In the initial story, a foster child and an optimistic loner named Jack Sullivan finds himself abandoned in a cartoonish end-of-the-world apocalypse.

He thrives on freedom, junk food, and video games while building a team of his classmates to fight off zombies as well as a trove of campy monsters who have also somehow appeared.

Subsequent books continue the same comic dystopian scenario with the team of mismatched school kids facing new antagonists, new monsters and new challenges.

The nine books follow a thirteen-year-old boy named Jack Sullivan, who lives in his foster brother's tree house after a zombie outbreak hits his hometown, Wakefield, Massachusetts.

He is accompanied by his best friend Quint Baker, who loves experimenting; June Del Toro, a strong, brave girl who used to be the school newspaper's editor-in-chief; and Dirk Savage, the local bully with exceptional fighting skills.