The remastered and definitive edition of the explosive novel that helped redefine the modern zombie apocalypse—by New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sansbury Smith. Includes an exclusive new prequel novella, Extinction Kill Zone!

A mission that doesn’t exist. A threat that could end us all. A rapidly spreading outbreak no one can contain.

When a covert Medical Corps facility goes dark, it triggers a classified response. Master Sergeant Reed Beckham has led Delta Force Team Ghost through every kind of hell imaginable—and never lost a man. But this time, his team is deployed to contain a biological outbreak that has already escaped.

By the time they return to Fort Bragg, it’s spreading and turning people into Variants: hyper-fast, intelligent, and ravenous predators. Bullets and bombs can slow them, but they won’t stop them. Only science might.

As outbreaks escalate and cities begin to collapse, the military launches Operation Reaper—firebombing infected zones in a desperate attempt to slow the advance. In the middle of the chaos, Team Ghost is ordered to keep CDC virologist Dr. Kate Lovato alive while she searches for a cure.

What she uncovers is a terrifying truth and a solution that could either save humanity or destroy what remains. Because sometimes, to kill a monster… you have to create one.