Zombies Day Out

Three low-level crooks, Eddie, Norby, and Veeko, disguise themselves as CDC researchers to kidnap the infant son of a wealthy geneticist for ransom. Unbeknownst to them, the baby, nicknamed "Baby Boo," has recently been turned into a zombie but retains a seemingly adorable, waddling state. While the kidnappers bicker about changing a biohazard diaper, Baby Boo, driven by primal hunger, escapes through a window and begins a chaotic journey through the city. His misadventures include being mistaken for a Halloween animatronic in a department store where he playfully nips a floor manager, and wandering into the lion's den at the Central Park Zoo, where the lions are inexplicably terrified of him. In each instance, the kidnappers attempt to retrieve Baby Boo, suffering gruesome yet comical maulings by animals or the environment, but due to the zombie contagion, they are unable to truly die. The story culminates at a construction site where Baby Boo, unafraid and agile, navigates high-wire beams. The kidnappers, however, meet a series of increasingly brutal and fatal ends, only to reanimate and join the growing undead horde. The book concludes with Baby Boo's parents securing him in a reinforced titanium vault, while the now-undead kidnappers continue their shambling, mindless existence on the streets of Chicago, forever doomed to their own "brain-dead adventure."