With the great battle between man and the undead apparently won and the situation seemingly in hand, the president leaps into action to take all the credit he can for saving the country and defending the Quarantine Zone. Surrounded by battalions of television news crews, he authorizes operation Swift Stand in which he commits the nation’s entire rapid deployment force in a show stopping extravaganza designed more to rekindle patriotic fervor and to lift his own sagging poll numbers than to stop the undead. Unfortunately, there have been leaks in the hard fought line and by the time the 82nd Airborne Division is dropped into central Connecticut, there are flesh hungry zombies wreaking havoc in Hartford, ten miles behind their lines. Suddenly, there is no line. Day three devolves into chaos as no one knows who is infected and who isn’t. Battles break out everywhere: soldier against soldier, and brother against brother, with fearsome zombies waiting to feast on the winners. In the middle of all the mayhem, Deckard and Thuy are fighting not just to stay alive, but to find each other in a land that now belongs solely to the dead.