One drug saved the world. Now, the same drug threatens to destroy it. Ian Keys’s rocket career took him to the top of pharma giant Hemisphere—creator of Necrophage, the drug that paused the outbreak and allowed the infected to live among us as normal. Ian’s new position gives him access to secrets. To information the company doesn’t want others to know. And now, an anonymous insider has begun feeding him ominous hints. Ian can’t say what’s wrong at Hemisphere, exactly—only that something is. And that the “cure” the company gave the world might not have been a cure at all. Now men are watching Ian’s house. They’re following his wife wherever she goes. When he’s called to CEO Archibald Burgess’s office, he’s taken by armed guards—then plied with vague threats. What would happen if Necrophage failed? Burgess asks. What would become of our society if the disease were allowed to progress again … and all of our well-behaved patients slowly turned feral? There’s only one person Ian can take his case to: reporter Alice Frank, who’s been trying to blow the whistle on Hemisphere for years. But is there enough time to save what’s left of the world … or has the inevitable slide back into chaos already begun? In this gripping biological technothriller, bestselling authors Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt blend real-world genetic engineering and high-stakes corporate espionage to deliver a heart-pumping race against the clock to save humanity.

The virus has evolved and is spreading again with a new wave of infections, far worse than before. Yosemite’s fully-contained zombie population breaks out and now it appears that animals are carrying the infection as well. The walled-off, zombie-overrun city of Bakersfield is attacked and eventually obliterated, but still there's no going back as the virus slowly overtakes a nation hell-bent on containing it. Jordache Dale has heeded Golem's call and is traveling west, like a Typhoid Mary, leaving a path of viral destruction in her wake. Bobby Baltimore has gone to Yosemite to repent and live the rest of his life as a zombie. Park Rangers Brie and Ramon have discovered something they really didn't want to know, while Parvati Bahl, mayor of the neighboring town works to keep their community from falling apart. And BDS agents, Krystopher Bryce and Alexander Zakrey are forced to make a new deal with an old devil. But this time the virus is spreading too fast for anyone to stop. And with Archibald Burgess still up to his old tricks, his evil clarifier henchman wreaking havoc across the nation, and anti-necrotic hate groups popping up across the country, the dead have never been more alive.

The United States and the United Kingdom are lost to the necrotic plague. Europe, desperate to keep the disease from its shores considers the most drastic of measures: nuking the US and UK to eradicate the disease entirely and start over. Meanwhile, pieces move around the puzzle inside the States until we learn that Necrosis has a natural course that, if we leave it alone, will reach a new evolutionary equilibrium instead of devolving into mindless biting and chaos. But if we let necrotic nature take its course, will there be any uninfected left to survive it?