On the island of Big Tancook, Collie Jones is making plans. She informs the islanders that it’s time to resume her original mission - to find other survivors, screen them, and return them to the island. Every survivor she brings back is one more valuable addition to the skill and gene pool. But first, she must return to the place whence she came. She must secure the elaborate government bunker called Whitecap and its vast stores of munitions within.

After securing the vast government bunker of Whitecap and learning of her affliction, Collie decides to head west to challenge the sinister road clan known as the Leather and kill its leader, the Dog Tongue. Along for the ride is Gus Berry, who knows full well the very thing that is killing Collie is also keeping her alive. His growing affection for the operator is only matched by his dislike of the one called Milo, the very man who shot her, who Collie insists on bringing along on their mission. 

In Canterbury, as the virus rages out of control, one troop of Royal Marine Commandos fights a 360-degree battle for survival while also racing to rescue the Channel Tunnel survivors from a relentless siege, all before Hellfire missile strikes and carpet bombing kill anyone left alive. Across the Atlantic,the crew of the USS John F. Kennedy risks a catastrophic reactor meltdown to get out of the path of a 10-mile-wide tide of the dead.

Boomstick. Samurai bat. Motorcycle leather. And the will to live among the unliving. Augustus Berry lives a day-to-day existence comprised of waking up, getting drunk, and preparing for the inevitable day when "they" will come up the side of his mountain and penetrate his fortress. Living on the outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain after civilization died two years ago, Gus knows that every time he goes down into undead suburbia could be his last.

It was just a random mutation - one of a billion that happen in viruses every day. But this one was different. It exploded out of Somalia and spread across the oceans before anybody thought to look up from their cell phones to see what was going on. The infected breathed the virus into the air around them, spreading it through the cities faster than anyone thought possible. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Police lines crumbled. Quarantine sites disintegrated. Cities started to collapse.