Five winters after the EMP took the lights, a coatless man drags himself off a field with a stolen ledger.
Towns fill its pages beside a column of figures, along with one word that means a place has already been decided.
Stuart Redman's valley is on the list. The thing coming for it is not a raid but a quiet, patient system that has emptied four towns and left every roof standing.
Eleven people will have to enter the harshest weeks of winter if they want to stop it, carrying only one shot.
