The barbecue was over. It had been a good one; drinks, charcoaled T-bones, rare, a green salad and Meg's special dressing.

Not every university graduate wishes to pursue academia.

The zombies first show up 20 minutes in, after Melanie volunteers herself as the next child to mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night. That’s when we learn that Melanie and her classmates are all “hungries,” or people infected with a toxic fungus that turns them into mindless flesh-eating animals.

It is characteristic of her that she hates trains, that she arrives from a rail-road journey a nervous wreck; but that she can ride a horse steadily for weeks through the most dangerous western passes.