Knee-Deep in the Dead Quotes

“Then a thought hit me like a ton of slag. Arlene wouldn’t bother taking time in this hellhole to scribble her mark unless she had a damned good reason. Not just to point out the sphere—if she knew it was there, she’d have used it herself like a good soldier. The only logical conclusion was that the arrow pointed the way out of the nuclear plant—the way Arlene Sanders had already gone. Like Arne Saknussen, she marked her own trail for all who followed. So why hadn’t I found it? Same way Arlene missed the patio door: there had to be another hidden door nearby that I had missed. Third time’s the charm. The damned door couldn’t have been more than five feet from the one I had found. One good push and it was open, leading to a beautiful piece of straight, well-lit corridor that reached its end with a clean, massive metal door that had printed on it the welcome letters EXIT—obviously a holdover from the plant’s mundane days as a hangout for humans. Feeling bold and unstoppable, I walked right up to that door and discovered that it required a computer key card before it would bless the lonely traveler with an open sesame. Great. Now I could be miserable again.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“This situation has got eldritch coming out the ass.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“Damn! I thought, furious that even after expending my only rocket, I couldn’t get the machine pistol; I was right back where I started, except one rocket lighter. I had squandered my gift! I felt like the guy who found a lamp that would grant one wish, and he says, “Jeez, I wish I knew what to wish for.” I”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“So far as I could tell, I was alone here, at least in this section. I wasn’t happy about the way the corridor went up a little ways and disappeared around a bend. I decided then and there if I ever try to be an architect, all my buildings would borrow from my old high school gymnasium—a big, empty space where you can’t possible hide anything. May not be much in the way of privacy, but there are advantages all right.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“Of course, the skull’s tongue had to be a lever. “I can’t help it,” I said, “I’m a born lever-puller.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“DROP THE GUN!” “DROP THE FREAKIN’ GUN!” “PUT IT DOWN, I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL BLOW YOUR FOOL HEAD—” “—WHERE I CAN SEE THEM, PUT YOUR HANDS UP—” “—AND DON’T MOVE OR—” “—GROUND! ON THE GROUND, MOVE!”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“She smiled and patted me on the head. “Congrats, Fly. You win the Nobel Prize. You don’t see a pressure dome up there, do you? But we’re still sucking air. I know we’re on Deimos; I recognize all the stuff that H. P. Lovecraft didn’t redecorate.” Who, I wanted to know, was H. P. Lovecraft? If he’d had anything to do with this, I wanted to punch his lights out.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“I noticed I’d been leaning against something hard and metallic. It was another skull switch, just begging to be flicked. I started reaching for it but Arlene butted my hand away with her shotgun. That hurt. “You don’t know what that’s going to do,” she protested. “I can’t help it . . . I’m a born lever-puller.” I flicked the tongue.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“Staring into the single red eye of this floating pumpkin with a tube for a mouth, I doubted it would make me feel like a million . . . years old, maybe.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Funny lump in my throat. Yeah, babe; I’ll be happy to blow away my rival for your hand if he should happen to turn up a zombie. No problemo!”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“I can’t help it,” I said at last, “I’m a born lever-puller.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“The Phobos facility is built like a gigantic, underground cone extending many hundreds of meters into the rock. There are a bunch of levels, I’m not even sure how many. Eight? Nine? The whole thing is built in the center of the solar system’s largest strip mine, which would be terrible for the Phobos ecology—except that Phobos doesn’t have an ecology, of course; it’s an airless moon of ice and rock.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“Almost immediately, my bruised eardrums were assaulted by another explosion, then another and a fourth. Five or six more barrels touched off in rapid succession. All I could think was thank God I was on the other side of the pillar.”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel

“Most of these centers had the same basic floor plan; but I was absolutely, one hundred percent unprepared to encounter a freaking swastika!”
― Dafydd ab Hugh, Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel