Christmas with the Dead


Joe R. Lansdale - 2010
    It's a story about a man named Calvin who's bound and determined to celebrate Christmas despite being the only human left in a town inhabited by Zombies.PS Holiday Chapbooks #6

Riser


Becca C. Smith - 2010
    She lives in a future where the world is overpopulated and a little pill makes you immortal. Where people are secretly being exterminated and serial killers are sanctioned by the government. When Chelsan's mother is killed by one of these exterminations, she vows to take down the man responsible.

Mountain Man


Keith C. Blackmore - 2011
    Living on the outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain after civilization died two years ago, Gus knows that every time he goes down into undead suburbia could be his last.A novel of the zombie apocalypse. *First book of a completed 4-book series.* Contains graphic language and scenes of violence. Complete series order:Book 1: Mountain ManBook 2: SafariBook 3: HellifaxBook 4: Well FedAlso :The Hospital (a single short story, also part of the collection "CauldronGristle." This story happens six months before the events of "MountainMan." )

Burn the Dead: Quarantine


Steven Jenkins - 2014
    Still, his life is routine until one day his infected wife, Anna, shows up in line for the incinerator, and Rob must cremate the love of his life. In a race against the clock, he must find his four-year-old son Sammy, who is stranded in a newly quarantined zone, teeming with the walking dead, and crawling with the Necro-Morbus virus. Does Rob have what it takes to fight the undead and put his broken family back together? Or will he also end up in the incinerator – burning with the rest of the dead?

Soulless


Christopher Golden - 2008
    If it works, all the spirits of the departed on the other side will have a brief window -- just a few minutes -- to send a final message to their grieving loved ones. Clasping hands in an impenetrable grip, three mediums call to their spirit guides as the audience looks on in breathless anticipation. Then the mediums slump over, slack-jawed -- catatonic. And in cemeteries surrounding Manhattan, fragments of old corpses dig themselves out of the ground . . .The spirits have returned. The dead are walking. They will seek out those who loved them in life, those they left behind . . . but they are savage and they are hungry. They are no longer your mother or father, your brother or sister, your best friend or lover.They are soulless.The horror spreads quickly, droves of the ravenous dead seeking out those they left behind -- shredding flesh from bone, feeding. But a disparate group of unlikely heroes -- two headstrong college rivals, a troubled gang member, a pop star and her bodyguard -- is making its way to the center of the nightmare, fighting to protect their loved ones, fighting for their lives, and fighting to end the madness.

Blood Memory: The Complete Season One


Perrin Briar - 2014
    With a six-year hole in his memory, he remembers nothing of the Incident or the Lurchers who have claimed the land as their own. He joins the crew in their daily struggle to survive in a harsh new world where every meal is live or die.But when a shipwreck forces them from the safety of the sea, the crew soon discover their pursuers aren’t the only monsters out to get them. As Jordan confronts the horror of his past he unlocks a secret that threatens to destroy not only him but the future of the entire human race.

Sick


Tom Leveen - 2013
    They’re the misfits and the troublemakers—the ones who jump their high school’s fence to skip class regularly. So when a deadly virus breaks out, they’re the only ones with a chance of surviving.The virus turns Brian’s classmates and teachers into bloodthirsty attackers who don’t die easily. The whole school goes on lockdown, but Brian and his best friend, Chad, are safe (and stuck) in the theater department—far from Brian’s sister, Kenzie, and his ex-girlfriend with a panic attack problem, Laura. Brian and Chad, along with some of the theater kids Brian had never given the time of day before, decide to find the girls and bring them to the safety of the theater. But it won’t be easy, and it will test everything they thought they knew about themselves and their classmates.

Barely Alive


Bonnie R. Paulson - 2012
    There are adult themes and strong language.*** In twelve weeks, seventeen-year-old Paul Ledger will be dead. At least he hopes so. Paul is trapped in the worst cult the United States has ever seen. Infected with a zombie virus, symptoms culminate in a dead body but thriving mind over a course of twelve weeks. If he doesn’t earn the final death he longs for, he’ll be chained in a basement facility, moaning for human flesh for eternity. Sent out to kidnap girls for food, toys, or whatever the boss wants, Paul nabs Heather McCain. He’s not a fan of humans as a general rule, but even his graying skin and insatiable hunger for her flesh don’t stop her from reaching out to him. Give him the second chance he doesn’t know he needs. Overcome by his cravings, Paul bites her delectable skin. Amazingly, she doesn’t develop the zombie-like side effects. When the boss discovers Heather’s immunity, he gives Paul an ultimatum – deliver up Heather and her family to continue the research or watch as Paul’s brother suffers the zombie fate. Paul has a chance to endure his short zombie existence knowing his brother is safe. But he’ll have to sacrifice Heather to do it.

The New Hunger


Isaac Marion - 2013
    Then came a final blow no one could have expected: all the world’s corpses rising up to make more.Born into this bleak and bloody landscape, twelve-year-old Julie struggles to hold on to hope as she and her parents drive across the wastelands of America, a nightmarish road trip in search of a new home.Hungry, lost, and scared, sixteen-year-old Nora finds herself her brother’s sole guardian after her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.And in the darkness of a forest, a dead man opens his eyes. Who is he? What is he? With no clues beyond a red tie and the letter “R,” he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence—right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly. The New Hunger is a glimpse of the past and a path to an astonishing future…

Zombies on The Block


Mike Evans - 2019
    Unfortunately, it was not the same for everyone. There were three types of people. The first had no diseases, the second had the flu, and the third were busy fostering a zombie virus that was going to bring the nation to its knees. This story isn't about heroes, there are no guarantees. This is a story about Mike and his family, and what they have to endure to survive. If they want to see another day they are going to need the help of their neighbors and friends. The situations leaving the main characters in the depths of hell are only outweighed by the comical situations that they get put in. There's no telling what or who is going to survive. Those that survive must fight or flight and in some cases do both. Civilization will be something new when dawn's light falls on the Earth for the second day of the apocalypse.

Summer


V.L. Dreyer - 2013
    Within a year, it had decimated our world. Our species is on the verge of extinction. Only a few of us have survived; those of us lucky enough to be born with a natural immunity to the plague. We scavenge amongst the ruins of our old civilizations, picking out a living from the devastation.Ten years ago, I watched my family die one by one. Now, I am alone. The year is 2024; it has been a decade since the virus reduced humanity to a scattering of survivors strewn out across the world.The rules that governed our society are gone.Without laws to protect the innocent, I have seen the worst of humanity throughout the years. Now, I have found a new family who are determined to show me the best. But a fresh mutation of the virus has started turning the harmless, pathetic infected into monstrous predatory creatures bent on our destruction; even the wildlife is turning against us.We are forced to leave our home and flee for our lives. It is only through unity that we stand any chance of survival. Enemies wait around every turn. For the sake of our children and our children’s children, we must find some way to survive and flourish again. If we fail, then the human species will cease to exist.My name is Sandy McDermott, and I am a survivor. This is my story.

Teeth


Michael Robertson - 2013
    Three days ago, his parents went out for supplies, leaving him and his older brother, Archie, behind. They haven't returned. A gang of looters has ransacked their house and set it on fire. The last thing their dad told them was to get to their nan's if there was any trouble. The boys decide their current situation looks like trouble. Setting out onto the streets of London, the boys quickly learn what a world looks like when capitalism has failed. It isn't pretty.

Mad Swine: The Beginning


Steven Pajak - 2008
    The word zombie implies the infected have died and reanimated. The thing is, those infected with Mad Swine, they didn't die. They're still alive; they even breathe. They're just not human anymore.No one really knows how or why it started. What we do know is that the H1N1 virus--or the damn vaccinations that everyone so anxiously lined up for hours to get--mutated in a bad way. Now whether this mutation happened naturally, like the seasonal influenza does every year by changing its signature protein, or if it was the work of some mad dictator bent on bringing hell into the world by unleashing the bastardized disease, no one can say for sure.For Matt Danzig and the small community of Randall Oaks, the only thing that matters now is survival in this new world.

Autumn


David Moody - 2001
    After 99% of the population of the planet is killed in less than 24 hours, for the very few who have managed to stay alive, things are about to get much worse. Animated by phase two of some unknown contagion, the dead begin to rise. At first slow, blind, dumb and lumbering, quickly the bodies regain their most basic senses and abilities... sight, hearing, locomotion... As well as the instinct toward aggression and violence. Held back only by the restraints of their rapidly decomposing flesh, the dead seem to have only one single goal - to lumber forth and destroy the sole remaining attraction in the silent, lifeless world: those who have survived the plague, who now find themselves outnumbered 1,000,000 to 1...Without ever using the 'Z' word, Autumn offers a new perspective on the traditional zombie story. There's no flesh eating, no fast-moving corpses, no gore for gore's sake. Combining the atmosphere and tone of George Romero's classic living dead films with the attitude and awareness of 28 Days (and Weeks) later, this horrifying and suspenseful novel is filled with relentless cold, dark fear.

Shambling With the Stars


Jesse Petersen - 2011
    But the Northwestern Zombie Outbreak isn't your average tragedy... and once the infection spreads to the studio, Avery and her crew will have to worry about staying alive, not ratings.Word count: ~7,100