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Zombie Complex: The Battle for Chattahoochee Run

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The neighborhood smelled bad before the dead people shuffled in. Jake and Karen lived in an apartment complex that housed a hodgepodge of cultures—some of which cooked the nastiest smelling foods. When zombies arrived between paychecks, the couple had no place to go and no money to get there. Their neighbors were mostly guest workers from India. Their homes and families were 12,000 miles away. They were all trapped together. Survival would mean uniting to fight the dead. This is the story of very different people coming together, improvising, getting supplies, and uniting for the fight of their lives. They made their stand at a place called Chattahoochee Run Apartments--a place that will always be known as the Zombie Complex! Zombie Complex is a different kind of zombie novel! Have you ever wondered how the local and national media would cover a zombie apocalypse? Have you ever wondered how state and local authorities would respond? Have you ever wondered whether your employer would allow you time off for a zombie crisis? In the pages of this great zombie novel, you’ll get a glimpse of how our world will try to handle the Zeds and fail. Zombie Complex is based on the real world! The characters of Zombie Complex aren’t former soldiers who continue to work out and maintain a state of the art arsenal. Instead, they are flawed people just like the rest of us. They experience every frustration of apartment living and life in a global economy. They aren’t perfect. The heroes of Zombie Complex had every intention of starting a work out regimen. They were going to start going to the gym. They were going to eat salads everyday. If it wouldn’t have been for a zombie apocalypse, they would lose weight and look great. They also want to pay down their credit card debts and move to a better location. But, the dead have a way of interrupting all of these plans. When zombies come to town, the residents of Chattahoochee Run have to survive on what they have and what they can scrounge up. When it comes to fighting the dead, the heroes of this novel have to fight with weapons they own. You won’t find an exotic arsenal in Zombie Complex. Instead, you’ll find a desperate battle involving hodgepodge of weapons average Americans may own. Join the fight today! You may see yourself, your friends, your family, your co-workers. and your weird neighbors among the residents of the Zombie Complex. But, you won’t see any of them unless you scroll up, click to purchase this book, and join the fight!

217 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 31, 2017

20 people are currently reading
16 people want to read

About the author

Alexander Pain

5 books5 followers
Alexander Pain chronicles the history we hope never happens: the history of the Zombie Apocalypse.

Into guns, knives, and zombies, Alexander Pain lives on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. By day he is a technology worker with a perfectly respectable office job. By night, he chronicles the zombie apocalypse and promotes his first novel, Zombie Complex.

No stranger to swamp things, Alexander graduated from the University of Florida with an English degree in the late 1980s.

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
Profile Image for S.A. Krishnan.
Author 31 books232 followers
September 29, 2020
Excellent zombie story

The hero of the story is a normal human with a normal life who has to take care of his overweight wife and his dog. The hero is trying to get along with the other people in the apartment that he is living in and that is when the place gets run over by zombies.
The book is filled with witty dialogues and seems to be fairly accurate description of how things could be in such an eventuality. Enjoyed it.
Profile Image for Rob Horner.
Author 9 books16 followers
December 12, 2019
If you want to make a good zombie story, especially when there are so many to choose from, you have to make the characters relatable. What better way than to have a prototypical American guy with 1st World problems as the main character? He's not a muscle bound hunk with perfect hair who makes out with the supermodel in the 5th chapter. He's a 400-lb man with an overweight wife who has to worry about not running out of his blood pressure medicine, who still needs to take his dog out to use the bathroom (while avoiding the undead), and who lives in an apartment complex being "overrun" by work-Visa immigrants who cook strange foods and continuously ding everyone else's cars when they slam their own doors open.

Then the zombies arrive. It doesn't matter how, and the book doesn't attempt to explain the how or the why.

It just is. And that fits the tone of the novel perfectly.

Now our 400-lb everyman has to protect himself and his wife and dog while trying to build a coalition among the diverse cast of characters living in a rundown suburban apartment complex. There's no where to run that's safer than their gated complex, so they decide to defend it.

Filled with one-liners and witty observations about our position as a tech-reliant 1st world nation, Alexander Pain gives us a scarily-accurate prediction of what a zombie apocalypse might look like to you and me, real people in real situations leaving real smears in our britches when the zombies attack.
Profile Image for Kerry Reis.
Author 3 books39 followers
July 15, 2021
Jake, living with his wife, Karen, in an Atlanta suburb luxury apartment complex called Chattahoochee Run, hears on the news that a zombie outbreak has occurred in Jamaica. At first, it seems like a false news story, but within a few weeks, due to their proximity to the busiest airport hub in the world, the zombie pandemic has begun to overwhelm the Atlanta area. Quickly, Jake and Karen stock up on supplies, pull out their gun stocks, and gather the neighbors in the complex to set up defenses, but the zombie horde is only growing around them. Basically, this is just a Zombie Horror Thriller enthusiast’s guilty pleasure with no original ideas, just a small group seeking survival from being eaten or turned into zombies while whacking out the growing horde with whatever imaginative defensive actions they can come up with. It was a quick read with 54 chapters averaging around two to three pages per chapter.
Profile Image for Stefan McElvain.
Author 50 books39 followers
January 24, 2020
Zombies are not my usual genre, but after reading this story by Alexander Pain, I'm having second thoughts.
A fun story, written with a good dose of humor and sarcasm that keeps the pages turning.
It's the Zombie Apocalypse...at first a rumor, then official denial, followed by don't kill them...they're sick...followed by society's collapse.
This story is written in the first person, adding to the horror. Obviously, it has an open ending. A battle has been won, but the war continues. There will be more zombie escapades to follow.

This is one author you'll want to follow.
Profile Image for Yin Leong.
Author 9 books44 followers
April 16, 2022
A fun take on the zombie apocalypse

This book was a blast. The story revolves around a very ordinary apartment complex in a very ordinary neighborhood in Atlanta. The residents must step up when the zombie apocalypse brings life as we know it to a standstill. Fortunately, the protagonists have a sizable gun collection and quite a lot of ammunition.

Author Alexander Pain writes with a breezy style that is effortless to read, with believable, relatable and eminently likable characters.

The book takes you on an adventure. It’s both fun and funny. The plot is fast-paced, with many exciting moments. I especially liked Pain’s social commentary on living and working with other cultures.

My only criticism is the book ended too abruptly for me. I hope there will be a Book 2. There are so many promising threads here that a second book could pick up and further explore.
Profile Image for Joe Congel.
Author 15 books37 followers
February 18, 2019
I am not usually attracted to zombie stories. But Alexander Pain’s witty twitter Ads got me to take a chance on his short story, Zombie Cage, and I enjoyed it so much that I thought I would give his novel, Zombie Complex a try. I was not disappointed.

The story centers around a group of diverse people who all happen to live in the same apartment complex in a suburb of Atlanta. Without giving away the who, what, why, where, and how of the storyline, suffice it to say there is a breakout of zombies that threaten life as we know it.

This is not your run of the mill, someone gets bitten and becomes a zombie, zombie attacks, zombie gets shot but not before biting again, and the cycle starts over kind of story. This is a fun, personality, character driven story with as much humor as death and gore. Don’t misunderstand, there are plenty of zombies and zombie fighting action, but the quirky and flawed characters and their interaction with one another is what kept me turning the pages.

Whether you’ve never read a zombie tale before, or you’re a seasoned pro reader of this genre, Zombie Complex will satisfy your thirst for good, solid storytelling.

I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.
Profile Image for S.
Author 5 books13 followers
December 30, 2018
Now this book shows how a real zombie apocalypse would gone down , forget what Hollywood shows you 'Zombie Complex: The Battle for Chattahoochee Run' by Alexander Pain shows how real people try to stay alive.

The hero is not what you come to expect from heroes he is over 300 pounds lives with his wife and beloved dog in an an apartment complex with undesirable neighbours,he has credit card debt,and health problems but when the apocalypse starts, he takes a stand and rallies his neighbours together to stay alive.

I look forward to reading more of this series.

Highly recommended.
Profile Image for David Smith.
Author 2 books15 followers
April 3, 2018
Alexander Pain has written a very good Zombie story with lots of action to keep the story hopping. As a first in a series the book is well established for expansion with evil adversaries, zombies galore and strategic allies. I look forward to the next book in the series, you will not be disappointed if you give this wonderful story a chance.
Profile Image for Johanna Aldridge.
24 reviews6 followers
November 2, 2018
The story begins before the outbreak and introduces you to two ordinary people with debts, bills and credit card charges. Their life is pretty standard, some might say a little depressing, and their constant battle against obesity only makes things worse. As I said, standard and ordinary!
But as rumours of a zombie outbreak gradually become fact, they prove to be smart, resourceful survivalists. It’s written in the POV of the main character, the husband, and he has quite an impressive knowledge of firearms, something that proves to be extremely useful in the coming days.
This made me laugh: “The term “luxury apartments” was an oxymoron. It made as much sense as military intelligence or peaceful religion.”
“A murder of crows” is another good phrase that I picked up. The author is very good at this, coming up with new terms and descriptions that make me laugh, in spite of how tense and gory the story is.
There’s a lot of detail and you can tell the author put a great deal of thought into Zombie defence.
Yes, it needs some editing (I’m afraid that’s always going to be one of my niggles!), and some might find the amount of detail a little distracting, but it’s an excellent read and I thoroughly recommend this to anyone who loves a good zombie story.
Profile Image for Reading is Life.
257 reviews
December 30, 2023
just ok

The characters are fairly cliche and to be honest there’s a strong taste of racism in the narrative, but it’s hard to know if that’s just the characters and setting coming through (it is set in Atlanta) or something deeper. There’s nothing original here which is disappointing because there are some atypical heroes I think could really liven up the genre if given the chance to shine.. The story skips over most significant elements of a zombie apocalypse to give us wardrobe descriptions, muzzle lengths, and directions around Atlanta. On the plus side, I know what every zombie in the greater metro area is wearing and turn by turn directions to get to Marietta. The narrative is passive and I’m never invested in any character enough to care if they live or die. Our protagonists care more for their pets than anything. There is no real resolution, just a bunch of loose threads left dangling I suspect to lure you to other books.
Profile Image for Eric Johnson.
Author 20 books144 followers
October 29, 2022
I'm really not much into zombie books. The trope is a fan thing and I really don't get much into the franchise that is the zombie phenomenon. However, I did want to check this book out and see how Alexander did it. I'm kinda impressed and shows that he kept the outbreak in his native Atlanta area. It's realistic and shows how the MC and supporting characters interact and how an outbreak might work out if it were to happen. The down note is that it cuts off at the end of the book, and no semblance of finality, as if there is more to go on but it ends how it does. Not to say the book was bad but I think he could have ended it with a real final touch to give it a good ending. Despite that it is a good read and you can easily read it in a few hours or so if you have the time.
Profile Image for Area51.
22 reviews
October 22, 2022
The book was just so-so. Nothing really special to set it apart from any other book in this genre.

The worst thing was the non-existent editing. If errors in a book get on your nerves, this book is not for you. I marked over 750 errors while reading it, and since many of the mark-ups contain more than one error, I would guess there are close to 1000 errors.

Why do so many authors not bother with simple editing? I was able to correct most of the mistakes in less than 5 minutes. Why couldn't the author, or his editor, have done the same thing?
2 reviews
March 5, 2018
Real people, great characters

I usually don't take time to review but I'm making an exception for this book. The characters in this book are real people to whom most American can relate. They live in an apartment complex. They are dealing with credit card debt and regular job worries when the apocalypse starts. Yet, these normal become extraordinary when they decide to organize their neigbours together in order to survive.
Profile Image for James Rickard.
Author 41 books10 followers
May 1, 2021
Not bad at all! One nice thing about this zombie book is that it doesn't just drop you into the middle of the action. Also, this is an easy read because the chapters are short until the end. By then, you're either hooked or you've given up. I'd encourage action fans to give this one a shot!!!!
Profile Image for Debra McLean.
53 reviews9 followers
August 25, 2019
Decent

More realistic than most zombie books. Real people in situations you can easily imagine, owing practical. I’m sure there will be more books
Profile Image for K.Z. Howell.
Author 6 books10 followers
September 12, 2021
A thrilling first person shooter of a zombie tale!

What do you do when the impossible becomes real? You stand and fight of course.
Alexander Pain delivers a head shot with this gruesome tale of the undead.
Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Will Granger.
Author 12 books14 followers
November 19, 2018
The main character in this book, Jake, weighs close to 400 pounds! Hardly a stereotypical hero, he proves to be a capable, realistic protagonist. I imagine there are many American with large collections of guns and ammunition, like Jake, and if a zombie plague ever occurred, these folks would almost certainly be the ones most would turn to for help.

This is fun, intense addition to the zombie genre. Anyone into Zombie books will really enjoy this tale of real people doing whatever they can to survive.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews

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