Nick counts survivors. It’s been ten years since the virus started paring down the human population. Every summer, like an early flu season, it comes back and takes more. Nick travels the country to find communities that might barter for essentials and tries to get a headcount of those remaining.

When every person left alive is essential for the survival of humankind, a murder becomes especially heinous.

Nick finds the body of a young woman who was gunned down in an abandoned house. Also at the scene is the body of a well-armed man in black body armor. A random killing isn’t out of the ordinary. A girl, hunted and murdered by a mercenary is very disturbing. When Nick is tasked with finding her younger siblings, he sets off to rescue them with a desperate determination.

The safety he enjoys at High Meadow settlement is suddenly threatened. The settlement is right on the verge of becoming self sufficient. They live comfortably in a world shattered by season after season of deaths. The changed world that he’d finally come to accept turns out to harbor more secrets and lies. With the help of a biobot and stolen weapons, he must discover why someone would send teams of mercenaries to track and kill these children. Even if it brings them right to his doorstep.

Alice Sabo