It's one thing to plan a rave for your cool high school buddies in an abandoned bomb shelter. It's another thing entirely when a geek interrupts your decorating efforts and bumps the door closed, sealing you and several friends inside.

But what are you going to do when you finally get out and discover the entire San Fernando Valley is populated with zombies? Your family, your friends, your teachers -- everyone who wasn't in the shelter with you is now out to eat your brains.

Death Valley is a fun little story of survival that doesn't skimp on the more serious side of the tale. The book is brief, but you feel for these kids and you mourn their losses.

Andrew Cosby wrote the story with Johanna Stokes, and Rhoald Marcellus provided good, cartoony art.

The book also includes several shorter stories of varying success, all following the basic zombie theme. The best of them is "For Pete's Sake," a brief vignette by Johanna Stokes (featuring excellent, painterly art by J.K. Woodward) that focuses on the survivors of a zombie apocalypse and one woman's faith in her husband's eventual recovery.