Free Zombie Ocean (Book 3): The Least by Michael John Grist

Tennessee and I think the infection just rolled through. I'm uninfected, in my basement, but nobody else is. Get underground!
    Dozens of responses poured in @DeepDiveMemphis, demanding to know how he'd sealed off his air, what kind of tape he'd used, what air filters he had, how deep his bunker was, how thick his blast doors were.
    He tried to keep up with the replies.
    #outbreak It's just a residential duplex basement- I didn't seal it up, I'm just down here. It's cement-lined.
    He looked around the walls hungrily for detail. Anything might be important and explain why he was still uninfected.
    #outbreak There's newspaper and magazine cuttings all over the walls. Maybe there's something in the ink. There's mold in the air, maybe that's making a barrier.
    People answered, begging for more detail. There had to be something he'd done. What could they do? Their families were down there with them. Their children. What could they do?
    He tried to help them. He answered as many replies as he could, but one by one they faded away, until by 3:30 in the morning the tweet stream dried up and the only person left updating the site was him.
    #outbreak Is anybody out there?
    He typed the words into the void and nobody replied.
    #outbreak Is anybody out there?
    #outbreak Is anybody out there?
    #outbreak Is anybody out there?
    #outbreak Is anybody out there?
    No answer came.
    The siren far above died. The thumping continued. The door scraped on its hinges.
    He flicked through the channels on the TV but nothing was happening. A few untended live streams on YouTube showed top-down views of city streets and interiors of studios devoid of people. In some of them hordes of white-eyed zombies were roaming freely.
    He hopped through websites. He tried the BBC but their tweet stream was dead too. He searched for Russian sites and Japanese sites but the ones he found were all silent. He brought up the Twitter main page and posted his call there, but not a soul responded.
    Nobody moved. Nothing happened.
    Lying in bed he stared at the screen.
    THUMP
    came the sound of his mother from above. It felt like someone knocking on the door to his soul.
    THUMP
    THUMP
    THUMP
    He was alone. The whole world had died and his mind was all right, and that was more than he could take in.
    He laughed again. It was ridiculous. It was unseemly. Zane had said he would save the world, but now there was nothing left to save.
    Except maybe…
    Amo.
    His brain lit up, making connections the demon had prevented it from for a year. Amo had had the same coma and the same pain, triggered by a moment of high stress at the exact same time. Hadn't they said his symptoms had been turning pale, glowing eyes, a desire to wander?
    Like a zombie…
    Revelation after revelation tumbled through him. If he was really immune to whatever this was, and it hit at that moment at the top of the platform, then perhaps that meant Amo was immune too. That meant Amo might still be alive.
    Amo had been on a date with a girl in New York, against all advice of his doctors, in the epicenter of where the disease first struck. New York.
    The epiphany that hit then was overwhelming. Could all this somehow, possibly have started with Amo?
    He brought up Amo's address via the Skype app and rang it but no answer came. He'd be asleep now with his phone off, and Cerulean didn't have any other numbers for him. Still he had to do something, and fast. He didn't know how long the door would hold against his mother, and he didn't want to think about what followed next.
    THUMP THUMP
    Focus.
    He focused like he was standing on the platform about to dive. The obvious truth was staring him in the face. If the world was truly overrun with the infected, and if the infected were anything like the one he'd seen on CNC, then he wasn't going to survive. He just wasn't. His mother would come down and take him out of the world just like she'd brought him in, and that was that.
    He laughed again, this time loud and long. Screw