First in the zombie pandemic series by the New York Times–bestselling author. “I can’t give this post-apocalyptic story six stars but I wish I could!” —Tamara Rose Blodgett

“I wasn’t afraid of death. If I died, it would be over. My worst fear wasn’t of dying, it was of living. Living, while everyone around me had their flesh savagely torn from their bodies to be shoved into the festering and ever-hungry mouths of zombies. It terrified me, right down to my very core, to be alive while the rest of the world was dead.”

During the Second Great Depression, twenty-four-year-old Orissa Penwell is forced to drop out of college when she is no longer able to pay for classes. Unable to find a job, she moves in with her aunt in Indianapolis. Down on her luck, Orissa doesn’t think she can go any lower.

She couldn’t be more wrong. A virus breaks out across the country, leaving the infected crazed, aggressive, and very hungry.

Orissa is used to only being responsible for herself. When she finds herself a reluctant leader of a group of survivors, she must make a choice: set aside her issues and help the others or go off alone in search of her own family and friends.

“In her narrative storytelling, Emily Goodwin presents a refreshingly strong female hero in her zombie-infested, survival tale . . . Goodwin has shown that female writers can make flesh crawl, both living and undead, just as well as her male peers.” —HorrorAddicts.net