Dead Sea
Brian Keene
 The story follows Lamar Reed, a young black gay man living in Baltimore. One day in New York rats come up from the city, not just rats but dead and rotting rats. Any person who is bitten or gets any blood or saliva into an open wound or orifice dies very shortly after and rises from the dead craving human flesh. The media refers to it as Hamelin's Revenge after the town from the Pied Piper myth. Lamar is flushed from his house as Baltimore is slowly burning to the ground. He encounters several other survivors and the fight their way to the harbor where they are rescued by the USS Sprattling. From there they set sail out to sea realizing that the land now belongs to the dead.