The world was ready to defend against an asteroid of epic proportions… but nobody was ready for what came after.
On the last day of normality in Mackinaw, Illinois, Oliver McCallister thinks his worst problem is figuring out how to come clean to his wife about the secret he’s been keeping from her. Zoe McCallister thinks her worst problem is squeezing in an errand at the courthouse before another long day of nursing classes—and worrying about whatever Oliver is hiding from her.
Oliver has just started his garbage route when an emergency broadcast announces the arrival of a ten-kilometer-long asteroid. A nuclear strike successfully destroys the asteroid and turns the sky into a canvas of crimson clouds. People cheer. They dance in the rust-colored rain falling from the clouds. It seems the apocalypse has been avoided.
But the apocalypse isn’t happening to people, it’s happening inside them.
First their eyes bleed. A ravenous hunger consumes them. Their sanity breaks. Then they become… the undead.
As the apocalypse unfolds, Oliver battles the undead to rescue a wise-beyond-her-years six-year-old named Jurnee and make his way back home, where he hopes he’ll find Zoe and safety. Before they can be reunited, Zoe must band together with a group of survivors to dodge the infectious red rains and escape a zombie-infested courthouse.
Will Zoe’s medical knowledge, Oliver’s protective instincts, and Jurnee’s indomitable spirit be enough for them to find safe refuge in this new and frightening world? Will Oliver and Zoe be able to repair their strained marriage, or will this dire situation push them further apart?
Rust-Colored Rain is the first book in a thrilling new science fiction zombie series from the author of the award-winning God Stones series. If you’re yearning for a character-driven thrill ride, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and brain-craving zombies, then you’ll love Otto Schafer’s Rust-Colored Rain.
In a world where the sky bleeds infection and the dead refuse to die, will having each other be enough?
A parasite-carrying asteroid has unleashed a zombie plague upon the world, forcing nurse Zoe McCallister to flee her overrun neighborhood with her badly injured husband Oliver, their dog Louie, and Jurnee, the little girl Oliver rescued from a burning vehicle. Following the plan she and Oliver made, Zoe seeks refuge for them in an abandoned church some fifteen miles away.
But safety proves elusive as the crimson contagion bears down, forcing Zoe to make a difficult choice—a choice that could bring terrible consequences.
When Oliver wakes up, he has nothing but pain and questions: Where is he? How did he get here? Where is Zoe? Little Jurnee only has a few answers, and he doesn’t like any of them.
Melding pulse-pounding zombie action with complex characters and wrenching moral dilemmas, A Safe Place to Die launches a gripping new vision of the undead apocalypse. Perfect for fans of The Walking Dead or World War Z, and for anyone who has wondered if they could survive when the dead rise.
When the red rains ended the world, the undead weren’t the only monsters left behind.
Zoe McCallister and her found family have built a fragile refuge in the well-stocked farmhouse of Benson Meyer, a man as enigmatic as the plague consuming the world outside. But as Zoe and Oliver begin to unravel the truth about Ben, they realize he’s hiding more than they ever imagined.
Meanwhile, in River City, a new threat is gathering. A gang of violent ex-convicts sets its sights on Unsicker Road, seeing the farmhouse as their kingdom and Zoe’s people as nothing more than an obstacle in their path.
As if the living weren’t enough to fear, the infected are changing—evolving into something far worse. And when an old enemy, one they thought dead and gone, returns—not as a mindless monster, but as something far more terrifying—the battle for Unsicker Road becomes a fight against something bullets can’t stop.
With secrets surfacing and danger closing in from all sides, Zoe and the others must uncover the truth about the parasite before the past—and the dead—consume them all.
For fans of The Last of Us and The Girl With All The Gifts, this third instalment of the Wrack & Ruin series is a chilling tale of horror, survival, and the secrets that refuse to stay buried.
