14-year-old Zack Thornwood's life is turned upside down one day after baseball practice when he spots an 8-fingered man with a hole in his head disappear into the ground. Hole-in-Head Man is quickly followed by Xander Moon, a self-titled 'Hunter of the Dead' who explains that there are tons of dead people walking around pretending not to be dead. They look alive, they act alive, but they are most definitely not alive, and this is most definitely not a good thing.
Xander gives Zack the ability to tell the dead from the living through their unique odor (he smells dead people) and the two follow Hole-in-Head Man (whose name is Gus) into an ancient tomb hidden underground in the middle of suburbia. There they beat Gus to the prize contained within--a squishy spleen. The spleen is one of the legendary 14 Pieces that, when assembled, create The Osiris Machine which will bring about the end of the world.
Zack tries to go back to his normal life, but when Gus tries to kill him in the middle of a playground, he discovers the Deadly Dead are not through with him just yet. When Zack touched the squishy spleen, the location of the next Piece of the Osiris Machine was more or less downloaded into his brain. Gus and the people he works for, including the mysterious and utterly evil Miss Bubbles, want that information, and they will stop at nothing to get it. 
The Chronicles of the Deadly Dead is created by David Neilsen, an eGlobal Creative Publishing Signed Author.

The Chronicles of the Deadly Dead

A mortician is someone who is in the business of dead bodies. Tasks can include embalming, burial, cremation, or even planning the whole elaborate funereal send-off when someone kicks the bucket. A mortician may be called upon to dress a corpse in proper attire, give the inert body a cosmetic make-over so folks don’t freak out when they peer into Grandma’s casket, or actually place the thing in the casket, which has got to be pretty danged creepy. In the U.S.A., morticians have to be licensed by the state. Getting the official OK to play with dead bodies requires a college degree, passing a National Board Examination, a state board examination, and working for a couple of years as some other mortician’s Igor.


All this I know from a quick search on Wikipedia (I changed some of the words so I don’t plagiarize anybody), and all of this has absolutely nothing to do with what Xander meant.


Chapter 38: I Don't Get to Storm the Castle