Deadland is the world’s most ambitious new theme park, where zombie-themed robots run wild in a sprawling post-apocalyptic wasteland in rural South Carolina. Its creator, Derek Farber, is a young visionary who is obsessed with a mythical virus that killed a bunch of island tourists ten years ago but never went global. His park imagines a world in which the outcome was different, although most of Deadland’s visitors aren’t thinking about worst-case scenarios. They’re thinking about the cool pics they can post on Instagram after surviving the Log Flume of Doom. When Farber invites the once-famous-but-now-disgraced virologist Dr. Piper Prescott to Deadland, she agrees—eager to see his creation, but skeptical of his true motives. While venturing through the park on her own, Piper encounters a frantic father named Nick Calvo, who claims he lost his 11-year-old son on a ride called the Cadaver Fields. But as it turns out, Nick’s boy isn’t just lost—he’s sick. Very sick. And to Piper, the boy seems to be afflicted with the same mythical, island-borne virus that inspired Farber’s park. Unlike most of the world, though, Piper knows it isn’t mythical. It’s real—and it’s deadly. And if she doesn’t act fast, Deadland won’t just be a hunting ground for zombie enthusiasts. It’ll be Ground Zero.