Caterpillar

by Travis J.I. Corcoran

A zombie apocalypse is bad enough if you're far out in the country - but what happens when you're trapped in a two story brick building in the dense suburbs of Boston, and the streets around you are a sea of biters?Most people would give up and accept their fate...but Chris, Todd, Stacy and David aren't most people. They've got unique skills ... but also unique handicaps.Todd is the building's maintenance guy who can weld, cut, and build ... but he's also fighting a losing battle with the bottle.Chris is a hacker, who can scrape data from the web before the internet crashes for the last time ... but he's also a lot heavier than he should be, and he knows more about cosplay than the real world.Stacy is a secretary who can run fast, but she's finding it hard to accept the new reality.David, the CPA, is fit enough to fight zombies, but he's a coward.Given their flaws, it's doubtful they can survive....but there's one more part to the puzzle. In the first floor garage, there's a 30 year old, rusted, poorly maintained bulldozer.The brick walls may keep the zombies out - for now - but the sky overhead is turning orange, and there's smoke in the air. Watertown is burning, and the wind is blowing this way.Can Todd, Chris, Stacy, and come together to MacGyver a solution, even though they're got no armor plate, are short on fuel, and are almost out of MIG welding wire?They'd better hope so, because they're about to be forced to leave their This story was originally published in the collection 'Places Beyond the A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology', and was set in the world created by Daniel Humphreys. It is republished here outside of that world, in a distinct setting.

127 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2019

About the author

Travis J I Corcoran is a Catholic anarcho-capitalist, a software engineer, and a business owner. He is an amateur at farming, wood turning, blacksmithing, cooking, throwing ceramic pots, and a few other things.

He lives on a 50 acre farm in New Hampshire with his wife, dogs, livestock, and a variety of lathes and milling machines.

Travis has had non-fiction articles published in several national magazines including Dragon, Make, and Fine Homebuilding.

The Powers of the Earth is his first novel.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up as a freebie from Audible because the author came to my attention with his The Powers of the Earth debut novel. This was narrated by virtual voice narration - i.e., AI. I was actually surprised at how good a job the AI narrator did. It isn't quite up to the level of the best human narrators, yet, but it was very listenable.

Basically, it's a zombie apocalypse novel, as written by a libertarian Heinlein fan, so the four survivors trapped in an office building are mostly can-do handyman types who figure out how to rig a caterpillar to drive themselves to what they hope is a more fortified refuge a few miles away. Well, except the girl, who is mostly useless. And there are a few snipes about gun control and government impotence. But basically you've got an office admin, a software geek, a college boy, and a surprisingly well-read alcoholic janitor, against hordes of zombies.

Nothing new or original here, no special variant on the zombie apocalypse, but it was good enough.

[Graham Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, a good zombie book.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zombie apocalypse

Enjoyable read. I hope he's working on the next segment so we can see how they work through the next problems to unite with other survivors.

[Jack Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Problem Solving Adventure

Diverse knowledge, abilities, and lifestyles thrown together for crisis survival, developing mutual appreciation.