"All I want is to play cards, to run my fingers over those slick, hard surfaces, to feel that cold power flowing in and out through my hands and eyes." Dennis Doyle is feeling lucky. His landscaping business is thriving, his girlfriend loves him, he's got money in the bank, and the city bus that ran into him that morning left him alive and well. Soon he'll turn sixteen and buy himself a car. Everything is going his way. So when his buddies ask him to play poker, Denn says yes. The cards are dealt, the money is bet...and the worst possible thing happens. Denn wins. And he likes it.

In 2028 a deadly Flu virus ravages the Earth. Only one in two thousand survive the virus, and these "Survivors" are rarely left unaffected. By 2038, only thirty-eight million people remain on Earth. Most of them live in small communities, ever fearful of outsiders who might bring the deadly Flu. Ceej Kane lives with his uncle and his Survivor sister, Harryette, in an abandoned hotel on the rim of the Grand Canyon. His quiet, boring life suddenly becomes a desperate adventure when Uncle and Harryette disappear. Searching for them, Ceej and his only friend, Tim, are attacked by the Kinka, a...