Mira Grant

If you want to go foraging into the wilds of Canada without proper gear, you deserve what you get, even if that happens to include being attacked by an undead moose.

Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-seven years: with an idiot__n this case, Rebecca Atherton, head of the After the End Times Irwins, winner of the Golden Steve-o Award for valor in the face of the undead__eciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.

And to those who would choose the safety of inaction over the danger of taking a stand, I have this to say:You bloody cowards. May you have the world that you deserve.

There was one thing no one considered, however: Australia was populated by Australians. While the rest of us were trying to adapt to a world that suddenly seemed bent on eradicating the human race, the Australians had been dealing with a hostile environment for centuries. They looked upon our zombie apocalypse, and they were not impressed.

My story ended where so many stories have ended since the Rising: with a man__n this case, my adoptive brother and best friend, Shaun__olding a gun to the base of my skull as the virus in my blood betrayed me, transforming me from a thinking human being into something better suited to a horror movie.

There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.

I just don__ understand why anyone would want to get their caffeine in a less-efficient form.

...brains are the only things that stand between a living person and a gruesome death. Or maybe brains and Kevlar.

I grinned, revealing the gap where my left incisor had been prior to a nasty encounter with a man who thought that running a zombie dog fighting ring would be a great way to spend his twilight years. Ben alwasy says I'd be more photogenic and pull better ratings if I got it fixed, but Ben can stuff it. I don't have the time or patience to mess around with dentures and bridges, and given the odds and how I tend to do my job, I'll probably be a zombie someday. Being a zombie with unbreakable titanium implants in my mouth seems like an asshole thing to do.

And then everything was in the hands of gravity, which has never had much love for the terminally stupid.

We are in the middle of what looks increasingly like the zombie apocalypse. Moaning people don't need help. Moaning people are intending to eat us.

I just find it interesting that kids apparently used to cry when Bambi's mother died. George and I both held our breaths, and then cheered when she didn't reanimate and try to eat her son.

Seriously, that woman is so much crazy crammed into a small space that she's practically a crazy singularity.

The truth may set you free. It won't fill your fuel tank.

It's better to go out with a bang and a press release than with a whimper and a secret.

...they come to us, these restless dead,Shrouds woven from the words of men,With trumpets sounding overhead(The walls of hope have grown so thinAnd all our vaunted innocenceHas withered in this endless frost)That promise little recompenseFor all we risk, for all we've lost...

Fuck this. Let's just blow some shit up.

She really talks to you, doesn't she?" She asked. "it's not just you talking to her. She talks BACK.""hel, half the time she starts it." I said, half-defensively. "I know it's weird.""Well, yes, it's weird. Technically, I think it's insane. But who am I to judge?" Maggie shrugged. "I live in a house most people view as the setting of a horror movie waiting to happen, with an army of security ninjas and a couple dozen epileptic dogs for company. I don't think I'm qualified to pass judgement on 'weird'.