I thoroughly enjoyed writing this story. It is a radical departure from my earlier efforts, being much darker and presenting little in the way of hope.
It is a story about the end of mankind--and that's it. The tag line might as well be "the end is nigh". Something is killing off the entire human race, one soul at a time, using some unseen weapon that is vastly superior to any technology known to man. The protagonists try to figure out what is going on, but they are essentially at a loss to make sense of it all. Is it the government? Or an alien invasion? Nobody knows. All they know is that the killers need time to take aim--a safety zone if you like. As long as they do not remain motionless for too long they can survive.
But the safety zone is shrinking. The assassins are getting better. And it will not be long before they can kill a moving target. With the screws slowly turning and no safe way of knowing if the assassins are still out there, the small band of survivors must keep moving while they try to find a way to escape the global genocide.
My aim in writing "8 Billion" was to explore a character who has lost the will to live suddenly presented with a reason to stay alive. He begins the story as a down-and-out drug addict contemplating suicide. As time progresses, however, he finds a reason to live and will do anything within his power to protect his daughter from the killers bent on eradicating 8 billion people.