The Monster Apocalypse

PROLOGUE

"Vampires. Zombies. Who would ever believe in such things?"

Tessa Skar stood alone in the cereal aisle, holding a box of corn flakes in one hand and a box of chocolate puffs in the other. The corn flakes box advertised the final Twilight movie, with an image of sparkly Robert Pattinson on the front that was even bigger than the name of the brand. The chocolate puffs box advertised the newest season of The Walking Dead, complete with an image of one of the zombies enjoying a bowl of cereal, blood streaming down his back and pieces of flesh dangling from his earlobes.

Tessa shook her head, both horrified and amused. When a teenaged store employee walked by, she turned and held up the cereal boxes, as if she wanted him to take part in a middle-of-the-aisle taste test.

"Excuse me, young man," Tessa said.

The boy turned to her, his face paler than Pattinson's, his eyes clouded with terror. He didn't say anything for a moment. He just stared at her bewildered, like he had never laid eyes on a human before.

Finally, he said, "Uh huh?"

"Answer this question for me. Do you think it's wise to promote your food product by showing a zombie, of all things, drizzling its blood and pus all over the food?"

He didn't even bother looking at the cereal box. "I... uhh... yeah, I'd assume so."

She nodded and turned back around. "Thank you. As I thought."

Tessa pushed the two boxes into their slots, then happily grabbed the Cinnamon Toast Crunch and dropped it in her cart. She also grabbed some oatmeal and a box of the S'Mores Pop Tarts, and started moseying over to the pasta aisle.

But before she turned the corner, she peered back down the cereal aisle to see the young store employee remove his vest and race out the front door, like his shift just ended and he had no intention of staying a minute longer. She chuckled to herself and entered the next aisle.

Grisly Market, just three blocks from the entrance to Diablo Shadows, was a ghost town that Sunday morning, like everybody in Grisly had decided to pack into the nearest church, or, more likely, the nearest funeral. Tessa had endured the crowded, longwinded, and ultimately surprising funeral for Chace Anderson the morning before, when the proceedings were interrupted by a vicious attack against the boy's grandmother by a disturbed funeral attendee. Tessa was pulled away from the site almost immediately by her friend Miriam, but she refused to actually leave in a car before she was able to text her daughter Brin to make sure she was all right.

The whole town had been rocked by two student deaths, and now this violent and confusing attack had brought on even more anxiety for both the parents and their children. Her friend, on the phone with Tessa the night before, told her she didn't know if she could step outside her doors for another few days, but Tessa wasn't that kind of woman. She wouldn't let a few scary, if coincidental, incidents keep her home behind closed blinds and locked doors. She woke up this morning ready to take on a brand new—and average and normal and boring—day. She didn't know why that girl had attacked the old woman at Chace's funeral, but she figured a logical explanation would present itself sooner than later; the girl had obviously been mentally psychotic, and had been dealt with properly by the police. There was nothing more to worry about. She knew Grisly was as safe as ever. When she checked in with her daughter earlier to find out she was golfing with her buddies Paul and Ash, she smiled. If her daughter could move on so soon after seeing such a gruesome death, so could she.

And so here Tessa was, standing tall and proud in the pasta aisle, her long black hair in a ponytail, her skimpy gym clothes showing off her still rockin' bod. She'd take her groceries home, go for a jog, take a shower, then start putting together a fabulous, festive Sunday night dinner for not just her and her daughter, but also their new handsome houseguest, Paul. She knew it would be a waste to cook too much—Paul was probably the pickiest eater she'd ever met—but she was looking forward to his company.