Autumn: Aftermath (Autumn series 5)

Autumn: Aftermath (Autumn series 5)

It's been almost one hundred days since a killer disease wiped out 99% of the population. Three months since the dead reanimated. Survivors are few and far between now, and those who remain stick together to give themselves the best possible chance of continuing to stay alive. They are the last of the living. A band of refugees has taken shelter in a medieval castle – a fortress that has stood strong for hundreds of years. Besieged by the dead, they only emerge when it's absolutely necessary. As autumn turns to winter, however, the balance of power slowly begins to shift. The unexpected appearance of survivors from another group changes everything. They bring choice, and an alternative way of life which is a far cry from the world everyone has been forced to leave behind. Society as we know it has crumbled beyond repair and things will never be the same again. Some people are ready to embrace this change, others can't let go of the past. The choice is divisive. Are we entering mankind's final days? In the aftermath of the disease, will the last survivors destroy each other, or will the dead destroy them all? “As demonstrated throughout his previous novels, readers should crown Moody king of the zombie horror novel, and his final book in the Autumn series adds a much-deserved jewel to his crown. Certainly, this is action-packed, with corpses attacking on every other page, but the novel truly succeeds when Moody slows down the action and looks at human nature in the face of utter inhalation. Two years since the infection ravaged the entire world, wiping out 99 percent of the population, the new novel follows two groups of survivors, who fight hunger, fear, and, at times, boredom. The heartbreaking reality of their situation is magnified, however, when the first baby is conceived, leaving readers to wonder whether heartache or hope lives within the future of its small life.” ― Booklist “Moody is as imaginative as Barker, as compulsory as King and as addictive as Palahniuk” ― SCREAM Magazine “The best survival horror since Richard Matheson's I am Legend .” ― Wayne Simmons, Author of FLU and DROP DEAD GORGEOUS “If you only read one book this year, read AUTUMN.” ― Suspense Magazine (2010 Best Book List) “By the end of the book, you will be waiting impatiently for the next installment.” ― Dread Central From the UK, DAVID MOODY first self-published Hater on the internet in 2006, and without an agent, succeeded in selling the film rights for the novel to Mark Johnson (producer, The Chronicles of Narnia film series) and Guillermo Del Toro (director, Hellboy , Pan's Labyrinth ). With the publication of a new series of Hater stories, Moody is poised to further his reputation as a writer of suspense-laced SF/horror, and "farther out" genre books of all description. Autumn: Aftermath By David Moody St. Martin's Griffin Copyright © 2012 David Moody All right reserved. ISBN: 9780312570026 1   Jessica Lindt died three days short of her thirty-second birthday. That was almost a month ago. Since then she’d spent every second of every day wandering aimlessly, often drifting in herds with other corpses, occasionally gravitating toward the few remaining signs of life in this otherwise dead void of a world. Jessica had no idea who or what she was any longer: she simply existed. She responded to the infrequent movement and noise around her, but didn’t know why or how. And yet, somehow, she occasionally remembered . In her dull, decaying brain, she sometimes saw things. They were just fleeting recollections, clung on to for the briefest of moments at a time, gone before she’d even realized they were there. Split-second memories of who she used to be. Her body, of course, had changed beyond all recognition, bulging in places where gravity had dragged her putrefying innards down, becoming brittle and dry elsewhere. Still dressed in what was left of the Lycra running gear she’d died wearing, her feet were badly swollen and her lumpy, bruised ankles were now almost elephantine in appearance. Her distended gut sagged, inflated by the gases produced by decay and a substantial insect infestation. Her mottled skin had split several inches below her drooping right breast, allowing all manner of semi-coagulated yellow and brown gunk to escape. Jessica’s unblinking eyes were dry and unfocused, but they saw enough. The movement of the lone survivor standing in the house up ahead of her was sufficient to attract her limited attention. Suddenly moving with more speed and something almost beginning to resemble a purpose, she lumbered toward the small, terrace cottage, then smacked into the window with force and collapsed backward, ending up on her backside in the gutter. She’d been down less than a couple of seconds before others attacked her, attracted by the noise and assuming she was somehow different to them. They tore what remained of Jessica Lindt apart, and soon all that was left of her