i am really glad i didn't read this right after i read feed. it would have been really unsatisfying. as an alternate ending, yeah it works, but it's really just kicking someone when they're down. i mean, it's already bleak, both if you are the kind of person who is really sensitive and the idea of a world destroyed by zombies is enough to bring your emotions to the surface, but also if you are made of somewhat tougher stuff and get, you know, attached to characters (stay away from george r.r. martin, you). and then there's me, who usually doesn't get emotionally attached to books, but i genuinely did love these characters, and the first book is distressing enough. to have had it end this way would have been annoying, like "why bother reading any more if she's just gonna be a dick about it?" which, instead, she gave us two more full-length novels and good lord 8 splinter stories now?? yeah, the new one was released a few days ago: 
 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13... 
 jeeez. and now she is officially the smiths: a band with more greatest hits albums that studio ones. well done, mira grant... 
 i could read these all day, though, so i cannot complain