Excerpt
The smell of salt water reached inland and drove him faster. Randy’s boots were very tight and hurt his feet. He knew they hurt because they, like his hands, had become much larger due to the swelling. He couldn’t stop long enough to take off the boots. He hurried on. Finally, he climbed a small hill and the black ocean stretched out before him as far as his swollen eyes could see. The tide was in, but even Randy, who had lived all his life in Nebraska, could tell something was wrong. He moved forward, and finally realized the sound of the water was muffled because the sea was full of bodies.

The corpses of those who had arrived before him shifted and rolled gently as the tide pushed toward the shore. Randy stepped among them, pushing them aside, moving toward the sea, finally clambering over the dead, crawling forward over a solid mass of bodies, the bit of April he carried sticking to his hand like so much mucus as he fought to get over the corpses and into the ocean. As he got further from the shore, the bodies were fewer and moved away when he pushed at them. He slid back into the water.