Waking up as Patient Zero at the dawn of the apocalypse, Jax Mercer carries a deadly secret: a System timer that demands he infect a new host every 72 hours or turn into a walker. To survive without losing his humanity, Jax adopts a dark code—hunting drug dealers, looters, and predators to reset his clock. He becomes the group's silent guardian, a necessary monster who feeds the virus the guilty so the innocent can live.