The Gordian Event by Lee Deadkeys
The large stone boxes did not rain from the sky. They simply appeared, materializing behind secured doors, in prisons, hospitals and traffic-congested streets across the globe.
Publisher Description
The boxes, impenetrable and immovable, leave the world’s leaders and local authorities helpless to act, mere spectators to a consuming panic gripping the nations and their peoples.
No one suspected what horrors lay within until the day the boxes opened, unleashing a plague of parasitic alien spores on the unprepared populace. Anyone infected is transformed into a violent maniac with a single goal. Find more hosts!
Soon the cities belong to the infected. Mankind’s greatest achievements lay in ruins. Food and water are commodities to be fiercely protected. Shelter is any place that can be defended, and self-preservation is dependent upon skill with weapons. All who are able must escape the cities as the ever-growing hordes of infected humans hunt for new hosts and roving gangs of desperate survivors steal anything of use.
In Phoenix, Arizona, a diverse band of survivors is tested to their limits by this other-worldly plague and the ensuing madness that consumes civilization. Each of the survivors must adapt to overcome the brutal challenges that they face.
As they search for an oasis in the Arizona desert, the close-knit group of survivors are attacked at every turn by victims of the infection and the worst examples of humanity. With their hard-won haven attained, they allow themselves a fragile moment to bask in relative safety. But like all refugees, they soon discover that not only is sanctuary precious in this harsh new world…it is also fleeting.