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New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry presents a quirky collection of stories starring a whole cast of the ever-popular undead -- including one story written exclusively for Blackstone Audio.

Calling Death: A nonviolent zombie story set in Appalachia

Chokepoint: A semi-sequel to Dead of Night in which four army reservists are assigned to hold a small rural bridge during the early days of the zombie apocalypse.

Pegleg and Paddy Save the World: A zombie story involving a couple of idiot moonshiners, a comet, gangsters, zombies, and the Great Chicago Fire.

The Wind through the Fence: A downbeat psychological drama set in the bleak wastelands a few years after the zombie apocalypse.

**Plus an Exclusive story written especially for Blackstone Audio

With humor and rich storytelling, Maberry brings you zombies as you've never seen them before.

Audio CD

First published July 15, 2012

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About the author

Jonathan Maberry

515 books7,740 followers
JONATHAN MABERRY is a NYTimes bestselling author, #1 Audible bestseller, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 4-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, comic book writer, and producer. He is the author of more than 50 novels, 190 short stories, 16 short story collections, 30 graphic novels, 14 nonfiction books, and has edited 26 anthologies. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series starring Ian Somerhalder. His 2009-10 run as writer on the Black Panther comic formed a large chunk of the recent blockbuster film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. His bestselling YA zombie series, Rot & Ruin is in development for film at Alcon Entertainment; and John Wick director, Chad Stahelski, is developing Jonathan’s Joe Ledger Thrillers for TV. Jonathan writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His works include The Pine Deep Trilogy, The Kagen the Damned Trilogy, NecroTek, Ink, Glimpse, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, The Wolfman, X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, The Sleepers War (with Weston Ochse), Mars One, and many others. He is the editor of high-profile anthologies including Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Out of Tune, Don’t Turn out the Lights: A Tribute to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Baker Street Irregulars, Nights of the Living Dead, Shadows & Verse, and others. His comics include Marvel Zombies Return, The Punisher: Naked Kills, Wolverine: Ghosts, Godzilla vs Cthulhu: Death May Die, Bad Blood and many others. Jonathan has written in many popular licensed worlds, including Hellboy, True Blood, The Wolfman, John Carter of Mars, Sherlock Holmes, C.H.U.D., Diablo IV, Deadlands, World of Warcraft, Planet of the Apes, Aliens, Predator, Karl Kolchak, and many others. He the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, and the editor of Weird Tales Magazine. He lives in San Diego, California. Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com

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5 stars
79 (21%)
4 stars
151 (41%)
3 stars
114 (31%)
2 stars
16 (4%)
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4 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
Profile Image for Josh Hilden.
Author 436 books72 followers
December 22, 2012
This short collection of stories is absolutely outstanding. I liked all of the tales in this book but my favorite has to be the final story about the Samurai searching for an honorable death.
Profile Image for Cam.
1,212 reviews2 followers
July 23, 2019
Short horror stories which entails ghost from the past and zombies.
Profile Image for Latasha.
1,354 reviews436 followers
June 15, 2019
When they say these are zombie stories, well yeah, i guess so but they really aren't like normal zombie stories. And some of them JUST end, which i loved. there is enough in the story to make this ok. Tom Weiner did so good reading these. i'm going to find more he's narrated. My favorite story is this collection is Calling Death but they were all good. i'm so glad my library had this one.
Profile Image for Scott Lee.
2,176 reviews8 followers
February 27, 2020
Maberry does a great job with these stories. The zombies are interesting, but Maberry sets out to do more than just set us up with a bunch of gore and walking corpses. The human characters at the heart of each story are haunted, heroic, flawed, trapped, free...human. And they are what really make the stories worth reading.

For my money the best--and most surprising--stories in the set are "Pegleg and Paddy Save the World," a novel explanation for the great fire of Chicago that manages to involve the O'Leary's, Paddy O'Leary's best friend Pegleg, and their cow, and the final story, whose title I can't remember or find on the internet, but must be the one "written exclusively for blackstone" which is set in feudal Japan and features a Samurai attempting an impossible mission and is absolutely beautiful.
Profile Image for Michael.
74 reviews1 follower
May 2, 2021
I’m not a fan of zombies because of over saturation and most authors don’t do anything original with zombies, but I liked Jonathan Maberry’s Pine Deep trilogy so I downloaded this when I saw it was free on Audible. I enjoyed the book overall, but there were three stories that I felt made it stand above the regular zombie books. The first was a nonviolent zombie story about a guy from the city connecting with his grandmother in a small mining town in North Carolina. The second was a story about two bootleggers that prevent a zombie apocalypse by starting The Great Chicago Fire. The last was about a samurai in Feudal Japan that is doing a favor for a dying friend on an island infested with zombies. Overall, all the stories in this collection are well written and worth reading even if you don’t like zombie stories.
Profile Image for Tracy.
1,947 reviews8 followers
September 13, 2021
I don’t typically read zombie stories but I was in the mood for something different on my road trip. This collection of short stories was perfect. While they were all about zombies in one fashion or another, they were so diverse in setting, tone, voice, and characterization! The last story about the samurai was utterly fascinating!

The audio narrator was OUTSTANDING! I will be looking for more of his narrations.

Note: in terms of rough language—two of these stories were almost profanity free. Another of the stories was really rough. The language helped to set the tone and was clearly used judiciously, but it was pretty over the top in two stories.
Profile Image for Joan Lloyd.
Author 56 books56 followers
February 11, 2021
I don't know how to rate this collection. Maberry writes horror stories etc. really well but for this collection it's all zombies, not my dish of tea. So I averaged by enjoyment of his writing withmy gut and gave it a three.
Profile Image for shawn murphy.
375 reviews6 followers
June 8, 2024
Jonathan Maberry spins 5 grand stories about a certain horror/apocalypse creature, but never says the name once. It starts with the letter Zed🇨🇦.
A grand writer that moves us with conjecture, end of it, comedy, and the beauty of a death poem.
Profile Image for Ed Adams.
140 reviews
February 23, 2018
finished awhile back. I've brine a Maberry fan. It's a solid collection.
413 reviews
July 26, 2020
Love Love this books! I just wish it was longer lol
Profile Image for Scott.
1,091 reviews10 followers
April 8, 2021
I don't like short stories, but a couple of these were pretty good, and the universe is interesting. So, It's ok.
Profile Image for Linda.
1,235 reviews18 followers
November 8, 2021
These stories weren't too bad. Not what I would consider major horror stories. Some strange and interesting ones and a quick listen. Some I had a tough time with keeping my attention.
Profile Image for Scott Benoit.
241 reviews2 followers
June 6, 2022
Great short story. Good writing by Jonathan Maberry as always.
Tom Weiner did a good job narrating
Profile Image for Sarah.
745 reviews
October 23, 2022
This, this is the reason I don’t like zombie tales, they are hopeless and bleak. I will say though the last story in this collection, “The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro” was really incredible.
Profile Image for Victoria Minton.
354 reviews
January 11, 2023
A typical zombie story times 5. As always I enjoyed Mayberrys writing and characters. I especially enjoyed the Appalachian story and have a feeling it will stay with me
Profile Image for Katie.
538 reviews8 followers
December 21, 2020
Calling Death: Super creepy with a well-timed ending.

Chokepoint: This was my favorite.

Pegleg and Paddy Save the World: I was eh on this story, until the end!

The Wind through the Fence: I hated this one. I felt so depressed by the end.

The final story: Eh, the first half was too long and boring. The end was good though.
Profile Image for Therese Thompson.
1,718 reviews21 followers
April 24, 2021
Haunting short stories of the zombie apocalypse that are full of pathos, heartbreak, along with one humorous re-telling of the Chicago Fire legend.
Profile Image for Monique.
207 reviews
July 19, 2021
A collection of zombie short stories by Jonathan Maberry.

Calling Death is about a journalist looking into a mine collapse that occurred decades ago. He goes to the town where it occurred to ask the residents about it, but since most of the residents have left as the town has dried up he can only ask one lady whose family perished in the collapse. Not scary at all but nonetheless great.

Chokepoint is a short story set in Maberry’s Dead of Night series. It follows a group of soldiers who are guarding a checkpoint while dealing with no information, lack of supervision and dwindling supplies. One of the best stories and can easily be enjoyed on its own.

Pegleg and Paddy Save the World a story that combines zombies and the Chicago Great Fire. Interesting idea, very American as much of the world probably wouldn’t know about the Chicago Fire (as a Canadian I do from YouTube). I didn’t like the voice actor though, I was almost tempted to skip this story because of his accent.

The Wind Through the Fence is another story from the Dead of Night Series. It can also be enjoyed on its own as none of the series MCs are present. This story was the most depressing of them all as it was very bleak without hope. The MC was also very despicable. I still really enjoyed it as it showed what humanity would do to survive.

The Death Peom of Sensei Otoro is set in Japan during the Edo period. The MC is a ronin who goes on a quest to regain honour and achieve a meaningful death by destroying zombies. The beginning and middle were slow as there was too much explanation, world building and discussions. The ambitious end was perfect. This was my least favourite story in the anthology.
Profile Image for Susan.
1,610 reviews120 followers
December 22, 2022
5 short stories that each appeared at audible, well most of them
Calling Death by Jonathan Maberry
The Wind Through the Fence (Dead of Night #1.5) by Jonathan Maberry
Chokepoint by Jonathan Maberry
Pegleg and Paddy Save the World (not)
The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro by Jonathan Maberry
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews

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