The Spread: A Zombie Short Story Collection – Michelle Kilmer & Rebecca Hansen

Here it is the follow-up, actually a prequel of sorts, to the very well written and highly enjoyable book When The Dead by Michelle Kilmer.  The Spread is written by Kilmer and co-written with her twin sister, Rebecca Hansen.  A note on the cover art. I love this image created by one of my favourite artist and the man who introduced me to Michelle Kilmer’s work, Lyle Schultz.

The Spread tells multiple tales of the beginnings of a zombie apocalypse, detailing how the virus progressed from one incident into an epidemic.  We don’t so much get to read about how patient zero was infected but we do go through the first transfers and see how quickly it moved through the population pretty much by coincidence and pure chance.  It’s an interesting look at how easily a virus can be passed along. Actually a little unnerving if you think about it and how we do pass germs along daily without thinking about.  Seriously, don’t start thinking about.  You’ll want to live in a bubble for the rest of your life.

This is a well written compilation of separate peoples lives becoming connected as they cross paths on just a regular day.  I saw a few connections to When The Dead but you don’t need to have read that one first to enjoy this book, although you should read it too because it’s awesome.