Hunter Ashcroft’s career in the military was suddenly cut short by an Iraqi sniper’s bullet. Working hard to adjust back into civilian life he is just learning how to be a civilian again when the world takes a sudden change. Middle Eastern terrorists devise a daring plan to bring their holy war to the shores of America by infecting a Special Forces team with a deadly virus. Something in the engineering of the virus goes wrong and it begins to rapidly mutate as it begins to spread. Once the virus reaches its zenith it becomes clear that it cannot be stopped. The lucky ones are the millions who die quickly from exposure. Millions of others emerge from the effects of the virus in a brain damaged and deranged state of perpetual hostility. Small pockets of those immune to the virus soon learn that in a matter of days the world has changed into a very dangerous place. The survivors are forced to flee from hordes of infected wandering the land and band together for survival against incredible odds. Hunter soon finds himself returning to his role as a leader and fighting to keep a small group of survivors alive as they desperately search for a place of refuge. A disillusioned faction of survivors rises up against Hunter and the others and strikes out on their own, leaving a bloody trail of destruction in their wake. Faced with infected as well as armed and dangerous mutineers, Hunter must now lead the other survivors to safety against impossible odds.

It has been a year since the initial outbreak of an infection resulting from a failed terrorist attack. No corner of the globe was spared. Millions simply died during the early days of the outbreak, many more survived, and many of the survivors turned into permanently brain damaged feral creatures. All forms of modern society had collapsed, governments no longer functioned, electric lights and running water were a thing of the past. A handful of survivors with a natural immunity to the virus are alone in a world that belonged to the infected. Hunter Ashcroft, a wounded vet of the Iraqi war, leads a small contingent of survivors in their bid to etch out a new life in the hostile American heartland. Joined by former military members as well as a close cadre of trusted civilian fighters and layman, they work side by side against staggering odds to just survive a day at a time. One man in their ranks found comfort in the new world, a place where rules and order no longer existed. Gerald Monroe believed the time of the infected was also a chance for him to wipe the slate clean and rebuild in his own twisted vision. Recruiting a handful of weak minded followers, they staged a bloody coup and struck out on their own. Now, with a growing army of followers, Gerald plans a bold and devastating attack against Hunter and his people. Amidst the conflict between the two camps, an ominous change is seen in the habits of the infected that roamed the land. It is not enough for the infected to kill the few surviving humans that are uninfected, they have now turned to acts of savagery never before imagined.

A failed biological attack by Middle Eastern terrorist ravaged the population of the world. Millions dead, millions more turned into feral creatures that spend their time hunting down the handful of survivors desperately trying to rebuild and make a life for themselves. Several years have now passed since the majority of the infected population suddenly dropped out of sight. With the threat seemingly abated, Hunter Ashcroft and other survivors now begin to branch out in an effort to find other pockets of civilization. Leading an expedition to explore the remnants of Nashville, Tennessee they are surprised to find a thriving community making their home inside the buildings of a large shopping mall. College student turned scientist Rachel Benchley is among the survivors living inside the mall. Her experiments on the infected reveal a possible explanation for their sudden mass disappearance years earlier. Instead of dying off as a result of the virus that turned them into the creatures they had become, they were evolving and changing once more into something much deadlier and horrific. While popular fiction has many theories how a zombie plague could descend upon the earth, those theories were easily discounted as just stories. Now, the survivors must prepare themselves as those stories become reality and the dead that had once been infected return to life and stalk humans for a nourishing enzyme that will keep them alive. It doesn’t take Hunter and his people long to learn while it appears on the surface that this sheltered colony living inside the mall has done remarkably well for themselves in this post-apocalyptic world, something sinister has been brewing within their ranks that even their own people were not aware of. As if the threat of a brewing zombie outbreak were not enough, they learn that their own kind are willing to sell their souls to the devil if that’s what it takes to ensure their own survival.