Six months after an Influenza Pandemic swept across the globe, the world is starting to emerge from quarantine. But Pestilence Free Day is short-lived. For an unseen enemy has just been unleashed.

Five people. Seven days.

A brilliant scientist with an apocalyptic forecast

A soldier that needs an enemy to fight

A college student venturing into a changed world

An insurance salesman who exploits every opportunity

A juvenile delinquent desperate to leave his past behind

Redaction: Humanity is about to be erased from the Book of Life

Word Length: 140,000, Edited by TL Hockett

Los Angeles
February 23rd

Sixteen year old Rebecca Robinson is the sole survivor of the Australian Apocalypse. The death toll is at an estimated 22 million. The entire world wants to know what happened down there and since the military aren’t talking, everyone is looking to Rebecca for answers.

Sydney, Australia
3 Weeks Earlier

A deadly new virus is spreading through an immigration detention centre in the outback. It is 100% lethal. There is no cure. As a precaution the Australian Government has ordered a nationwide quarantine. No one is allowed to leave the country. No one is allowed to enter. School across the country has been canceled.

Despite these warning signs Rebecca and her friends are in the mood to celebrate their extended summer vacation, blissfully unaware of the dangers that are coming their way.

Over the next few days, things go from bad to worse as the virus begins to spread throughout Australia, killing anyone infected and turning them into ferocious undead monsters. Worse, the military have been ordered to contain the spread of infection and to cover up all trace of the outbreak by any means necessary. Mass panic and hysteria grip the population as the plague reaches the outskirts of Sydney.

Rebecca and her friends realise that it's no longer safe to simply go home and lock the door. They need to make a run for it. They need to escape from Australia.

“A year and six days underground without sunlight or breeze or contact with the world above—whatever might be left of the world above. A year and six days without touch, without unrecorded voice, without contact, without friends or family. If only they had listened, if only they had been ready. But he—he had prepared. He was Reginald B. Wakefield, and he hadn’t died. A wave of vindication washed over him, lifting and sweeping away all doubt and fear. He had been right. He raised his eyes again to the hatch cover above. . . . He had been right.”

In “Sheltered,” the timely short story by Quent Cordair, one man follows his own course in response to growing fears of impending disaster and societal breakdown.