The China Pandemic | A. R. Shaw
What the world dreads most has happened - a mutated avian flu pandemic has ravaged the global population. Whether accidental or intentional, only two percent of the population has survived. In the Pacific Northwest, a dying mother recognizes that her young child is among the immune. What will she do to ensure his survival before her own death? Meanwhile, as natural predators invade urban areas, Graham has buried his last remaining family member and promised to carry out his father's advice to make it to the family cabin. He meets with triumph and tragedy learning new rules along the way. Just when he thinks he's finally got a handle on this new world, he's taken by surprise as he learns he's not alone. A hidden community of Preppers is nearby. Will he find the strength to escape these dangers and go on living? And more importantly, will he have the ability to protect those he's come to trust? "In the near future, 98 percent of the Earth's population has been wiped out by a virus developed by the Chinese that was inadvertently unleashed onto the world. In the Pacific Northwest, one man, math professor Graham Morgan, finds the will to live. Having lived through the nightmarish experience of watching his pregnant wife wither away and die, Morgan is now faced with the task of burying his beloved father. All alone in a world increasingly ruled by wild animals--and ruthless human predators--Morgan's goal of making it to an old family cabin deep in the wilderness near a secluded lake is complicated when a dying woman leaves her 5-year-old son at his feet just before she dies. Morgan's journey with the boy takes more than a few unexpected turns as they travel through the dangerous wasteland of what was once civilization. By the time they reach their destination, his group (which now includes 15-year-old twin girls whom Morgan courageously saved from the clutches of a madman) must come to grips with their new reality: Winter is coming, supplies are running out, and there may be a gang of killers living across the lake. Powered by adept character development and relentless pacing, this post-apocalyptic novel, the first in a series...makes for a page-turning, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it reading experience. ...readers will find Morgan to be an endearing hero at world's end. The beginning of what could be a riveting apocalyptic saga." -Kirkus Review