When a comet turns half of humanity into flesh-eating Shamblers, handyman Gideon Rusk hides indoors, still hoping Tessa Morrell, the girl he chased for two years, is alive. When she arrives fleeing a horde with her family, they shove him out and lock the door, leaving him to be torn apart. Yet Gideon wakes as something worse than dead: a Shambler who still thinks. He discovers he can devour the energy cores of the infected and the awakened, stealing each core's power - speed, fire, light, healing - and growing stronger with every kill. Mute and gray-skinned, he wins the trust of survivor Inez Calder and teams up with the archer Faye Serrano, while his strange black core hints at a darker gift: the dead obey him. Haunted by dreams of a crowned figure ruling an army of the fallen, Gideon returns to Rusk House with a horde at his back, forces the family to face a recording of their murder plot, and makes them pay - while a rescue organization ranks him as its most dangerous target.
