Death is Only a Theoretical Concept

Welcome to Port Carmila, population 15, 725. Half that count isn’t even human, and that’s not including feral zombies, ghouls and ghosts, mostly because they don’t stand still long enough for counting. It’s a melting pot of the living, the immortal, and the dead … where death means you still have to pay the rent, the merfolk are experts in tax evasion, everybody hates the corny Dead Centre of Australia T-shirts sold at the tourist information centre, and the local police encourage you to carry a weapon at all times, regardless of legality. Sometimes the zombies aren’t your much-loved next-door neighbours…

When Steve Nakamura is dared—after a long-standing Port Carmila tradition—to seduce a vampire in return for his birthday present, he thinks it will be easy. Scrub up, find a hot undead girl who won’t care that he’ll start shambling the moment he stops breathing, kiss her, earn enough money for a new car stereo. Simple, if he doesn’t mind losing a little blood in the process. The cute and anxious Abe Browning, however, is surely undead and just as surely not a girl, and, as it turns out, that’s the last thing Steve needs to worry about when it comes to hooking up with vampires…