The survivors, with an unexpected last-minute change to their travel plans, move toward Fort Carson, Colorado, in search of answers. It is a thousand-mile journey that provides unforeseen opportunities, unexpected losses, and tangled alliances. They must find the strength to endure the worst that the startling new world has to offer and to survive with their humanity—and lives—intact.

Along the way, they find colorful friends, bewildering enemies, and things more deadly than any of them had dreamed possible. They know that at the end of the journey, they stand to gain valuable information that will help their communities survive in the future, and perhaps even the answer to the virus itself.

Is it valuable enough to be worth heartbreaking loss . . . especially when they find that the end of their journey isn't what any of them had expected?