Zero Lives Remaining

By: Adam Cesare

It's gamers versus ghosts in this pulse-pounding novella from award-winning author Adam Cesare!

It’s 1989, and Robby Asaro is making FunCave Arcade’s pizzas when his sleeve is caught on the pizza oven conveyor belt, and he dies a brutal death. But that wasn't the end for Robby, who is now a friendly ghost watching over the gamers of the arcade.

Fast forward to 2014, and this retro video arcade is still going strong as teens flock to both the new games on the main floor and the old classics on the second. What they don't know is that FunCave is now haunted by the man who died there in the 1980s. Robby cares about the regulars, especially Tiffany Park. When Robby tries to protect Tiffany from a bully, his first kill has unintended consequences as he absorbs his victim's hate and rage. He can't help what he does next as more bodies pile up and the patrons of the arcade are trapped inside. Blood and ectoplasm fly in this new edition of the nostalgic slasher from one of horror’s best writers, the incomparable award-winning and bestselling author Adam Cesare.

Saying Adam Cesare is one of the best new voices in horror is getting old because he has a great body of work to his name, so it’s time to drop the ‘new’ and declare he’s now one of the best voices in horror.―GABINO IGLESIAS, award-winning author of The Devil Takes You Home

I’ve yet to read an Adam Cesare novel that didn’t A) immediately reach up from the page, grab me by the Dennis Rodman lapels, and pull me face first into the story, or B) get me to fall head over heels for this world before I’m even a quarter of the way through the book.―STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES, New York Times bestselling author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Cesare is a true master of fast-paced, fun, balls-out, over-the-top fear fiction, and those narrative talents are on full display in this video-arcade-set gore-o-rama ghost novel.―FANGORIA

The victims in Zero Lives Remaining are different—far from being the typical lost, wide-eyed fodder; these outcasts and obsessives quickly catch on to the truth of their awful situation and come to battle armed in their own strange ways...enough to leave every joystick of the arcade drenched in blood.―RUE MORGUE

Critic reviews

Saying Adam Cesare is one of the best new voices in horror is getting old because he has a great body of work to his name, so it’s time to drop the ‘new’ and declare he’s now one of the best voices in horror.—GABINO IGLESIAS, award-winning author of The Devil Takes You Home

I’ve yet to read an Adam Cesare novel that didn’t A) immediately reach up from the page, grab me by the Dennis Rodman lapels, and pull me face first into the story, or B) get me to fall head over heels for this world before I’m even a quarter of the way through the book.—STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES, New York Times bestselling author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Cesare is a true master of fast-paced, fun, balls-out, over-the-top fear fiction, and those narrative talents are on full display in this video-arcade-set gore-o-rama ghost novel.—FANGORIA

The victims in Zero Lives Remaining are different—far from being the typical lost, wide-eyed fodder; these outcasts and obsessives quickly catch on to the truth of their awful situation and come to battle armed in their own strange ways...enough to leave every joystick of the arcade drenched in blood.—RUE MORGUE

While Video Night is an exceptional novel, the wistfulness in Cesare's latest, Zero Lives Remaining, is twice as thick, the monsters a tad more gooey and intelligent, and the pacing even more insane. The result is a narrative that oozes a bizarre kind of melancholy while celebrating the classic video games and music of a different era while crushing bodies with more speed, creativity, and ease than most current best-selling horror authors put together.—HORRORTALK

Cesare is on the top of his game and delivers possibly his best story yet by unleashing a fountain of energy to keep you turning pages and enough horror to make you think twice about touching another arcade game.—SPLATTERPUNK MAGAZINE