Charlie Higson has gone all George Lucas in the second installment of his marvellous young adult zombie series and written a prequel to the hugely entertaining first book, The Enemy.
The Dead takes the action back about 12 months to the days just after the spread of the disease that wipes out the vast majority of the over-14 population and leaves the rest as flesh-eating zombies. The children that are left, who are locked in a gruesome battle for survival, are still suffering the shock of their new circumstances. (By a year later, in The Enemy, the battle for survival is no less difficult, but the children are organised and wearily adjusted to their plight).
The action starts with a nice modern touch with the description of the viral Scared Kid video that becomes an internet phenomenon as the disease takes its hold: webcasting his terror even as the first zombies are gathering outside his window.
Not long after we first meet Ed and Jack. They, along with a number of their schoolmates, are holed up in a dormitory in their Kent boarding school fighting a nightly battle against marauding zombie teachers and desperately trying to find a way to survive. Eventually they decide that flight not fight would offer their best chance and they make a break for freedom leading a strange bunch of kids that includes a couple of nerds, a handful of rugby players (useful in a fight) and a group of kids that have found a strange messianic religion while being holed up in the school chapel. The group does not get far and is quickly caught up in an ambush in an out-of-town shopping area.
They are rescued from an annihilation by the arrival of a coach driven by an apparently uninfected adult, Greg, who already has on board another group of child refugees, including an entertaining gaggle of girls who have managed to make it back from a school trip to France. ("France is a dump," says Courtney, one of their number).
With very few options available to them Jack and Ed's gang join Greg's coach trip to London, a destination that pleases Jack in particular, as he has decided he wants to see his Clapham home once more.
There's not much more to say about the plot that wouldn't be a spoiler, but suffice to say the kids end up holed up in the Imperial War Museum fighting a similar battle for survival that the supermarket kids faced in The Enemy.
In addition, Higson begins to peel away some of the layers of mystery surrounding the disease and the hordes of flesh-eating adults threatening the children, as the nerd group decides that understanding the enemy will be a key to beating it. Some of the back story to characters first met in The Enemy is filled in.
He also ventures a little further into the pyschology that grips the kids than he did in the The Enemy, and to an audlt reader - one reading it aloud to an 8-year-old, that made the story all the more interesting.
For the young adult - and indeed 8-year-old - audience, the book has a bit of everything: a fast-moving plot filled with suspense and drama; strong, easily identifiable characters; rip-roaring action scenes; witty dialogue; and even a hint of romance. Despute the nature of much of the story, it is hugely entertaining and I enjoyed it, as did my 8-year-old son.
Once again this is not a book for the faint-hearted. Kids kill and kids die (even the cool, popular and handsome ones), often in fairly gruesome circumstances. But for those with the stomach for the cannibal run, it's a great read.
