She has to survive. She isn't like any other girl - doesn't care how she looks, doesn't paint her nails..instead, the only thing she paints is death with the blood of the zombies which have been multiplying in her city. It's the beginning of the end of the world in reality but when she comes across two certain individuals, potential companions - all doesn't seem so bad. CREDITS TO @MadelynMeisjesnaam FOR SUCH AN AMAZING COVER!

When the outbreak started, where were you? When the world started to cave in on itself, where did you go? When everything was taken from you, what did you become? This is a collection of fifteen short stories that take place in the world of The Dead and the Restless, a novel that I've recently completed. This short story compilation explores the horrors of the world around us, how people can lose themselves and their ties to reality, and how trauma can make or break a person. Several of the characters you will read about have been seen in The Dead and the Restless and some may be of what is to come in the sequel. Either way, you'll go on an adventure where you'll see just how frightening humanity can turn when the lights begin to die.

The hospital hasn't fallen at the greedy hands of the dead, but to the afflictions of the living. Elise Alice Gordon is gone, leaving Lease, a girl who has fought tooth and nail to find her inner strength. Now, as the group travels down the road to find a so-called sanctuary, they will face new horrors, challenges, and devastating losses that will bring some to the brink of not only their sanity, but their humanity. Lease has dealt with her demons, but with the new dawn rising and the snappers continually mutating, she'll realize that the monsters might not only be the dead, and there might be a new monster forming inside her. She's fought for her inner-strength, and now she'll have to strive to hold onto her humanity and sanity, or risk losing it all, especially now more than ever. Because they aren't on the road of the living, but going down the way of the dead. 

When you are infected with the virus, there are four stages. 1) Your fever will shoot up and everything will become intensified on a maximum level. You'll lose grip on what's reality and what's illusion. 2) You'll start to slowly fall down the rabbit hole, forgetting the past and everything and everyone that you knew. 3) You face your imminent death. 4) You wake up with a pressing hunger for the living. It's been seven months since the pandemic hit with this virus and the world has been ravaged and left to ruins. Society has crumbled to nothing and more than three fourths of the population have been infected with the mysterious virus that took the world by storm. The virus has turned anyone infected into crazed flesh-eating freaks, with decrepit skin and red puffy eyes. The only way to kill them is by obliterating the brain. Elise Alice Gordon, Lease for short, led a simple life until the virus hit. Seven months later she is just barely scraping by. She's done what she's had to do to survive, and in that process she has created demons that haunt her every time she closes her eyes. See, it hasn't been easy trying to live in a dead world. She's lost friends, family, and everything she's ever known. The only thing she hasn't lost is her humanity and her hope. But she's afraid she's starting to. Because in this new world, there's only her, the dead, and the restless. © 2012 by Ashtyn Mane. All rights reserved.