“The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best.” —Stephen King
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 a tight-knit crew. There’s
Kent, one of the most popular kids in school; Ephraim and Max, also well
liked and easygoing; then there’s Newt the nerd and Shelley the odd
duck. For the most part, they all get along and are happy to be
there—which makes Scoutmaster Tim’s job a little easier. But for some
reason, he can’t shake the feeling that something strange is in the air
this year. Something waiting in the darkness. Something wicked…
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—a man
in unspeakable torment who exposes Tim and the boys to something far
more frightening than any ghost story. Within his body is a
bioengineered nightmare, a horror that spreads faster than fear. One by
one, the boys will do things no person could ever imagine.
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.
Part Lord of the Flies, part 28 Days Later—and
all-consuming—this tightly written, edge-of-your-seat thriller takes
you deep into the heart of darkness, where fear feeds on sanity…and
terror hungers for more.