during "the fall" are uncanny. I would like to advise readers that some events and characters may be triggering, so if you are sensitive to violence, sexual violence, gore, graphic language, offensive slurs, suicide, both positive and negative views on religion, or even some current political and social issues, my story is best avoided. While some of my characters may express racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise unsavory viewpoints throughout the series, please understand that their views do not reflect my own, but certainly represent the characters themselves.

There is also a (spoiler alert) suggestion that vaccinations are part of a government conspiracy. While this is true in my story, it is not true in real life. Please do your research and consult your doctor when the vaccinations are ready for COVID. Do not see my book as a statement on being anti-vaccination. It is simply in support of the twists and turns to come.

The first two installments of this series have been up on Wattpad for over two years now, but I am just putting up an updated and edited version of both with the hopes of continuing to post through Wattpad. However, this may change depending on opportunities presented and there may be extended versions put up on Amazon or another site for your consuming pleasure. "ALIVE" has been featured on Wattpad twice, so I hope you will enjoy the updated version. I understand I have left the second installment sitting unfinished for quite some time, so please accept my apologies for it's not due to anything other than feeling stuck with what to do with the finished works next. I have over pre-written words for this series. As you can imagine, all these years of writing leave me with an insane amount of editing and choices to make on a series so dear to me.

All this being said, this story stretches out into several books and while you may think it starts off as one of many zombie stories you've read, seen, or played before in a video game...it most certainly does not stay that way for long. If you love character-driven stories, supernatural and horror elements, then my series is definitely for you. Also, a bit of romance never hurt a story, so there's some of that too.

I appreciate any and all feedback you can give. Please, if you are enjoying the series, vote and comment so I know I have real engagement. I've had people leave pretty nasty comments on the second installment on why I haven't continued to post. I understand the frustration, but most of those commenters hadn't said a word or voted on the free story until it came time to be negative.

If you are enjoying the story, please keep it positive by being supportive. Support all artists as much as you can. We are a dying breed.

If you'd like to connect on Instagram through my writing account, my handle is

Thank you all for checking out my series. I hope you all love it as much as I do.

Sincerely,

Cole James