The sequel to the “pick-your-own-path” adventure Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? , which the Florida-Times Union hailed, “may just be the best thing to happen to literary zombies since Max Brooks”—for fans of the blockbuster phenomenon The Walking Dead . You’ve probably read your fair share of zombie stories. But this time it’s different. In a horrific and hilarious cross-country road trip (or rather, suicide mission), you must overcome obstacles of every kind to save zombified America from utter collapse. You're inside your prison cell, waiting to be released. Your name is Jimmy El Camino, and you’re a badass—in fact, you’re a supreme badass. Rambo with style. Snake Plissken with a failing liver. You’ve killed more men than cancer. But more men than the zombie apocalypse? That’s questionable. Your mission? Drive your heavily armed 1967 El Camino from New York City to San Francisco in order to save the world. Along the way, you’ll encounter Ring’s Most Wonderful Circus Show; you’ll battle zombies gladiator-style; you’ll be forced to deal with lunatics. And every step of the way, an army of drivers in armored vehicles is hot on your tail—because there is one man, the mayor of New York, who will stop at nothing to keep this apocalypse of the undead alive. Max Brallier is the New York Times , USA TODAY , and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than thirty books for children and adults. His books and series include The Last Kids on Earth, Eerie Elementary, Mister Shivers, Galactic Hot Dogs, and Can YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? Max lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. Follow Max on Twitter @MaxBrallier or visit him at MaxBrallier.com. Highway to Hell THE FUN BEGINS . . . You’re in a five-by-five cell that smells like piss and disease. Been in this cage for fifty-eight months. Only light is the dim bulb in the hallway beyond the bars. The cell is sparse: stained mattress, rusted sink, and a toilet you unclog with your hands. You were a soldier. No—to call you a soldier, that would be an insult to decent men who fight for concepts like honor and “the right thing”—men who fight because they believe. To call you a butcher, a killer, a dealer of pain, a breaker of faces, a general bad man—that would just be skimming the surface. You were the youngest on the ground in Desert Storm. Lied about your age to join. Killed nine men in a war where almost no Americans died. Sliced off a man’s ear. That’s when you got the feel for it—the metallic taste of sprayed blood on your tongue and a thirst that wouldn’t leave. Came back to the US in ’92. Tried to fit back in. “Normal.” Married your high school sweetheart. She was far from sweet. Can’t blame her. She didn’t love the drinking. The fists through the walls. The steel-toed boots shattering the TV, ruining Thanksgiving because the Lions lost again. So she left, and that was just fine. ’Ninety-five you reenlisted, recruited to black-bag missions. Twenty-eighth birthday, you were in a brothel in Turkey, taking a ball-peen hammer to a man’s eye socket, when you turned to the TV and saw the towers fall. It all got bigger then. More jobs. More killing. Your life was a splatter-work painting—blood here, agony and execution there. Death on a grand scale. Seven years of that, in deserts and caves and towns so hot the sweat poured off you until it felt like some second, liquid skin. Seven years, until your stomach was so hollow the only time you felt anything was when you were fighting or drinking. The military cut you loose in ’08 when they found you drunk, racing a Humvee through an Iraqi minefield on a bet. You made it to the other side of the minefield, safe and sound, but they shipped you back to the other side of the world, battered and broken. Two years bumming around the States: New York to Detroit to Alabama to who-knows-it’s-all-a-blur-at-the-bottom-of-a-bottle. Then 2010, back in Afghanistan behind a big rig, doing the Kabul–Jalalabad run. Most dangerous drive in the world. You forgot about the feel of your hands on a man’s neck—replaced it with the feel of your hands on the wheel of an armored transport. That’s when you found your true love: driving. You felt like Mad Max, the Road Warrior—that big ending. Always loved that movie. You watched it with your old man and he gave you your own six-pack of Iron City. You finished your beers just before the grand finale, when Max steers the rig through the wasteland. You were nine years old. But they cut you loose. Someone frowned upon a 1.2 BAC while driving through the Korengal. Back to the States again. Had some money saved up. Bought yourself a gift—your dream car. A ’67 El Camino. You were thirty-eight years old. That’s what normal guys do, right? Workaday fellas? They have midlife crises and they buy dream cars. But racing through Baltimore one neon dreary night, you said fuck it, and you drove that mother head