A meteor shower pelts the earth with strange debris on Christmas Eve. The US power grid fails due to the impact of a large meteorite. The dust plume causes severe illness and death as it blows east across America. As a result the government quarantines the entire northeast. Military personnel wearing gas masks patrol the edges of the affected area, preventing anyone from crossing. But when the dead start coming back to life and eating the living, the US braces itself for a full-on zombie outbreak that no military barricade can keep contained. The Lazarus Impact is a fast paced, high intensity, peri-apocalyptic zombie action thriller that traces the stories of eight unique and diverse characters as they travel through the madness, trying to head west past the quarantine to safety... or so they think. Wolf, an extreme survivalist television personality, is the first one on the scene when the meteors hit, filming the damage. Dr. Vogel, a former infectious disease lab rat turned physician, is on a mission to get to the CDC to give them samples of what he thinks might be the basis for a cure. Willy, an old, hardened, Vietnam War veteran suffering from PTSD, witnesses the outbreak as it ramps up in intensity at the hospital where he works as a janitor. Sheryl, a suburban housewife, learns of the dust when she gets a call from a neighbor that her boys are sick on the football field. Marcus, a reformed prison inmate with a violent past, escapes with a band of unscrupulous marauders during a riot. Michael and Amy, a bickering couple from NYC, struggle to get out of Manhattan despite the bridges and tunnels being barricaded and locked down. And Brandon, an awkward teenager with an obsession for horror comics and video games, hides out in his parents Cold War era bunker until he runs out of fuel. When their paths intersect they must help and rely on each other for survival. The plan is to move west, past the quarantine, and make their way to a secure compound where people have been preparing for doomsday for decades. But the nightmares they face on the way west are only a shadow of the dangers they may encounter on the other side of the quarantine, where the American people have taken up arms to defend their new but porous borders. Will any survive the journey? Is it even worth it?
About the Author: Vincent Todarello recently returned from the first manned space mission to the moons of Saturn, where he covertly provided aid and leadership to a fragmented but determined rebel force which later dislodged the entrenched, tyrannical Zang Jankfu regime in a bloody coup. Next, he plans to descend deep into the Marianas Trench and return to Sea Lab Alpha-437 to continue his study of bioluminescence and bioelectricity in giant squid populations. He left this vitally important work largely unfinished, despite major breakthroughs and new discoveries, to pen The Lazarus Impact for his devoted audience. Actually, he is working on transforming his mysterious noir style screenplay into a novel. Mr. Todarello's other published titles include The Return of the Fifth Stone (epic fantasy), and Mindscape (a short collection of poetry and lyrics). Mr. Todarello does his own graphic design, illustration, and cover art. His work can be seen at www.vintodphotography.com. When not working, writing, or shooting photos, Mr. Todarello is usually eating steak in and around Manhattan with his lovely wife. He's eaten so much steak that he has created a thorough review website which ranks steakhouses on a rigorous 100-point scoring system according to 10 categories.