Return to the Lost Level
by Brian Keene
Cover art by Kirsi Salonen
ISBN 978-1937009632
Pp. 212
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Return to Brian Keene's imaginative lost world series in the dark fantasy novel Return to the Lost Level.
The snake-like Anunnaki have always been a blight for the people living in the hidden dimension known as the Lost Level, but now, the denizens are fighting back. After their community is decimated and their loved ones are enslaved in the aftermath of a devastating Anunnaki attack, Aaron Pace leads a diverse group of warriors—including the bow-woman Tolia, the mighty Karenk, a baby Triceratops, and a time-displaced Ambrose Bierce—on a trek through primordial jungles, dark forests, and a sun-blasted desert while battling pterodactyls, man-eating worms, and other dangers.
Can their small band lay siege to the Anunnaki city and rescue their friends, or will they suffer the same cruel fate so many others have before them? Find out in Brian Keene's Return to the Lost Level.
Includes the bonus short story "The Chinese Beetle."
The sequel to The Lost Level.
About the Author
Brian Keene writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over fifty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is often credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later film) with inspiring pop culture’s current interest in zombies. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more.
The father of two sons, Keene lives in rural Pennsylvania.
Excerpt
My name is Aaron Pace, and I’m writing this by hand in an accounting ledger that I found in an office building in the middle of the desert. The office building is old but new. By that, I mean it’s an old building, or at least it looks old. The architectural design suggests it was built in the Seventies or Eighties, maybe, although I suppose that depends on where it was originally constructed, rather than when.
Regardless of where the building came from, it’s old. The concrete walls are cracked and fissured, revealing the steel support beams and rebar deep inside them, and much of the building’s interior drywall is pockmarked with holes. Entire sections of the drop ceiling have collapsed, and most of the windows are broken. There’s an elevator shaft and a stairwell, but both are unusable and blocked with piles of debris. I don’t know how many floors this building originally had, but now there are only two. Everything above the second story has been sheared off. I don’t know if that happened before the building came here or after its arrival. Sand has filled much of the first floor and is creeping through the broken windows on the second floor, as well. I imagine in a short time, the desert will swallow this building up whole, and it will sink beneath the dunes, lost for all time like everything else in this place.
When I say the building is also new, I’m referring to its location here in the desert. The building itself might be old, but its presence here is a relatively new thing. I’ve been through this area before. Twice, in fact. Once by myself and another time with 9, a robotic companion with whom I travelled for quite a while. The office building wasn’t here on either of those visits, which means it’s a more recent arrival to the Lost Level.
That’s what this dimension is called. If you’ve stumbled across the other journal I left behind (in the back of a school bus), then you already know that. If not—if you’re new here—then perhaps a brief explanation is in order. I’ll have to keep it short, though, because I could only find a few of these accounting ledgers that were suitable for my purposes.
I came to the Lost Level by accident, via something called the Labyrinth, which is best described as an interdimensional pathway of energy running through space and time. The Labyrinth touches and connects everything in our universe. Since all the planets, stars, and galaxies are connected together by the Labyrinth, madmen, magi, occultists, and other seekers can travel from planet to planet and star system to star system. But they can also travel to other dimensions and alternate realities. You see, just as there are different planets in the universe, there are also different versions of those planets. These other-dimensional realities are often referred to as “levels.” The Labyrinth allows travel to and from these levels. Imagine an Earth where the Germans won World War II, or where China landed on the moon in the year 2002, or a version of Mars where, instead of arid, frigid desolation, one might find temperate jungles teeming with intelligent alien life. All of these exist, and all of them are accessible, if you know which doorway in the Labyrinth to open.
But there is one level that is different than all of these—a dimensional reality that exists apart from all the others, a place where the flotsam and jetsam of space and time occasionally wash up from across the shores of the multiverse. It is a place where one can encounter creatures and beings and objects from, quite literally, anywhere in the multiverse, and from any time in the multiverse, as well. That place is called the Lost Level, and if you are reading this, then you are in it, and you are screwed.
That’s the first thing you should know.
Read more from Brian Keene
"A Revolution of One" - Issue 69 of Apex Magazine
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- Description
- About the Author
- Excerpt
- Read more from Brian Keene
Return to Brian Keene's imaginative lost world series in the dark fantasy novel Return to the Lost Level.
The snake-like Anunnaki have always been a blight for the people living in the hidden dimension known as the Lost Level, but now, the denizens are fighting back. After their community is decimated and their loved ones are enslaved in the aftermath of a devastating Anunnaki attack, Aaron Pace leads a diverse group of warriors—including the bow-woman Tolia, the mighty Karenk, a baby Triceratops, and a time-displaced Ambrose Bierce—on a trek through primordial jungles, dark forests, and a sun-blasted desert while battling pterodactyls, man-eating worms, and other dangers.
Can their small band lay siege to the Anunnaki city and rescue their friends, or will they suffer the same cruel fate so many others have before them? Find out in Brian Keene's Return to the Lost Level.
Includes the bonus short story "The Chinese Beetle."
The sequel to The Lost Level.
Brian Keene writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over fifty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is often credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later film) with inspiring pop culture’s current interest in zombies. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more.
The father of two sons, Keene lives in rural Pennsylvania.
My name is Aaron Pace, and I’m writing this by hand in an accounting ledger that I found in an office building in the middle of the desert. The office building is old but new. By that, I mean it’s an old building, or at least it looks old. The architectural design suggests it was built in the Seventies or Eighties, maybe, although I suppose that depends on where it was originally constructed, rather than when.
Regardless of where the building came from, it’s old. The concrete walls are cracked and fissured, revealing the steel support beams and rebar deep inside them, and much of the building’s interior drywall is pockmarked with holes. Entire sections of the drop ceiling have collapsed, and most of the windows are broken. There’s an elevator shaft and a stairwell, but both are unusable and blocked with piles of debris. I don’t know how many floors this building originally had, but now there are only two. Everything above the second story has been sheared off. I don’t know if that happened before the building came here or after its arrival. Sand has filled much of the first floor and is creeping through the broken windows on the second floor, as well. I imagine in a short time, the desert will swallow this building up whole, and it will sink beneath the dunes, lost for all time like everything else in this place.
When I say the building is also new, I’m referring to its location here in the desert. The building itself might be old, but its presence here is a relatively new thing. I’ve been through this area before. Twice, in fact. Once by myself and another time with 9, a robotic companion with whom I travelled for quite a while. The office building wasn’t here on either of those visits, which means it’s a more recent arrival to the Lost Level.
That’s what this dimension is called. If you’ve stumbled across the other journal I left behind (in the back of a school bus), then you already know that. If not—if you’re new here—then perhaps a brief explanation is in order. I’ll have to keep it short, though, because I could only find a few of these accounting ledgers that were suitable for my purposes.
I came to the Lost Level by accident, via something called the Labyrinth, which is best described as an interdimensional pathway of energy running through space and time. The Labyrinth touches and connects everything in our universe. Since all the planets, stars, and galaxies are connected together by the Labyrinth, madmen, magi, occultists, and other seekers can travel from planet to planet and star system to star system. But they can also travel to other dimensions and alternate realities. You see, just as there are different planets in the universe, there are also different versions of those planets. These other-dimensional realities are often referred to as “levels.” The Labyrinth allows travel to and from these levels. Imagine an Earth where the Germans won World War II, or where China landed on the moon in the year 2002, or a version of Mars where, instead of arid, frigid desolation, one might find temperate jungles teeming with intelligent alien life. All of these exist, and all of them are accessible, if you know which doorway in the Labyrinth to open.
But there is one level that is different than all of these—a dimensional reality that exists apart from all the others, a place where the flotsam and jetsam of space and time occasionally wash up from across the shores of the multiverse. It is a place where one can encounter creatures and beings and objects from, quite literally, anywhere in the multiverse, and from any time in the multiverse, as well. That place is called the Lost Level, and if you are reading this, then you are in it, and you are screwed.
That’s the first thing you should know.
Return to the Lost Level