Author Description

You've heard of Gen-X, Gen-Y, Gen-Z. Forget these generations; they are so Yesterday. Your generation, the newest and most deadly, is Gen-FZ (Fungus Zombies). They are taking over. First San Diego, then the world. This story, while totally original and imaginative, invokes a rich mix of traditions, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Blade Runner to Frankenstein and much more, as author's free ArgoZone bonus essay (coming soon) will show. We are developing a series concept here, so stand by for more. These are not your old, stupid, stumbling zombies. They are smooth, seductive, stealthy, and unstoppable. By the time you are in their arms, it is too late. They breathe a dark cloud of spores in your face, and stick a black slimy tube in your neck as they take you down to become a bracket fungus against the baseboard. When you emerge, you are one of them, ready to seduce your first victim. It begins in little homes in ordinary neighborhoods around the city. A boy named Jimmy Mendez, 9, and his cousin Maribel Walesky, 10, await the return of their dads from the sea. The creatures that come home are Things - not men. They may look like merchant sailors, but they are silent and empty-eyed spore zombies, not the same dads who went to sea. At first, only the children can see this, but nobody will believe them. Jimmy watches the dad-Thing embrace his mom, and a long shiny black tube snakes from its mouth as it sucks life from her neck and makes her the next fungus zombie. Maribel also witnesses such a horror, but she is referred to Juvie as a nut case. Soon, people begin dying all over town, turning into zombie spore carriers seeking their next victim to infect. The alien forces behind it are well-organized. From a secret airstrip in the Volcan Mountains and Anza Borrego desert, they fly crop-duster planes across the city to efficiently spread their spores. By the time human authorities at last realize what is going on, it's all but too late. Lt. Linsey Simon, San Diego H