Down The Road
Bowie Ibarra
Permuted Press, May 2006, 168 pp.
ISBN 0976555980

The illness struck New York City first then quickly spread to the entire country. Everyone who contracted it died but latest rose up as undead zombies eating human flesh and spreading the disease through bites. George Zaragosa is determined to leave Austin and return to his hometown of San Uvalde to be with his family, but getting out of town isn’t easy as he has to avoid and kill the zombies by smashing their brains in; that’s the only guarantee that they don’t rise again.

In addition to avoiding the criminals who add to the chaos, George must also avoid Homeland Security and FEMA who are forcibly putting the disease free people in camps where rape, murder and enforced segregation is the norm. He is caught and put in a camp but he escapes when the zombies break through. He finds refuge in a makeshift shelter run by a drug lord and his police allies. Escaping means more killing but when George finds out what the leader of the group did, he feels it is his mission to take him out. In a world gone mad, it is not only zombies that are killers but humans exterminating one other.

Horror fans who want a real zombie killer thriller that pulls no punches, is full of action scenes, blood and gore, and violence that fits easily into the plot will want to get a copy of DOWN THE ROAD. The FEMA Camps are not so far fetched as many victims of Hurricane Katrina who stayed behind know first hand. The protagonist is a passive young man who reacts to events but never really takes charge and that character trait leads him into more trouble.

Harriet Klausner