Zom-B (book)

Zom-B is the first book in the Zom-B series of books by Darren Shan. The story follows B Smith as a zombie apocalypse breaks out.

Then
In the small Irish town of Pallaskenry, shouting and screaming wakes Brian Barry up. He finds his mother eating his father's brain before running out of the house to try and find a way to escape. He eventually comes across a a man who looks a bit like an owl who seems to be immune to the zombies. Brian begs for his life and the man tells him to kneel and pray. After doing so, the man snaps his neck, killing him.

Now
Reports of this attack start to come across the news in England. However, many think it is a hoax or a publicity stunt. B Smith lives with her racist father, Todd Smith, and mother, Daisy Smith. Todd has anger issues and beats both B and Daisy if they anger him. B has a relatively normal life otherwise, hanging out with her friends at the park and not doing that well in school. However, B has a constant fight with herself on whether she is actually racist, like her father, or whether she is just acting.

One day at school, B gets into a fight with a black girl called Nancy after B was having a go at Tyler. After this incident, she went to see the principal, Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed agrees with B's father's ways of thinking and calls her a racist. B became upset about this as she didn't want to be racist but was scared that she might be. She didn't want to be like her father.

On a trip to the Imperial War Museum, B sees displays about the concentration camps from Nazi Germany. These affect her and she begins to see that racism is horrible and not right. After walking through the displays, she goes off alone to think. She then sees an Indian woman have her baby kidnapped by two hooded men and then makes chase after them. She attacks one of them with a knee smash and carries on after the other man. The man drops his hood to reveal a rotted face, like a mutant. After a confrontation, the man throws the baby and B catches it, and is hailed as a hero.

After Todd finds out about this, he is angry that B saved an Indian baby. After B's mother disagreed with him, he attacked both her and B. A few days later, B goes back to school and everything seems to go back to normal. However, during a five a side football match, several injured students come into the gym and zombies follow them. All hell breaks loose as the pupils and teachers try and escape. B, several of her friends, Tyler and a few other children, including a tough black kid called Cass, find themselves trapped together. They try a fire exit to find it is blocked. They are then attacked by a zombie who attacks Pox. They kill the zombie and decide to take Pox with them for the time being. They barricade themselves into a classroom where Pox then turns into a zombie. Pox then attacks both Dunglop and Rick before the others run out of the room, leaving them there. They head for another exit, up the stairs. On the way, La Lips is attacked and Copper goes to help her, also getting bitten. They start to go up the stairs and Cass is attacked by zombies there. The rest of the group leave him and carry on. Tyler suggests they head to the kitchen to get knifes and they head there and look through the door to see many hooded mutants controlling the zombies. They leave and try the other fire exit to find it locked as well. They then see Mrs. Reed eating Jonesenzio's brain, before she then speaks. She asks B to stay as she is full for now, but will be hungry again soon. They then are approached by more hooded mutants before they run again.

On the way, Linzer announces that she is hiding. The group leaves her and carries on. B smashes through a window into the courtyard and is followed by most of the group. Suze doesn't jump as she is scared of heights and Ballydefeck goes back to help her down. They are then both dragged back by zombies. They then see Linzer, in another window, getting attacked. At that point, only nine of them were left: B, Trev, Meths, Elephant, Stagger Lee, Tyler, Seez and a Muslim boy and Indian boy. They head through some other corridors and Tyler leads them to the front of the building. They are then attacked by Pox and Rick. Then, someone shoots both of the zombies. They are about to shoot B until B's father comes running in and stops him, yelling "that's my girl". Her father than reveals her name is "Becky". The group makes their way out of the building, only to find the fire exit that Todd entered from was locked. They smashed through most of the door but needed more time. Todd told B to throw Tyler to the zombies to make time. She does this after a bit of thought and after her father started to yell at her and Tyler is turned into a zombie. The rest of the group make it out of the building but B, now sick at the thought that she had killed someone, just because he was black, headed back into the building to take her chance with the zombies rather than stay with her father. She is then scratched by a zombie before Tyler attacks her and rips her heart out, killing her.

To be continued in Zom-B's Underground.