A two-week vacation with the whole family—thirteen Walkers and friends, traveling by ferry to the popular but remote Michimac Island off the Canadian shore of Lake Superior. It sounded great to Christian Walker, even though his wife Amanda won the chance to select the destination and chose a vegan spa. It’s about being with family, anyway.

Twelve hours later their getaway has collapsed in bottomless terror.

Now they’re split up, spread across an island crawling with mindless, undead cannibals, desperate to be reunited with one another. But with few cars and even fewer guns they are vulnerable to these shambling, bloodthirsty predators.

Their heart-pounding desire to live is their only reliable weapon, and they’ll fight until every last one of them is together again and safe.

AN EXCERPT

“Oh, my God, no,” Christian whispered as the masseuse got a hold of him, teeth clicking, seeking to sink into his upper arm. He punched him right in the mouth, his fist mashing the man’s lips against his teeth and making a wet popping sound. The masseuse’s head snapped back, but he was undeterred. Christian punched him again, this time right in the nose, and then two more times, until black blood shot out of the masseuse’s nostrils and down his lips. It was enough to get the man’s hands off him, and now he was able to back away. There was space to make a run for the door but the masseuse was bent over and vulnerable, so Christian shot forward and kicked him hard, shinbone catching the masseuse’s chin and knocking him backward.

The masseuse collapsed face down on the floor in the space between the table and the wall, just at the mouth of the open door. He struggled to get up, hands opening and closing, legs working up and down; more black blood streamed out of his mouth and onto the tile. From this position, Christian could see the guy had shit himself, a big brown wet stripe up the ass seam of his white pants.

A PREVIEW

THE WALKER FAMILY VACATION

Book 1: Chapter 1

If any of them survived, they would look back at the incident in the tavern as the harbinger of the terror to come; the first and only warning they would receive to get themselves the fuck off the island before their vacation collapsed into inescapable horror.

It all began at lunch yesterday when every member of this year’s Walker Family Vacation witnessed a grown man at another table vomit blood and teeth all over his BLT—the B being a thick slice of Canadian pea-meal, given this year’s location of the perennial family get-together. It was just after the lunchtime rush, around two, and the Walker clan and guests had disembarked from the ferry. A bellhop from The Holloway Hotel met them and zipped away their luggage in a golf cart, but Christian had told the guy they all they needed to stretch their legs. There were no vehicles allowed on the island, and they’d walked up from the port and into the town, everyone hungry. The group stopped at The Rebellion, a tavern on Michimac Island’s picturesque Main Street, lined with its Victorian shops below the limestone bluff and under the watchful eye of the white stone wall of historic Fort Michimac.

The Rebellion was at half-capacity and the massive Walker clan could easily find seating together. The family vacation event, or the FVE as Amanda abbreviated it, began five years ago when he made VP at the tender age of thirty-seven. This year’s destination—to quaint, historic, yet fun and amenity-providing Michimac Island, in the Straits of Michimac on the Canadian side of Lake Superior—would mark the sixth family adventure.

Each vacation sported a revolving roster with plenty of familiar faces, particularly Christian and Amanda and their own children; Troy, College Freshman, fourteen-year-old Hunt, sixteen-year-old Stacy, twelve-year-old Tabby, and their sweet little newcomer, six-year-old Bethany. Mom and Pop, and five Walker kids. Also in attendance this year for the two-week getaway: Christian’s own mom Evie, Amanda’s father, Charles, Amanda’s sister April and April’s boyfriend Houston (oh brother). Plus two of the children’s good friends; Tabby’s pal Becca, and Hunter’s good but weird buddy, Warren—or Wooly, as he liked to be called. White kid with a head of thick tight curls like a Brillo pad.

All thirteen travel-weary members sat down, taking up four tables pushed together by the waitress, famished and tired. The journey began with a flight from Philadelphia International to Pellston Regional in northern Michigan. From there it was a four-plus hour drive in three overloaded rental cars to reach the ferry that would take them far out in the lake to the remote but popular island.

After the young waitress had taken their order, they waited for their food and Christian had tried to keep the spirits high, especially the kids. Amanda joined him, encouraging Bethany to sing her little song about poop, bringing laughter from his father-in-law Charles, but chagrin from his own mother. True, had he sung such a song at the table where they would eat when he was six, mom would have slapped him right out of his chair. But dammit, Bethany was just so gosh-darned cute, and frankly, times had changed; plus her poop song was pretty fucking funny. The other kids didn’t care; Troy and Stacy noses down in their phones, Hunter and Wooly engaged in some sort of plan that involved their plastic straws and paper wrappers, and he imagined, probably, their boogers somehow, Tabby and her pretentious little friend Becca, both making superior faces like they were above it all. April and Houston held hands across the table, looking into each other’s eyes sitting at the end like they weren’t even part of the entourage.

That’s when it happened.

Bethany sang: “I’m no longer afraid—I’m proud of the poop that I made,” and Becca coughed a disrespectful, “Oh, gawd.”

At first Christian was mad, thinking this prissy young girl—a guest—was chastising his sweet little daughter’s song or her singing abilities. He grunted and frowned and shot Becca a look. Becca wasn’t even watching Bethany. No, instead Becca had one thin hand clamped over her mouth, and with wide eyes stared across to the opposite bank of tables.

Conversation stopped at their tables, and he’d followed Becca’s gaze to discover an elderly couple in distress. They were mid-meal, the wife rising from her seat with a hand over her mouth, much like Becca. A man he assumed was her husband sat opposite her, him facing toward the Walker banquet. Eyes wide and shocked he looked around dumbly, his hands working on the table, picking up and dropping a fork, sliding a folded napkin to the side. “Oh no, Tom,” the man’s wife gasped, appalled, frightened, but afraid to touch her husband.

Tom had thrown up a slick dark splash of blood all over his lunch. Red bile bubbled over top of his sandwich, a spattering across his curly fries. Below his nose and up his cheeks the man frothed crimson; it dripped and drooled from the point of his chin.

“Oh my God, Christian,” Amanda said in a tight whisper next to him, so soft, yet the restaurant so suddenly quiet it was as if his wife’s voice was wired right into his head. In his periphery, he could see she had slipped off her seat and squatted next to Bethany who had ceased her humorous crooning and now tried to peek around the hand Amanda had clamped over their littlest daughter’s eyes to protect her from this grotesque visage. Christian’s eyes remained glued to the horror.

Poor Tom wasn’t finished. Now his back heaved and bucked, and he made a sick face while his body lurched like a cat looking to produce a hairball. Five, six, seven gulps and it came up in a voluminous gush that splashed across the table and his wife inexplicably lifted her drinking glass out of the way as if her husband had just accidentally tipped over a glass of wine.

The young girls shrieked, and he heard Hunt groan, “Holy shit.”

Tom let out a long wheezing moan that went on and on until it shook and warbled, disappearing into a hoarse whisper.

“Tom?” the older woman asked in a hopeful tone, believing it was over. Who knows what she thought—perhaps he’d consumed a lot of beets the night before, maybe this wasn’t as dire as it seemed. “Tom?” The wife asked again when her husband didn’t respond.

It wasn’t over.

Hunt covered Stacy’s eyes, and she slapped his hand away, horrified but still watching. Amanda hugged Bethany. Christian was still frozen, unable to remove his eyes from the grotesque spectacle.

Tom had sat up straighter then, looking around as if coming out of some fugue. There was a white gauze bandage on his forearm and he picked at it with his fingernails. His wife said his name again, reached to him, but he sat back. The couple were at a table, the wife on a chair, her husband sitting on a long, shared bench. The other adjacent customers had pushed themselves far away, afraid of the splatter. Tom looked left and right at them, his face blank—Christian believing he was trying to assure them he was all right. His hands moved to his face, and he felt his cheeks, felt his mouth, examined the blood on his fingers. Then he put those fingers in his mouth and sucked on them.

That was when Christian stood up, and without looking at his family said, “All right, everybody up.” And when they didn’t respond, he slapped the table. “Up, up, up!” He kicked his chair back and motioned with his hands as if shooing them all toward the front door. Still his eyes weren’t removed from that poor man who now had licked his bloody fingers into pale, red-streaked digits. His wife, who had a moment ago appeared hopeful, plopped her butt back down on the chair and covered her mouth again, watching with dismay.

Amanda joined in with him, knowing what her husband wanted, knowing it was the right thing. There was no way they were eating here today and there was no way their children could sit and witness any more of this. “Everybody out,” she said calmly, like a grade school teacher during a fire drill. “Out, out, out,” she repeated, almost sweetly, standing and hoisting Bethany up into her arms and cradling her.

Troy joined in, big brother acting for once like he was part of the family, glimmers of old Troy when he was a less surly teenager. He got Stacy and the others pointed toward the door. Meanwhile, the hand old-man-Tom held to his mouth began shaking—then with great satisfaction, he pulled out a canine tooth and examined it.

“Okay, holy shit,” Christian said, his profanity unavoidable. His hands trembled as he pressed Becca and Tabby on their backs, hoping they wouldn’t turn around, aiming them at the doorway as they all shuffled out and back to the street. He looked over his shoulder once more and saw Tom drop his tooth to the table, heard it clatter. Saw that the man was toothless. Saw that when he’d vomited that second time, his teeth had gone with the spew and after the blood had soaked into his sandwich, there were half a dozen teeth left resting on top like bizarre condiments.