Cannibals Don't Inhale (ePub)

As if things aren't already strange enough in the city of Rochester, an unknown percentage of the population has suddenly and inexplicably turned into deranged cannibals; one minute relatively normal, if rather bland and uninspired men and women, the next insatiable monsters feeding on family, friends and neighbors. Cannibals Don't Inhale chronicles this bizarre descent into human meat-eating madness, tracking the movements of a few small groups of survivors as they attempt to avoid the ongoing carnage and stay alive until help arrives. Assuming it ever will.
The surprising key to their survival, as it turns out, is the lowly cigarette; a fat plume of smoke blown directly into the faces of the cannibals renders them temporarily incapacitated. The near-perfect irony, if one only had the time to appreciate it. Cigarettes, unfortunately, just aren't that easy to come by anymore. The steadily rising clamor for a smoke-free America is close to reaching critical mass; smokers are generally perceived as godless sociopaths, and the few remaining tobacco companies teeter precariously on the brink of extinction. Once the powerful rightwing religious lobby officially hops aboard the anti-smoking juggernaut, offering irrefutable biblical confirmation of a direct link between Satan and the cigarette (you have to read very carefully, but it is there, apparently), nervous lawmakers across the country have little choice but to begin criminalizing tobacco use. Smokers, as the non-smoking majority enjoys quipping, are a dying breed.
No small challenge for the few remaining verifiable humans desperately in need of a smoke. And even if they can survive the weekend in fun-filled Rochester, what guarantee is there that the cannibal plague won't begin happening elsewhere? Or has it already? And how many cigarettes can a person smoke before feeling too sick to even care?