David Moody's 'Autumn'

-Within minutes a virus ravages the United Kingdom and 99.9% of the population is dead, coughing up there own blood as there throats swell and choke the air out of them they drop dead one by one, men, women ,children, none but a select few are spared.
This all occurs on the first page of David Moody's fantastic horror novel 'Autumn'. Moody tells the tale of Micheal, Emma and Carl, 3 people out of a handful who remain unnaffected by the plague of unkown origin that has killed everyone they ever cared about.
The survivors of the plague that inhabited the city of Northwich spend the first few days huddled together in a local community center ,mourning there loss' and wondering how the situation could possibly get worse.
Then a few days later the bodies get up and start walking again.
'Autumn' is an apocalyptic zombie novel. Though dont expect your typical zombie flesh eaters. Autumns zombies are silent creatures, walking constantly, if only becuase they dont know how to stop. Driven on by the most base of instincts at work they shamble onward in silence, ignorant of the world around them.
At least this is how they are at first. but slowly the minds of the rotting corpses begin to kick start up again, slowly but surely they gain rudimentary sight and hearing again. They become aware of the world around them.
Of the deterioration of there own bodies.
And of the creatures around them that are like them but not.
And for that reason alone the bodies know they are a threat and become increasingly agressive towards the survivors. Soon enough the survivors are running for there lives against the animated corpses of the very people they are still mourning at having lost.
Moody tells this tale of survival in a nightmarish world that, to me as an englishman, seems all the more real and frightening as it is set in the United Kingdom. Rather than the typical locations for stories such as these, the United States. So being from england, this grounds the story a little more into reality. The locations seem more realistic, it makes you think "hey i know a place like that" or "how would i escape my area if the dead began to walk and harbour a violent hatred for the living?". It is these touches that makes the hopelessness of the protagonists' situation really hit home. There are 3 of them and millions of bodies.
The novel is smartly written, not on par with King, the master of the genre, but its a cut above the usual Zombie novel, definatley on level ground with the early work of Dean Koonz. Its not too long ,nor too short and best of all Moody lets you download the novel as a pdf. file for free from www.theinfected.co.uk
So this novel ,toted on the back as "an equal to Romero's night of the living dead", is definetly a novel worth any horror fans time to check out.
and it is free so you dont really have a reason not to.