I usually don’t like zombie books or even movies for that matter. They just don’t appeal to me and I don’t even play an PC games that have to constantly killing roaming zombies. So, this book kind of surprised me when I found out that the world had gone to heck in a hand basket and there are large groups of zombies roaming around the free world. Yet, this book isn’t about just shooting thousands and thousands of mindless zombies creating havoc or of them tearing apart innocent civilians as society completely caves in. No, this book actually has a good story-line that can make sense, but it’s not over so I don’t know if it will all make sense in the end.
We start off in southwest North Dakota nine months after the world went to heck! People started acting very, very strange nine months ago. It seems like those that died, didn’t stay dead, but got up from wherever they were and started attacking those around them. Something started infecting these dead people and they in turn, put the bite on others and then they died but came back almost immediately but now what they called, “turned”. So, you didn’t want to stay around when someone started foaming at the mouth and had this crazy look in whatever was left of their eyes! No, you ran away as fast as you could. People that could run fast made it to enclaves such as Enclave Number 12 her in southwest North Dakota.
As Enclaves go, this one is on the small size. Most of the occupants, but not all, are civilians that either lived in the area or just ran to here from wherever they fled. They had built up walls around the Enclave and had guard/watch towers at various locations which were usually manned by sharpshooters with rifles and scopes. Robert (Rob) Lewis is currently one of the sharpshooters doing a day ship along with his spotter Gerry. These two have been together for a while and they’ve been at the enclave for a while also. They have good jobs manning the watch towers looking for anything that might be a threat to the enclave. Those threats are usually zombies in ones or twos or maybe more, but it’s their job to take them down as long as they have the ammo. They do their job well and have scored a number of kills on the already dead!
Rob had to go do something this one day and he left Gerry alone in the watch tower using his binoculars to scan their sector of the perimeter. When he comes back, Gerry is all exited and has the long gun up to his shoulder looking like he’s got a target. Rob tells him to knock it off and put the gun down because Gerry isn’t that good of a shot and they can’t afford to waste ammo. But, Gerry begins to plead with Rob to let him do the shooting on this single, stumbling zombie out in their sector.
Rob looks through the binoculars and confirms that there is someone stumbling around out there but he yells to Gerry to not to shoot. But, Gerry is so excited he’s already fired a shot and the stumbling zombie falls down presumably dead for real this time. Rob, as the shooter, usually goes for headshots to make sure the dead stay dead. Yet, this time he starts to yelling at Gerry asking why he shot without his OK. Gerry complains that it was just another zombie and he did what he was supposed to do. That’s when Rob tells him that zombies don’t walk around with empty water bottles as he saw the person Gerry shot carrying!
So, that changes the whole complex to the shooting. Rob jumps down the tower and runs out into the killing field trying to find the downed person. He’s hoping that they just got winged, but doesn’t know for sure. What he does find is a young skinny woman very, very much dehydrated but fortunately not bleeding. She seems to have passed out. Rob gives her his bottle of water which she begins to gulp down until he tells her to slow down. He helps her up and takes her back to the enclave where she’s put in the hospital. Rob thought that would be the end of it and was certainly surprised to see a single individual stumbling around outside the enclave. But, it wasn’t longer when Rob and Gerry were back in place and they started spotting a huge gathering of zombies right in front of them coming from the same direction as the young lady. So, Rob starts shooting and then calls in the mortars. They soon devastate the large mob of zombies so that threat is over.
Now we find out there’s more to the story about this young lady. It seems she was coming from Washington D.C. in a convoy with a VIP. She had some special information and they were trying to get to Colorado to provide this info to the President of the US. Rob will get involved and he’ll have some help given by a very competent guy and his dog. So Rob has and adventure ahead of him and it will take him far outside Enclave 12.
Rob’s story isn’t over by any means. Book 2, “Mission”, is available on Amazon right now and I’m adding it to my reading list.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==