It’s the end of the world as we know it and one lonely DJ qestions his sanity and pleads for any survivor to call in and let him know he’s not the last one.
“We Now Pause for Station Identification” is no longer in print. You might be able to find an expensive copy on eBay or, better yet, listen to the author read his story below. If you liked it, consider dropping Gary an e-mail telling him so.
TITLE:
WE NOW PAUSE FOR STATION IDENTIFICATION
WRITER:
by Gary A. Braunbeck
ART:
by Chad Savage
GENRE:
Horror Fiction
DESCRIPTORS:
Zombies, Radio Station, DJ, Trapped,
AWARD:
Winner of the 2005 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
CHARACTERS
The Nameless DJ, A DJ trapped in his broadcasting booth who may be the last person alive.
Laura McCoy, A woman who worked at the same radio station.
SUMMARY:
Civilization is dead. The zombies, once considered a welcomed gift are the ones responsible.
A lone DJ at WGAB is broadcasting to anyone left alive to listen. It’s been days since he locked himself in the broadcast booth and he is slipping at the end of his rope. The story is his rambling monologue as he begs and pleads for a caller — for anyone else to be left alive.
Then he tells to story of Laura McCoy, a former employee of the radio station and her sad fate. How she lived, how she died and how she returned as a zombie. He recounts how she was destroyed by loneliness with the clarity and empathy provided by hindsight — the kind of hindsight which leads to an ironic twist at the end.
I don’t want to ruin the story for you but take a good hard look at the Chad Savage illustration on the cover. That isn’t representative art. That’s one of Gary’s zombies. Read the story or listen to the author reading on Gary’s website. You won’t be sorry.
APPEAL:
In Gary’s world the zombies are the dead, returned to the world of the living. At first it seemed like a wondrous thing — the living spared the loss of loved ones. But it soured fast. The zombies weren’t back to eat their families but what they did do is unprecedented in the annals of zombie literature, equally destructive in its own way and so very Gary.
In this chapbook Gary serves up a hot dish of horror in abandonment, loneliness and alienation. The horror is in humanity — what we do to each other — in the deliberate evils we perpetrate on one another or the thoughtless indifference we inflict which blind the bleeding souls we leave behind.
It’s not the zombies that keep you wide awake at night. It is the nameless D.J. desperately seeking a simple phone call. his quiet desperation screams volumes.
NOTES:
This chapbook won the 2005 Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction.
It came out two years after Brian Keene’s Stoker winning fast-zombie book The Rising. This is significant because We Now Pause is a zombie story, Gary’s only zombie story, and is dedicated to Brian. The Rising pushed the zombie genre in its revelation of what the zombies actually were and Gary pushed it even further.
Gary Braunbeck’s Official Website and listen to a video recording of Gary reading the entire story or watch the reading in a 3 part video.
Gary A. Braunbeck recently served as president of the Horror Writers Association.
We Now Pause for Station Identification
To make it easy for you, I’ve embedded the videos of Gary Braunbeck reading the full story below. Do yourself a favor and watch.
We Now Pause For Station Identification (Part One)
Lucy Snyder | MySpace Video
We Now Pause For Station Identification (Part Two)
Lucy Snyder | MySpace Video
We Now Pause For Station Identification (Part Three)
Lucy Snyder | MySpace Video
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