SHEP ADAMS is miles from home when a mysterious electromagnetic pulse suddenly wipes out the electrical grid. The phones are dead. All the computers are down. Planes fall out of the sky. Cars skid to a halt. Life support switches off. The country is, effectively, stopped dead in its tracks.
People are dying too. Or rather, they are killing one another. Brutally.
The pulse doesn't just affect inanimate objects; it affects the electrical circuitry of people too. Large portions of the population go completely insane, fighting and killing anyone they can reach. Others are rendered vacant, in a coma-like state, eventually rotting quietly from within. Others look normal from the outside but the pulse has stripped away their humanity, leaving them devoid of compassion. These might just be the most dangerous of all.
Shep, along with his father, sister and sister's friend Zoe, must work their way home. But what is waiting, back at their remote cattle farm? Are the rest of their family alive, dead or, even worse, turned into the living dead? What has happened to their close-knit rural community?
Can Shep and his family save their family farm? Can they and their neighbors survive in a world where lack of power presents a challenge greater than they could imagine? The threat from the 'crazies' is bad enough but the madness seems to have switched to the animal world too. However the greatest danger may lie in the craziness that can't be seen.
After the Pulse is a story about survival; about strength in family and community. It looks at our fateful dependency on modern technology and our helplessness when that technology fails.
If the grid went down tomorrow, would you cope? Could you go back to basics? Could you learn to live off the earth? In the face of terrifying danger, would you unite for protection, sustenance and to maintain some semblance of civilization? Or would you kill your neighbor?
