David Neilsen

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

Xander’s sword did its best to cut a path through the brambles of the overgrown hedge maze, but he might have been better served pulling a chainsaw out of his fanny pack instead. My kukri was utterly useless, but I pretended not to notice this, because it felt good to at least try and do something. Still, for every branch I sliced away, another three scratched my bare skin, until little drops of blood ripped from a dozen different scrapes and I started to resemble a medieval flaying victim. Behind me, Ronnie did her best to protect Zoe’s head (dangling off my shoulder) from the worst of it, and the result was that her own arms were soon heavily-scarred.


I only hoped this stuff wasn’t poisonous.


Chapter 68: Into the Maze of Nasty, Prickly Things