A man with an obsession for long-distance running. A zombie outbreak that will put his endurance skills to the test. It was just another training day for Niles. Getting ready for a one-hundred-mile footrace takes dedication. Twenty-five miles into his run and Niles is faced with the unthinkable. A campground overrun. People dead. Corpses reanimated, eating the living. With his skills and training, Niles could outrun the zombies. But when he stops to help two hunters, he needs to slow his pace and teach them to run. Can endurance running be taught on the go? Will they make it out alive? Dawn Patrol is the prequel to the Undead Ultra series.

Undead: a reanimated corpse with a craving for human flesh. Ultramarathon: any footrace longer than a traditional marathon (26.2 miles). For ultrarunners Kate and Frederico, a typical Saturday morning is spent pounding out a twenty- to thirty-mile “fun run.” It’s during one of their runs that an insidious illness descends upon northern California, turning humans into flesh-shredding zombies. When Kate receives a desperate call from her son, Carter, she and Frederico flee their hometown and set out to help him. The only problem? Carter attends college over two hundred miles away and the freeways—clogged with car wrecks, zombies, and government blockades—are impassable. Running back roads and railroad tracks becomes their only means of travel, but neither of them has ever run so far before. As pain, injuries, hunger, and fatigue plague them, getting to Carter and staying alive seem impossible. It’s either outrun the undead or become one of them, and for Kate, death is not an option.

How do you survive the apocalypse when the only things your companions care about are pot, video games, and beer? This is the predicament Kate finds herself in after running two hundred miles to find her son. Holed up in a dorm with Carter and his friends, she is surrounded by college kids who have no interest in gathering supplies, fortifying their home, or even taking out the trash. Resources are scarce. Zombies are everywhere. Survivors prey on the weak. Feet have become the only reliable form of transportation. Kate knows this better than anyone. When you move, you need to be quiet, and you need to be quick. Kate needs to get her kids in shape. She needs to get their minds out of the Xbox and into the apocalypse. If she can’t, none of them will survive.

What if zombies evolved … and organized? Out of the ashes of the zombie apocalypse, Kate and her small band of survivors have created a life and become a family. They train together, scavenge together, and survive together. Their comfortable routine is interrupted by a frantic distress call. When Kate forms a rescue mission, she and her people find themselves faced with the unthinkable: evolved “alpha” zombies capable of organizing hordes of the undead. Even worse, the alphas are on the move—and they’re headed straight for the university where the survivors have made their home. Can Kate and her people outwit the alpha zombies and save their home? Or will they become part of the undead horde?

No matter how fast they run… …time is running out. Can the Creekside Crew reach their friends before it’s too late? There are some things scarier than zombies. For the people of Fort Ross, it’s the raiders who have arrived on their doorstep. Kate and her companions are their only hope. But the road to Fort Ross isn’t easy. There are wildfires . . . . . . and intelligent alpha zombies. Can Kate outmaneuver the alpha zoms and get to Fort Ross before it’s too late?