Zombie

The Cursed Manuscripts

By: Iain Rob Wright

Narrated by: Aubrey Parsons

On December 21, 2012, according to the Mayan Calendar, the world was supposed to end. It didn't. But on that day, 113 mysterious manuscripts were discovered around the world, each one written in blood by an unknown author. After several dozen unexplained deaths befell the finders of said manuscripts, a decision was made to lock them up for good in a secret vault beneath the Vatican. It is said that anyone who reads the stories will die, and as such they are now referred to as the "Cursed Manuscripts".

In December 2020, new manuscripts started turning up around the world. Zombie was one of them.

MANUSCRIPT ID: 12/20-02 (ZOMBIE)

Details below.

Manuscript 12.20-02, discovered June 2021 in Stoke, United Kingdom, by teenager, Kyle Smith, who found it abandoned on the seat of a bus. Kyle Smith was hit by a car and killed two days later. The following text was found written on an unsent text message found on his phone. There was no recipient.

After a terrible night of arguing, a young married couple, Laura and Danny, drive home with their daughter, Rose, asleep in the back seat. Danny is drunk, and shouldn't be driving at all, but Laura keeps quiet about it. She always keeps quiet. There's no point making her husband angry. That would only make things worse.

But things are about to get much much worse.

What happens next will put Laura's strained marriage to the ultimate test as she and Danny find themselves broken down in the middle of the night on a lonely road. Their only hope for survival is to stay inside the car, because that's the only way to avoid the cannibalistic maniacs outside trying eat them.

If you love dread-filled stories full of scares and new twists on old genres, then Zombie is the book you've been waiting for. Grab your copy now.

©2022 Iain Wright (P)2025 Iain Wright

Critic reviews

"Iain Rob Wright scares the hell out of me!" (J.A. Konrath)

Good stuff

Without giving too much away:

I love zombie audiobooks so much right now. I prefer the realistic ones dealing with families to the army fighting ones. This story was about a family and the narrator has the cutest accent ever. This was a good one!!

Good story

Great zombie story by a really great author. Enjoyed the characters except for Danny. He was a @#$&&. Narrator was okay once I got past the really heavy scottish(?) accent. Would definitely continue the series.

Decent zombie book (for beginners)

Let me preface this review by saying that I enjoyed this book. However, since I’ve been into the zombie genre for years, this one comes across as something for a newbie. It was a quick listen to pass the day, but it didn’t give me the thrill that I normally experience with full zombie books. The characters were limited (about 10/12 total) so they didn’t leave a lot of room for character development and full backstory. Still a pretty decent read.

Another win by Wright

A great claustrophobic story with equal parts “Cujo” and a nod to “The Shining” it turns the zombie genre in a direction I personally haven’t heard before. The mother’s metamorphosis from unsure and meek to full fledged hero was really fun. No character was fully safe and the suspense is thick. A few infuriatingly stupid acts by the main characters (who throws a phone out the window?) but that’s a horror mainstay. Solid story and worth the credit.

Tense and gripping

Though it seemed to take a little while to get to the action, in hindsight all the setup was fairly important. Once you get into the action though, the story really picks up its pace and doesn't slow down until the end. I would have preferred a little more details about the shadowy origins of the zombies, but the ambiguous and sort of unfinished nature of the ending works well for the "found footage" sort of style the author was going for with this series.