The sky darkened, black and oily; swirling, turbulent, impregnated with vigilance. It was not a bad turn of the weather promising rain or storm or tornado. It was keenly alive. Silent, yet ever moving, ever alert for what was commonplace in those dark and dangerous days. Always with its ravenous eye upon death. When the buzzards took flight, Levi Hobbs knew his family's only hope of survival was to escape. They were coming, the Biters, the dead, risen as zombies, infested by parasites and transformed into shambling, ravenous monsters. As the family flees their home in the Smoky Mountains, they head eastward to the Carolinas in search of refuge. As the buzzards on their trail grow thicker, the Zone widens, and the Biters become hungrier and more hostile. The Hobbs family realizes there is only one place left to go, one place to make a final stand... and time is running out.