A normal camping trip: Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip, a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. The boys are all friends, and the weekend should go smoothly.

A horrifying visitor: It comes to them in the night. An unexpected intruder, stumbling upon their campsite like a wild animal. He is shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry. And whatever has made him sick . . . is contagious.

A struggle to the death: And so it begins. An agonizing weekend in the wilderness. A harrowing struggle for survival. No possible escape from the elements, the infected . . . or one another.

The incredible novel of friendship, horror, wilderness and survival by a modern master.