A mysterious illness is sweeping across the nation with devastating speed and brutality. The infected are dying; the problem is they aren't staying dead. Evie, a single mother from New Jersey, knows the undead aren't even the worst part. Evie works for the Hardgen Nuclear Facility and knows zombies can't keep a nuclear reactor running. The resulting neglect will be catastrophic failure: at the end of 8 days, every nuclear facility in the United States will melt down, leaving the land a literal dead zone. Evie must do whatever she can to protect her 10 month old daughter and knows of a safe place in New Mexico. However, she will need to fight her way through the undead and roaming psychopaths to get there. On her excursion, she runs into unlikely companions from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Having just survived the party of the century, the college students woke to a zombie knocking on their door. Desperate for survival, they flee the relative safety of the campus and head out on the road. Will a handsome college baseball star be able to convince Evie to trust again? She is reluctant to fill them in on the soon to be safest place in the nation, but will she leave the newcomers to fend off countless hungry zombies and burning radiation?