In an apocalypse there is definitely a beginning where mistakes are made and the seeds of evil are allowed to sprout and take shape. However, an end is not so certain. Once an Apocalypse occurs not even death is certain. Sometimes death is only the beginning. At first light that morning, Dr Lee steps into the Walton facility on the initial day of human trials; she can barely contain her excitement. The labs are brand spanking new and everything is sharp and clean. They've been built to her specifications and are, without a doubt, a scientist's dream. Yet even better than the gleaming instruments is the fact that Walton is where cancer is going to be cured once and for all. It’s where Dr. Lee is going to become world famous…only she doesn’t realize what she’s going to be famous for. By midnight of that first day, Walton is a place of fire, of blood and of death, a death that, like the Apocalypse, is seemingly never ending.

Day two. Quite simply, what could go wrong did go wrong. Given the choice between assuming leadership of a situation that is pure chaos, where the National Guard is forced into a position of going to war against a trapped and possibly infected citizenry, the President choses to punt. He knows what enforcing a quarantined zone will require: the massacre of tens of thousands of terrified people demanding to get out, and there is no way he’s going to have his name and legacy sullied. Suddenly a “States Rights” champion, he leaves the situation under the control of the Governor, but not before hampering the men on the lines with Rules of Engagement that are meant to sooth journalists instead of creating a possibility of victory. Tasked with the impossible, General Collins, commander of the 42nd Infantry Division is in a meeting with the Governor when the perimeter of the quarantine zone is ruptured. When his command post is overrun he’s grinding his teeth, sitting in front of the President as he smiles for the cameras, makes jokes and demands answers. And in the dead of night when a hundred thousand Infected Persons slug it out toe-to-toe with the fractured remains of his division, he is the only reinforcement available to shoulder a rifle. Inside the Zone, the survivors of Day 1 are dying by the score as Dr. Lee and her friends, hopelessly fight their way from one end of the Zone to the other, desperate to escape. But there is no way out except through death at the ripping teeth of the undead. Striving to put that horrible moment off as long as possible, she finds herself trapped alongside Anna Holloway and Lieutenant Eng—they are three scorpions in a bottle...a bottle surrounded by countless undead.

With the great battle between man and the undead apparently won and the situation seemingly in hand, the president leaps into action to take all the credit he can for saving the country and defending the Quarantine Zone. Surrounded by battalions of television news crews, he authorizes operation Swift Stand in which he commits the nation’s entire rapid deployment force in a show stopping extravaganza designed more to rekindle patriotic fervor and to lift his own sagging poll numbers than to stop the undead. Unfortunately, there have been leaks in the hard fought line and by the time the 82nd Airborne Division is dropped into central Connecticut, there are flesh hungry zombies wreaking havoc in Hartford, ten miles behind their lines. Suddenly, there is no line. Day three devolves into chaos as no one knows who is infected and who isn’t. Battles break out everywhere: soldier against soldier, and brother against brother, with fearsome zombies waiting to feast on the winners. In the middle of all the mayhem, Deckard and Thuy are fighting not just to stay alive, but to find each other in a land that now belongs solely to the dead.

Day Four-As if a zombie apocalypse wasn't bad enough, the country is also in the throes of a second Civil War. Massachusetts has closed its borders to everyone, including the 101st Airborne Division and five million desperate refugees. It's an act of rebellion that the President won't stand for, and with nuclear missiles flying by the hundreds in China, he mulls the idea of using nukes on American soil for the first time. And his nuclear sites aren't just centered on Massachusetts, either. Anna Holloway and Lieutenant Eng are loose in Baltimore with vials of infected blood, the city of Philadelphia is crumbling under a terrific storm of undead, and half of Pennsylvania has fallen. Although the call to arms has been answered by thousands of men and women, it won't be enough. The fate of the country rests on a stout few: FBI Agent Katherine Pennock who has to hunt down Anna and Eng before they create more zombies; Sergeant Troy Ross of the 101st who finds himself the linchpin in an epic battle involving millions; and Doctor Thuy Lee who holds the key to a cure somewhere in her brilliant mind. Unfortunately she is still trapped in the Zone with legions of undead and if there is any hope of finding the cure, she first has to live through day four of the apocalypse.

Five days in the grinder. Five days of endless pain and no sleep. Five days of the hardest work imaginable—it’s the work of surviving and not one second of it has been easy. This is the story of how the world ends as we know it. It’s the story of the apocalypse. It’s the story of how we lost. The fifth day begins in a bloody fight that stretches across the globe because, as you will see, the consuming hate, the greedy hunger, and violent anger found in the zombies was not instilled in them by the infection. No, these traits were already there even before they turned. These are human traits and they are never more apparent than when our backs are against the wall. From the Staten Island kindergarten teacher, to the Armenian plumber, to the Chinese shoe salesman, all the things that makes zombies so terrible is a part of who we are. Those of us who can fight against these urges are called the good guys. There’s very few of us left at the beginning of day five and by the end…well, you will have to see for yourself if there are any good guys left when the clock strikes midnight on humanity.