Zombie Road: Review of Z Nation 203


Summary

There’s new undead in town, and they’re pretty nasty. Blasters, as the survivors the gang stumble across call them, are super-fast brain-eating byproducts of kicking the bucket in a nuclear blast. They even have a leader, much like Murphy is for the zombies. We’ll call him the HBiC—Head Blaster in Charge.


HBiC has a bone to pick with Murphy, just like everyone else in the USA. He stalks the Zombie Road, first to make quick meals out of bandits, then he discovers a zombie he can’t control. Murphy’s mental immunity makes him a threat. Unfortunately, the lack of compatibility between zombie and blaster brains means Murphy is useless as nipples on a male hog when it comes to controlling the blasters and directing them away from the group. He’s also doggy paddling in the river Denial, refusing to admit the nuclear fallout forcing the group to walk away from California is his fault.

ZN 203 BlasterChow

The crew meets up with a Mad Max style wagon train. Okay, by meet I mean they saved their bacon when bandits attack the train in order to steal their vehicles. The bandits are killed. The vehicles are safe. Sam, the truck driver in charge, offers Roberta and her crew a place with his people. They’re heading to Edmonton, where the cold weather will protect them from zombies. Most of his people won’t make it another ten miles, let alone a long haul to colder places. They’re dying from radiation sickness. Of the twenty people in his wagon train, the majority ride in the medical truck. Including his son. Sam is also sick, but wading in Denial river alongside Murphy. The radiation sickness colors his judgment, making the car his nephew, Wrecking Ball, drives all-important. He nearly loses half the wagon train chasing after bandits who manage to steal the car from a stoned Doc and Wrecking Ball.

Yes, there’s Zombie Weed on this wagon train. Wrecking Ball claims it came from a lab in Minneapolis who grows it in an old GMO lab with fertilizer made from zombies. Murphy and Cassandra are big fans. The Z-Weed actually helps Cassandra regain some of her cognitive functions. It doesn’t stop her from eating her way through half a dozen bandits in order to recover the car.

ZN 203 ZWeedManHBiC rallies his blasters to attack the wagon train with Murphy aboard. Murphy doesn’t stick around. The second he’s given a chance, he steals Sam’s oh-so-precious car, leaving the semi-truck and the medical truck far behind. Cassandra watches from the back seat. HBiC doesn’t have to work hard to overcome the wagon train, Sam’s son keels over and turns. Within a minute, every sick person in the medical truck is a blaster. Addy bails from the truck. The others practice awful aiming trying to kill the blasters before they jump onto the main truck after Addy. By this point, the only survivor from the original wagon trail still breathing is Sam. Roberta realizes sticking around will equate a death sentence for her people. They all jump from the semi-truck. Down the road, HBiC kills Sam and the truck explodes.

The gang backtracks up the road and grabs a truck. They set a destination for Minneapolis, chasing the lab information Wrecking Ball provided. Luck would have it, Murphy has Wrecking Ball in the car with him. He uses the guy to get directions to the lab. Despite running away, Murphy is still going in the same direction as the people who want to turn him in and make a cure from his blood.

Hopefully Wrecking Ball’s information is good, not clouded by all that Zombie Weed.