Aftershock starts on the day Los Angeles is smacked by the biggest earthquake in recorded history. The initial tremor began “like a deeply released, contented sigh from a lover in warm slumber,” and quickly escalates to a 9.4 on the Richter magnitude scale.

After a few shaky moments, the earth moved 12 inches. Property damage was estimated to be more than 100 billion dollars and 75,000 people were now dead. Said author Robert W. Walker: “L.A. was like a fallen Humpty-Dumpty.” All the king’s men couldn’t put the City of Angels back together again.

To make matters worse, a team of scientists were sequestered in an underground L.A. laboratory at the time of the quake. Working on a super secret virus, their mission was to create a truly terrible weapon to add to the country’s chemical-biological arsenal.

When a 40-story building collapsed on the subterranean research facility, the experimental CBW was released prematurely into the environment. Feeding on the dead and taking control of first responders, the virus arose Phoenix-like to terrorize local citizens.

The virus, a recombinant DNA version of a rare New Guinea cannibalism disease, transformed its host into a hungry and vengeful monster (see the book’s cover illustration for a surprisingly accurate rendition). “Its limbs were large, thick branches, covered with layers of rotted, scorched and scaly skin. They moved fluidly as if bone had become latex. The head and eyes, a mass of lumpy flesh, carried two bulging, twisted orbs. The large nostrils formed a snout, recklessly pushed to one side. The torso was that of a hunchback. Skin was the color and consistency of creosote, found inside a well-used chimney. Claws dragged along the ground, too heavy for the weak frame. But they were tough, hard and metallic.”

The monster wasn’t just a heap of “rotted skin and lumpy flesh,” however. After munching on brains and offal all day, it carried the weight of existential grief on its shoulders. Like all living things, it had a primordial urge to reproduce. “The creature pondered this grim thought until it ached,” said the author.

But don’t shed a tear for the “Brain Snatcher.” By the end of the novel it was leaving a messy trail of headless corpses all over L.A. County. One way or another, the virus and the host had to be eradicated.

The creature was ultimately vanquished in a showdown at Dodger Stadium. “You’re no demon!” said Dr. Michael McCain. “You’re just a twisted lump of flesh, a life form that was never meant to be! I’m going to send you straight to hell!”

The Brain Snatcher paused, trying to interpret the words of the man standing before it. After a brief moment of reflection, its indecipherable screech of pain could be heard from the Santa Monica Pier to the hills of the San Fernando Valley. “Awaataa! Awaataa! Awaataaaaa!!”

[Aftershock / By Robert W. Walker / First Printing: November 1987 / ISBN: 9780312909062]