#1 Extinction Horizon
Master Sergeant Reed Beckham has led his Delta Force Team, codenamed Ghost, through every kind of hell imaginable and never lost a man. When a top secret Medical Corps research facility goes dark, Team Ghost is called in to face their deadliest enemy yet--a variant strain of Ebola that turns men into monsters.
After barely escaping with his life, Beckham returns to Fort Bragg in the midst of a new type of war. As cities fall, Team Ghost is ordered to keep CDC virologist Dr. Kate Lovato alive long enough to find a cure. What she uncovers will change everything.
Total extinction is just on the horizon, but will the cure be worse than the virus?
Self-publishing sensation and USA Today bestseller Nicholas Sansbury Smith comes to Orbit with the first book in his propulsive post-apocalyptic series about a soldier's mission to save the world.
#2 The Wild Ones (A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller)
When a terrifying outbreak in the Adirondacks causes the infected to become violent and uncontrollable, a group of strangers forced to attend a survival camp must work together to survive. An epic tale of friendship, survival and beating the odds under the most extreme conditions.
Excerpt: The world has nosedived into hell and isn't coming back. They didn't want to go to survival camp. They didn't want to be stranded in the Adirondacks with all those strangers. Because when you're in the wild, there's ne easy escape. But when a terrifying outbreak hits, the skills they learn could be the only thing that keeps them alive. For now, it's all about survival.
#3 The Beginning of the End
The dead rise…
A mysterious incident in Russia, a blip buried in the news—it’s the only warning humanity receives that civilization will soon be destroyed by a single, voracious virus that creates monsters of men.
Humanity falls…
A lawyer, still grieving over the death of his young wife, begins to write as a form of therapy. Bur he never expected that his anonymous blog would ultimately record humanity’s last days.
The end of the world has begun…
Governments scramble to stop the zombie virus, people panic, so-called “Safe Havens” are established, the world erupts into chaos; soon it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves. Armed only with makeshift weapons and the will to live, a lone survivor will give mankind one last chance against…Apocalypse Z
#4 Infection: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Novel
When the United States crumbles, and services stop, there's only one thing to do...take your family and run.
The countdown to the end of the world begins silently.
No one realizes there's a deadly illness spreading like wildfire until it's too late. With few symptoms, victims literally drop dead after a brief surge of energy. Within days, it tears through the population of the United States.
Now, faced with the very real possibility of extinction of the human race, Cole Evans has only one chance to save his family and survive: a safe haven on an isolated, hard to reach island.
Can he convince his brother that the danger is real and that there's enough space for his family as well? But can they all reach the island before the lights go out for them...forever?
#5 This Is the Way the World Ends: an Oral History of the Zombie War
February, 2031: The global population now stands at an estimated 400 million, and every survivor bears the scars of humanity's decade-long struggle to defeat an enemy few believed could exist. Some nations have emerged from the war stronger than ever. Others still struggle to survive. Some no longer exist at all.
In the aftermath of the zombie pandemic Keith Taylor, noted pre-war author of apocalyptic fiction, traveled the world to gather the first hand accounts of survivors from every walk of life, culture and strata of society, ranging from American political leaders to British journalists to Mongolian miners to members of India's homeless underclass.
Together these chilling interviews describe the course of humanity's most brutal war, leading from the initial emergence of the virus in the Siberian wilderness to the visceral, heart-rending Shibuya footage, through the confusion of the US President's impeachment to the unintended and disastrous consequences of the UN's sweeping refugee amendment, and ending with us battered and broken, diminished but not defeated, in the fragile peace we now enjoy. Together these accounts represent the most illuminating and complete commentary to date of humanity's loss.
From these candid interviews emerges an image of early 21st century civilization as it truly was: imperfect, fragmented and wholly unprepared for a disaster on such a scale. This Is the Way the World Ends: an Oral History of the Zombie War takes an unflinching, uncompromising look at the world we had and lost; a look at the pain we suffered due to our inability to accept a single, simple truth:
Zombies are real.
Note: Readers who lived through the pandemic may find the interviews contained within this collection distressing. Discretion is advised.
#6 The Scattered and the Dead
Loneliness drives an agoraphobic shut-in to write a letter to the girl in the apartment across the hall, trying to strike up a friendship. Unfortunately, a series of apocalyptic events interrupt this attempt at human contact. Now he watches out the window as the world gets cut to pieces by plague and riots. There are even rumors of zombies. Getting to know someone could be harder than he thought, let alone surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He might even need to leave the apartment.
This book is different from others of this genre. It's told from the point of view of one character, journal style, in such depth that I felt as if I was seeing, hearing and feeling what the main character did. I was curious about the book from the description, but once in, I couldn't put it down. I look forward to the rest of this story. Excellent writing. The material is dark and filled with horror, but there's touches of humor that make the character that much more likable.
#7 HOT ZONE: A Post-Apocalyptic Pandemic Thriller
HOT ZONE: Book One in THE ZULU VIRUS CHRONICLES
SOMETHING INSIDIOUS HAS ARRIVED--RIGHT IN THE HEARTLAND OF OUR NATION.
Dr. Lauren Hale, a new hospital resident, is nearly killed by a raving mad emergency room patient, in a senseless, unprovoked attack.
Officer David Olson, veteran cop and former Marine, returns from a father-son camping trip to discover that his ex-wife has vanished under bizarre circumstances, and his police department is on the verge of collapse.
Jack and Emma Harper, a young, upwardly mobile couple, find their hip city neighborhood rapidly descending into madness.
Dr. Eugene Chang, a research scientist for a major pharmaceutical company makes a shocking discovery that might explain the spreading wave of illness and violence gripping the city.
Eric Larsen, leader of a top-secret, rapid-response unit, circles high above the Midwest, in an unmarked military transport. Mission still unknown, his team waits to parachute into the night.
WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, complete strangers from different walks of life will be forced to join together to survive the LIVING NIGHTMARE that has been unleashed on their city--AND THEIR COUNTRY.
This is their story.
#8 The Tide (Volume 1)
Captain Dominic Holland leads a crew of skilled covert operatives and talented scientific personnel. He’s taken them to all corners of the earth to protect the United States from biological and chemical warfare. When his CIA handler, Meredith Webb, gives him a mission to investigate a disturbing lead on a laboratory based out of an abandoned oil rig, they discover the most terrifying threat to mankind they’ve ever faced—a genetically engineered biological weapon called the Oni Agent.
Back in the United States, Meredith discovers a frightening connection between the CIA and the Oni Agent. But her investigations are short-lived when the Agent spreads and brings mankind to its knees. Cities burn as it turns humans into warped creatures hell-bent on destruction.
Dominic and Meredith vow to do everything they can to combat the Agent and find a cure. But will their efforts be enough to turn the tide—or is humanity’s fate already sealed?
#9 The Promise Riker's Apocalypse
Army veteran Lee Riker is staying in an Atlanta shelter and supporting himself with the odd carpentry job when his sister, Tara, summons him home to Middletown, Indiana for the reading of their mother’s will.
Hopeful that the unknown sum of money included in his portion of the inheritance will be sufficient to bring an end to his latest run of bad luck and trouble, Riker boards a Greyhound bus in Atlanta with his duffel bag, less than two hundred dollars to his name, and a secret he must protect at all costs.
Riker makes it to Middletown only to learn his sister has recently witnessed a gruesome death. Insisting she saw the victim rise from a pool of his own blood to attack the Samaritan rendering aid, Tara floats the idea that the man may have been a zombie.
While the siblings are comparing what Tara thinks she saw to the conflicting stories about the event being reported on the news, the emergency broadcast system is activated and they find themselves under order to report to one of three newly established quarantine centers.
With this unexpected turn of events looming over their heads, and as a result the reading of the will likely postponed indefinitely, Riker informs Tara of the promise he made to their mother on her deathbed months ago.
A promise whose details leave Tara nearly as confused as those of the grisly attack haunting her every thought.
A promise that Riker insists is worth ignoring the government edict in order to fulfill.
A promise that requires the Rikers to leave town even as shadowy forces seek to seal it off from the rest of the country—a tall order they soon learn will be easier said than done.
#10 Outbreak (The Brother's Creed)
Two brothers learn of the apocalypse after being out of touch for a few days. Returning to town, they learn first-hand, the dead are coming back to life with a taste for flesh. With their parents in Nebraska they must embark on a journey to rescue them as they set into motion their zombie apocalypse plan. But they'll see not all is fun and games as they realize it is nothing like they imagined it would be.
Can they make it in time to save their parents from a fate worse than death?
Emmett Wolfe has been preparing for this day for years, but still cannot believe it is happening. An infection unlike any other has begun to spread across America and the world as he knows it is coming to an end. He must rescue his daughter and ex-wife and transport them to a safe location.
But nowhere is safe anymore...
Not convinced the Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen?
We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he'll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself. Why? It's because on some instinctual level, all humans know it's just a matter of time until the zombies show up.
Our culture is full of tales of the undead walking the Earth, from our religions to our comic books. But, some sort of zombie apocalypse isn't actually possible, right?
Right?
Guys?
Actually, yes. It's quite possible. Here's five ways it could happen, according to science.
5 Brain Parasites
As seen in ...Resident Evil IV
What are they? Parasites that turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves are fairly common in nature. There's one called toxoplasmosa gondii that seems to devote its entire existence to being terrifying.
This bug infects rats, but can only breed inside the intestines of a cat. The parasite knows it needs to get the rat inside the cat (yes, we realize this sounds like the beginning of the most fucked-up Dr. Seuss poem ever) so the parasite takes over the rat's freaking brain, and intentionally makes it scurry toward where the cats hang out. The rat is being programmed to get itself eaten, and it doesn't even know.
Of course, those are just rats, right?
How it can result in zombies: Hey, did we mention that half the human population on Earth is infected with toxoplasmosa, and don't know it? Hey, maybe you're one of them. Flip a coin.
Oh, also, they've done studies and shown that the infected see a change in their personality and have a higher chance of going batshit insane.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: Humans and rats aren't all that different; thats why they use them to test our drugs. All it takes is a more evolved version of toxoplasmosa, one that could to do us what it does to the rats. So, imagine if half the world suddenly had no instinct for self-preservation or rational thought. Even less than they do now, we mean.
If you're comforting yourself with the thought that it may take forever for such a parasite to evolve, you're forgetting about all the biological weapons programs around the world, intentionally weaponizing such bugs. You've got to wonder if the lab workers don't carry out their work under the unwitting command of the toxoplasmosa gondii already in their brains. If you don't want to sleep at night, that is.
You may be protesting that technically these people have never been dead and thus don't fit the dictionary definition of "zombies," but we can assure you that the distinction won't matter a whole lot once these groaning hordes are clawing their way through your windows.
4 Neurotoxins
As seen in ... The movie The Serpent and the Rainbow, the upcoming Resident Evil 5 video game.
What are they? There are certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you'll be considered dead, even to a doctor (okay, maybe not to a good doctor). The poison from fugu (Japanese blowfish) can do this.
The victims can then be brought back under the effects of a drug like datura stramonium (or other chemicals called alkaloids) that leave them in a trance-like state with no memory, but still able to perform simple tasks like eating, sleeping, moaning and shambling around with their arms outstretched.
How it can result in zombies: "Can?" How about "does."
This stuff has happened in Haiti; that's where the word "zombie" comes from. There are books about it, the most famous ones by Dr. Wade Davis (Passage of Darkness and The Serpent and the Rainbow). Yes, the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow was based on this guy's actual science stuff. How much of it was fact? Well, there was that one scene where they strapped the guy naked to a chair and drove a huge spike through his balls. We're hoping that part wasn't true.
What is definitely true is the story of Clairvius Narcisse. He was a Haitian guy who was declared dead by two doctors and buried in 1962. They found him wandering around the village 18 years later. It turned out the local voodoo priests had been using naturally occurring chemicals to basically zombify people and putting them to work on the sugar plantations (no, really).
So, the next time you're pouring a little packet of sugar into your coffee, remember that it may have been handled by a zombie at some point.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: On the one hand, it's already fucking happened! So that earns it some street cred right off the bat. But, even if some evil genius intentionally distributed alkaloid toxins to a population to turn them into a shambling, mindless horde, there is no way to make these zombies aggressive or cannabalistic.
Yet.
3 The Real Rage Virus
As seen in ...28 Days Later
What is it? In the movie, it was a virus that turned human beings into mindless killing machines. In real life, we have a series of brain disorders that do the same thing. They were never contagious, of course. Then, Mad Cow Disease came along. It attacks the cow's spinal cord and brain, turning it into a stumbling, mindless attack cow.
And, when humans eat the meat ...
How it can result in zombies: When Mad Cow gets in humans, they call it Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Check out the symptoms:
- Changes in gait (walking)
- Hallucinations
- Lack of coordination (for example, stumbling and falling)
- Muscle twitching
- Myoclonic jerks or seizures
- Rapidly developing delirium or dementia
Sure, the disease is rare (though maybe not as rare as we think) and the afflicted aren't known to chase after people in murderous mobs. Yet.
But, it proves widespread brain infections of the Rage variety are just a matter of waiting for the right disease to come along.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: If the whole sudden, mindless violence idea seems far-fetched, remember that you are just one brain chemical (serotonin) away from turning into a mindless killing machine (they've tested it by putting rats in Deathmatch-style cages and watching them turn on each other). All it would take is a disease that destroys the brain's ability to absorb that one chemical and suddenly it's a real-world 28 Days Later.
So, imagine such an evolved disease, which we'll call Super Mad Cow (or, Madder Cow) getting a foothold through the food supply. Say this disease spreads through blood-on-blood contact, or saliva-on-blood contact. Now you have a Rage-type virus that can be transmitted with a bite.
Just like the movie. With one bite, you're suddenly the worst kind of zombie:
A fast zombie.
2 Neurogenesis
As seen in ... Laboratories around the world.
What is it? You know all that conversy out there about stem cell research? Well, the whole thing with stem cells is that they can basically be used to re-generate dead cells. Particularly of interest to zombologists like ourselves is neurogenesis, the method by which they can re-grow dead brain tissue.
You can see where this is going.
How it can result in zombies: You wanted the undead to make an appearance in this article? Well, here you go, you creepy bastards.
Science can pretty much save you from anything but brain death; they can swap out organs but when the brain turns to mush, you're gone. Right?
Well, not for long. They're already able to re-grow the brains of comatose head trauma patients until they wake up and walk around again.
Couple that with the new ability to keep a dead body in a state of suspended animation so that it can be brought back to life later, and soon we'll be able to bring back the dead, as long as we get to them quickly enough.
That sounds great, right? Well, this lab dedicated to "reanimation research" (yes, that's what they call it) explains how the process of "reanimating" a person creates a problem. It causes the brain to die off from the outside in. The outside being the cortex, the nice part of you that makes humans human. That just leaves the part that controls basic motor function and primitive instincts behind.
You don't need the cortex to survive; all you need is the stem and you'll still be able to mindlessly walk and eat and enjoy Grey's Anatomy. This is how chickens can keep walking around after they've been beheaded (including one case where the chicken lived for 18 months without a head).
So, you take a brain dead patient, use these techniques to re-grow the brain stem, and you now have a mindless body shambling around, no thoughts and no personality, nothing but a cloud of base instincts and impulses.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call a real, live, undead fucking zombie. So there.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: Think about it. Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. All it takes is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor.
How long until somebody tries this? We're betting somebody in the world, maybe North Korea, will have a working zombie by Christmas.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call a real, live, undead fucking zombie. So there.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: Think about it. Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. All it takes is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor.
How long until somebody tries this? We're betting somebody in the world, maybe North Korea, will have a working zombie by Christmas.
1 Nanobots
As seen in... Michael Crichton's novel Prey, The PS2 game Nano Breaker
What are they? Nanobots are a technology that science apparently engineered to make you terrified of the future. We're talking about microscopic, self-replicating robots that can invisbily build--or destroy--anything. Vast sums of money are being poured into nanotechnology. Sure, at some level scientists know nanobots will destroy mankind. They just can't resist seeing how it happens.
How it can result in zombies: Scientists have already created a nano-cyborg, by fusing a tiny silicone chip to a virus. The first thing they found out is these cyborgs can still operate for up to a month after the death of the host. Notice how nano scientists went right for zombification, even at this early stage. They know where the horror is.
According to studies, within a decade they'll have nanobots that can crawl inside your brain and set up neural connections to replace damaged ones. That's right; the nanobots will be able to rewire your thoughts. What could possibly go wrong?
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: Do the math, people.
Some day there will be nanobots in your brain. Those nanobots will be programmed to keep functioning after you die. They can form their own neural pathways, meaning they can use your brain to keep operating your limbs after you've deceased and, presumably, right up until you rot to pieces in mid-stride.
The nanobots will be programmed to self-replicate, and the death of the host will mean the end of the nanobots. To preserve themselves, they'd need to transfer to a new host. Therefore, the last act of the nanobot zombie would be to bite a hole in a healthy victim, letting the nanobots steam in and set up camp in the new host. Once in, they can shut down the part of the brain that resists (the cortex) and leave the brain stem intact. They will have added a new member to the unholy army of the undead.
Now, it should be more than clear by this point that our goal is to be responsible researchers. We don't want to create a panic here. All we're saying is that on an actual day on the actual calendar in the future, runaway microscopic nanobots will end civilization by flooding the planet with the cannabalistic undead.
Can you think of any other ways a zombie apocalypse could take place? We'd like to hear your comments below.