Sixteen-year-old Miles and his family must flee their Minneapolis home and begin a new life in the wilderness after a chain of cataclysmic volcanic explosions creates dangerous conditions in their city.

A group of survivors, originally trapped together in a superstore by a series of escalating disasters, has split in two -- one group heading to Denver airport on a repaired school bus, the other remaining in the Sanctuary trying to rebuild the community they lost. But the world outside is dark and filled with dangerous chemicals that turn people into bloodthirsty monsters.

Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth and mankind fell to disease. Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and they survived. But surviving the sun flares was easy compared to what came next. Now a disease of rage and lunacy races across the eastern United States, and there's something suspicious about its origin. Worse yet, it's mutating, and all evidence suggests that it...