Jeff Grey

"'The pursuit of happiness seems worthwhile only because of the chase. You love it only if you don’t realize you’re never going to catch up.'""- Jeff Grey, to himself in Life After: The Void"Jeffrey James "Jeff" Grey is the protagonist and only point-of-view character in the Life After novels.

A college sophomore, Jeff returns to his hometown to see his girlfriend Julia Marino partake in a marching band competition at Thomas Massey high school just before the zombie apocalypse begins. In spite of the chaos, Jeff inadvertently rallies a group of survivors, kicking off the events of Life After: The Arising.

Appearance and Character
Jeff is relatively tall, with sincere blue eyes, fair skin, an easy smile, and an average, nonathletic physique. His clothing tastes are fairly eclectic, mixing corduroy pants, a button-down shirt, motorcycle boots, a trench coat, and a bowler that he wears with pride. He occasionally wears glasses, but doesn't seem to require them, and suffers from a mild case of exercise-induced asthma. While by no means dashing, his moderate attractiveness is bolstered by his eccentric self-confidence.

Jeff is fairly intelligent, perceptive, outwardly emotional, and possesses above-average situational awareness. Though he projects an aura of conviction tempered with reasonable self-doubt, he is often at some pains to acknowledge a deep-seated belief that his opinions, beliefs, and conclusions are empirically correct; for example, despite vigorously denying any assertion that he is in charge, Jeff frequently makes plans for the group while rarely seeking the input of others.

While Jeff affects a science-minded aura, he cultivates an amateur-level interest in philosophy and is prone to flights of karmic fancy bordering on mysticism regarding the dead returning to life. His erstwhile fascination with zombie culture leaves him prone to confirmation bias when determining any course of action. Despite his blunders, Jeff's instincts, ability to listen, willingness to delegate, and final decision-making processes avail him more often than not, though he is severely compromised when he suffers personal loss.

Throughout the early stages of the outbreak, Jeff views the undead with detached neutrality, believing them to be incapable of committing misdeeds intentionally as they are slaves to their condition while still embracing the necessity to kill them when warranted, but by the events of Life After: The Void, Jeff's focus has shifted to killing as many zombies as humanly possible, often to the point of sacrificing his own safety.

History
Born between February 19th and March 20th in 1985 to Mildred, a nurse, and Dermott, a salesman, Jeff was raised in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania alongside his older brother Dave. They shared an idyllic upbringing, benefiting from the love and support of their upper middle class parents in a nuclear family environment. Very early on in life, Jeff established a lasting friendship with John Anderson, and from a young age, both Jeff and Dave took Tae Kwon Do classes with their father. All three earned black belts in this discipline, and both Dermott and Jeff received rudimentary training with a katana.

Through the mutual acquaintance of their mothers, Jeff made friends with Alan Taylor sometime before high school, and as a result ultimately became close with Alan's friend Jack O'Connor. At Langstoon Chase middle school, Jeff and Anderson shared the same girlfriend; Anderson dated her first before she left him for Jeff, and after she and Jeff broke up, she went back to dating Anderson. This arrangement did not affect their friendship in any way, and when they began high school, he and Anderson joined the marching band alongside mutual friend Colin Mursak, with whom they would eventually form a band called The Noctambulists.

Later in high school, Alan, Jack, and Jeff would befriend Dave's buddy Drew Ruscitto, and the four of them would regularly hang out in the absence of Anderson, frequently absconding to the Grey family cabin near State College, PA, or Drew's father's condo in Wildwood. At the beginning of his junior year, Jeff meets Don Mason for the first time.

During band camp at his senior year in TMHS, Jeff met freshmen John "John Squared" Johnston, Ava Vaziri, and Julia Marino, later making a passing acquaintance with Melody Landon during his first semester. By the conclusion of his final semester, Jeff asked Julia to his senior prom and the two began dating. Jeff attended college at Temple University's Ambler campus, taking classes in writing, filmmaking, and philosophy. At some point between his freshman and sophomore years, Jeff and Julia suffered a tumultuous separation, and though they eventually reconciled, the events surrounding the split crippled Jeff's relationship with Ava, who remained Julia's best friend.

Life After: The Arising
Jeff drives from his suburban dormitory to surprise Julia as she participates in a marching band festival at his alma mater, encountering the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident near the I-476 interchange on the way. Julia and Jeff exchange pleasantries before she has to warm up, while Jeff laments that Anderson isn't present at the proceedings.

With the festival in full swing, Jeff notices a disturbance in the gated cemetery immediately behind the TMHS football field; it doesn't take long for him to realize the crowd of decaying bodies are, in fact, zombies. Jeff rushes the field to rescue Julia, attracting a small following that he unwittingly leads to the green house on the high school roof as chaos erupts in the football stadium and surrounding parking lot. Once settled, Jeff explains the grim possibilities of their situation, drawing the ire of Melody and impetuous sophomore Matt Hughes while finding some support for his plan to stay put in Ava, John Squared, and local vagrant Richard McKnight. The remaining survivors, Don and fellow band member Jake Klimavicius, say very little, but ultimately agree to spend the night. During the course of the evening, they are joined by Steve Parmacek, a student from out of town who was injured by one of the zombies. As a precaution, Jeff insists they restrain him before trying to sleep.

By morning, Matt has disappeared and Steve has turned into a zombie, confirming Jeff's suspicions about their predicament. Jake tries to leave as well, but is talked out of it before Jeff again laments the absence of Anderson, who had, since graduation, enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard. The group gathers supplies and listens to the radio, learning that the zombies are believed to be protesters, but the town is nevertheless quarantined. Over the next few hours, Jeff attempts to mitigate a burgeoning conflict between Ava and Melody while the group establishes a rotation to watch the main road in front of the school.

On the third rotation, Melody requests to join Jeff in an apparent effort to seduce him, but he rebuffs her advances, only to have her mock him when she discovers he's a virgin. When Julia joins him, Jeff admits that Melody tried to force herself on him, and later that evening, the two hear a barrage of automatic gunfire in the distance. Embracing the gravity of their situation, Julia vows that she will stay with Jeff no matter what. When they return from roof duty, Jeff accompanies Don to the downstairs bathroom, but Don gets away from Jeff and engages a small group of zombies that breached one of the classrooms. His fight is futile, and when the undead finally overcome Don, Jeff kills him. Jeff draws the undead away from the greenhouse, taking a back way up before succumbing to an asthma attack.

Once Jeff has recuperated, the group is miraculously stumbled upon by Anderson. Having found them, Anderson's next goal is to lead the group to the nearest check point and reattach with the Guard once he gets some sleep. In the intervening hours, Jeff and John Squared become closer as they muse on the religious, scientific, and philosophical implications of the undead, while Rich elaborates on an earlier criticism of Jeff's leadership skills and indicates that he'd prefer to take orders from Anderson. This inadvertently leads to feud between Melody and Ava exploding into a shouting match that ends with Jeff and Ava diving into an ugly fight over Julia.

That evening, a throng of undead sieges TMHS, splitting the group in half as they scramble for an escape; Jeff, Julia, Melody, and John Squared go one way while Anderson, Jake, Ava, and Rich go another. A chase across the roof leads Jeff's quartet through the ceiling of the gym and into the belly of the school, and they nearly make it out together before Jeff witnesses John Squared get disemboweled. Melody and Julia follow Jeff out to his car and they circle the driveway until they spot the second half of the group. Anderson, Jake, and Rich get in the car without Ava.

They drive first to the nearest major thoroughfare, finding that both lanes headed toward the nearest check point at I-476 are blocked with a line of abandoned vehicles, so they divert to the police station in the neighboring town of Broomall, which was supposed to be a rescue center but seems to have been recently abandoned under unsettling circumstances. Against Anderson's initial protests, they stop by a local sporting goods store to arm themselves and acquire a district school bus to unburden themselves from travel in Jeff's two-door sedan.

They arrive at the check point shortly before dawn, finding a massacre. An errant vehicle trying to merge on the interchange is stopped by the few remaining undead, so Jeff and Anderson rescue the occupant, former nurse Karen DeMarco. The group resupplies at a local supermarket and stops by Jeff's house, where he calls his parents who are vacationing in Bermuda before beginning a trek to the Lima Mall, the last known local rescue center. Along the way, Rich opens up to Jeff about his life before becoming homeless, but their trip is interrupted when they have to clear the barricades at the Springton Reservoir check point.

The group ends up spending the night at the Delaware County Community College, where Melody and Jeff patch up their animosity before the building is attacked by the undead, revealing another small group of survivors holed up in the complex. The next day, Jeff and his compatriots continue to the mall. When they arrive at yet another deserted rescue center, Anderson abandons his attempts to reconnect with the Guard and ratifies a previously suggested three-way leadership platform of himself, Jeff, and Rich. While the group spends the night at the mall pending their next move, Julia takes an opportunity to get Jeff alone and take their relationship to a long awaited next level.

When the mall is riddled with zombies the following day, the group hurriedly exits and decides to loot a nearby hospital for medical supplies. The mission goes well until Julia is badly cut by an errant swipe from a zombie with a scalpel wedged in its fist; having apparently committed suicide with the same instrument, the zombie's blood gets in Julia's open wound. Julia quickly resigns herself to her fate and asks to be rendered unconscious, sharing one last tender moment with Jeff before being executed by Rich. While agonizing in grief, Jeff contemplates suicide and imagines a conversation with Julia before passing out.

By the next day, Jeff is a shell of a man, spending most of his time wallowing in reminisces of Julia as the group abandons the hospital and returns to Newtown Square. After Rich indulges Jeff with the story of his divorce and estranged child, Jeff suggests that the group fortify TMHS to survive the worst of the crisis, bedding down in the nearby community center to avoid working and sleeping in the same place.

While scouting the community center, Jeff and Anderson find the body of a young girl who apparently committed suicide, and soon thereafter, they cross paths with Robert Proctor, a disoriented loner. A survey of TMHS the following day yields the discovery that the zombified Steve has remained untouched in the greenhouse, and not only do they find the zombie of John Squared, they also discover the resurrected corpse of Matt Hughes in the basement, believing that he may have led the siege back to them after his ill-conceived exodus. Once they've dispatched all of the remaining zombies, the group returns to the community center, where Karen cremates Julia's body in an old kiln.

The following morning, Jeff is summoned to speak with Alan and Jack, both of whom are surviving in State College near Dave. The rest of the day is spent using the abandoned cars around TMHS to barricade the major egresses. When they return to the community center, an ethical and spiritual debate erupts between Rob, Rich, and Anderson. The work continues the next day, with most of the time spent improving internal fortifications before a break in the action sees Jeff pleasantly surprised at a change in Melody's demeanor. He endears himself less to Karen when he seriously suggests that the group must eventually hunt and destroy the undead en masse.

A news report later in the evening suggests that the epidemic has spread to Europe, but a more pressing concern develops when Jeff finds Rob injecting drugs. An improvised intervention goes south and Rob nearly murders Jeff with his own rifle. To overcome his resulting rage, Jeff single-handedly engages a throng of undead, brutally executing them before dissolving into tears and passing out. With Rob isolated from the rest of the group, they continue working on TMHS the next day, culminating with Jeff and Anderson going to survey the football field and finding Mursak holed up in the concession hut. While pleased to see his friends, Mursak's first and only concern is that his younger sister Elena is still at home with his mom and dad, so Jeff, Anderson, and Mursak undertake a dangerous journey to Havertown that leads to the successful rescue of Mursak's sister and the demise of his infected parents.

An evening news report confirms what Jeff and Anderson intuited from several earlier encounters with the undead: the first wave that left Newtown Square a week prior has grown and is set to return to the area within the next few hours. The group prepares to spend one last night in the community center, but the building is besieged and the group splinters in the confusion. Jeff ultimately ends up alone on the roof of the building where he again strongly contemplates suicide, but his desire to avenge Julia's death emboldens him to fight moments before he's rescued by Mursak and Anderson. They escape to TMHS with rest of the group safely on the bus.

The group takes various positions around the high school to observe the approaching wave of zombies, but the undead seemingly take no interest in TMHS until a young woman runs screaming out of a house adjacent to the school. Anderson runs out to intercept her while Rich tries to lure the undead away using the bus. When Jeff suggests that the risk of saving this girl might not have been worth taking, Melody savagely dresses down his hypocrisy and storms off, leaving Jeff alone to contemplate what it means to be alive in a world where death is no longer the end.

Life After: The Void
Two months after the events of Life After: The Arising, Jeff, Anderson and Rich have settled their band of survivors into a new life at the freshly fortified high school, including a newly installed video surveillance system. While the group tensions seem to have largely abated into a realm of amicable mutual respect, the recently rescued Helen Cleary has bonded with Anderson while remaining passively at odds with Jeff, and their newest arrival, a psychology student discovered holding up in the otherwise abandoned Lima Mall named Althea Luangrath, largely keeps to herself. Jeff records the group's recent history in a journal, acknowledging that his brother has been killed and he's been dealing with his grief over the loss of Julia by sharing a bed with Melody.

Having spent several weeks cooped up in TMHS, Jeff proposes that he, Mursak, and Anderson travel to their former domiciles to collect computers and personal effects while scouting the surrounding region over Helen's strong objection. Rich is considerably less pleased by their intentions, instigating an altercation with Jeff that quickly turns physical. Jeff and Anderson undertake a long awaited trek to the cemetery adjoining TMHS, where it is confirmed that the undead at ground zero literally rose from their graves. When they return to the school, Jeff prepares weapons for their journey and discovers that Melody appears to be warming to his sophomoric philosophies. The plan to depart is solidified when Rich yields to his reservations, making their travel arrangements for the following day.

Jeff, Anderson, and Mursak wake up early and hit the road, negotiating various obstacles and musing that they may not be the lone residents of the greater Newtown Square area. They first travel to Anderson's apartment in Secane by way of a local consumer electronics store, where they discover a group of well-armed squatters and barely escape with their lives. While Anderson and Mursak search the apartment complex, Jeff dispatches a throng of the undead with typical violence and aggression, leaving his friends quietly unnerved. They next travel to Jeff's dormitory at Temple University Ambler, finding the campus abandoned until they encounter a large swatch of the zombified student body. Mursak's steadfast insistence upon gathering medical supplies from a nurse's station winds up putting Jeff and Anderson at risk, and though they escape unscathed, an ensuing argument reveals that Mursak blames Jeff for Julia's death. Jeff's aggressive threats to Mursak cloak the trip to his Havertown residence in silence, but not before yet another unsettling reminder that they are not the only survivors in the area.

They return to TMHS and, having retrieved his cell phone, Jeff calls his parents in Bermuda before hooking up his treasured computer and printing his valued writings before wandering to the courtyard in an effort to converse with Jake, finding him openly belligerent. After putting down a brief incursion on the front lawn, Jeff meets with Althea, who assumes their disaster scenario will be short-lived; Jeff has avoided sharing his conviction that this apocalypse has no end with the group at large, only telling Anderson, Rich, Karen, and Mursak. Althea briefly psychoanalyzes Jeff, coming to the conclusion that his nascent feelings of unrest are manifestations of survivor's guilt over the deaths of his brother and Julia.

Only minutes later, Jeff discovers that Rob has struck Karen and storms into the improvised medbay where he's been convalescing, insinuating an awareness that Rob killed the girl whose body they discovered in the Gauntlett Center. Shortly thereafter, Jeff joins Anderson, Helen, and Melody for an early dinner in the cafeteria, but an underlying tension quickly boils to the surface, leading to a vicious verbal altercation that results in Melody repeatedly slapping Jeff. Before Jeff retires for the evening, he listens to the phone messages he received in the days following the arising, and hearing a message from his panicked brother moments before his demise leaves Jeff with a mild case of psychogenic amnesia.

The next morning, Jeff and Anderson vaguely reconcile the previous day's argument before their conversation is interrupted by Melody announcing a news broadcast. The program describes the use of a nuclear weapon in continental Europe and goes on to detail ongoing rescue efforts by the military, militias, and paramilitary groups within the United States. Anderson and Rich quickly agree that they should advertise their presence for a rescue, but Jeff's impassioned rebuttal leads to the group agreeing to a tribunal where Rich will argue to leave, Jeff will argue to stay, Anderson will serve as a mediator, and the rest of the group will cast their vote for either Jeff or Rich's initiative. After Jeff's argument carries the day, Rich and Jeff solidify an agreement to make concessions on each other's behalf in order to lessen Helen's sway over Anderson, after which Rich regales Jeff with some more details of his previous domestic strife before the two get drunk and fall asleep.

The next day, Jeff is awoken by Mursak and alerted to the fact that a young woman with an infant has been spotted in front of the school. Jeff and Anderson debate over what they should do before deciding to invite Tracy and Jimmy Dantis to spend the night. Karen takes Jimmy and Jeff privately welcomes Tracy, but she pulls a gun, makes an excuse to get away from him, and ultimately commits suicide in one of the bathrooms. A cursory examination of her body reveals that she'd been bitten by a zombie. After Tracy's corpse is dealt with, Karen visits Jeff in his room, laying into him over his attempts to pigeonhole the women of the group into maternal roles, an accusation he flatly rejects. After kicking her out, Jeff gets drunk again and falls asleep reminiscing about Julia.

Jeff wakes up to the continuing throes of his mental fog, briefly conversing with Althea before he wanders into an intervention, finding everyone in the group intent on extracting an admission that he's not dealing with his grief and that his belligerence is only worsening. Jeff lashes out and secludes himself in his room, finally dissolving into tears when he acknowledges he's been repressing the death of his brother. Jeff calls his mother to express how much he misses her before finally passing out once again. On Christmas Eve, Jeff is awoken by the sound of helicopters overhead, heralding a military-backed scientific expedition to the cemetery. Once Anderson recognizes one of the scouts as an acquaintance from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, he meets the soldier outside in secret, keeping the conversation private before conveying to Jeff and Melody that their group is to remain inside to avoid interfering with the soldiers. Jeff and Melody abortively reconcile their acrimonious encounter several days prior before Jeff tries to sleep off an awful night's rest.

When he wakes again, Jeff acknowledges the futility of the earlier quest to retrieve his personal effects, which causes him to reflect on the impact his recent behavior is having on the group. As a result, he apologizes to Anderson, Helen, Rich, and Karen, the latter conversation leading to a brief analysis of a CDC report on the undead Anderson retrieved from his friend in the ANG. Jeff later stumbles upon Melody and Jake apparently having an intimate moment, and when he scares Melody away, Jake attempts to initiate an altercation that Jeff effectively neutralizes, leading to Jake's sobbing confession that he was in love with Julia and that his behavior toward Jeff stems from an earlier moment of traumatizing insensitivity Jeff failed to acknowledge. After Jake suggests that each member of the group pick a song they would want played at their funerals, a project thereafter known as "Jake's dirges", the two separate on good terms and the helicopters depart.

Later, Jeff bumps into Melody in the hallway and invites her to be the first recipient of his Christmas gift: he has trained the school's observatory telescope on Uranus and relates some of its astronomical data as a vague contextualization of the group's problems as compared to the enormity of the universe. The resulting conversation sees Jeff admitting that he once cheated on Julia, presumably at Drew Ruscitto's Wildwood condo. After they part company, Jeff sits watch over the video surveillance system and falls asleep. He wakes up to find Anderson, Mursak, and several others drunkenly celebrating the departure of the soldiers when Helen announces a vehicle approaching from the street. Jeff, Anderson, and Jake scramble for reconnaissance, but when the approaching camouflaged men open fire, Anderson insists that they take arms and defend themselves. The result is a brutal firefight in which several of the intruders are killed, Anderson is rendered unconscious, and both Melody and Helen are abducted. Jeff immediately conscripts Rich and Mursak for a rescue effort.

Tracking their assailants back to Delaware County Community College, the trio of Jeff, Rich, and Mursak do some amateur reconnaissance and discover that their attackers seem to be keeping the girls alive. After clandestinely traversing the woods on the outskirts of campus, Rich suggests that their only recourse is to kill all of the marauders, an acknowledgement to which Jeff and Mursak reluctantly agree. Rich uses Anderson's silenced rifle to kill a few of them while Jeff murders two with his katana, both acts deeply disturbing him. Rich manages to snap Jeff out of his lament long enough to retrieve Helen and Melody. After they believe they've killed all of them, the quintet returns to TMHS. Melody asks to spend the night with an equally damaged and paranoid Jeff, whose difficulty sleeping is only compounded by mild PTSD from the men he just killed.

The following day is Christmas, and the group celebrates with a large, elegant breakfast, during which Rob is introduced as having completed his rehabilitation, though Jeff is unreceptive to his apologies. The group exchanges gifts, and with his best friend still unconscious, Jeff opens Anderson's present to find a framed picture of his family, something that causes Jeff to break down into tears. The entire group embraces him as he cries.

Following the meal, the group takes stock of their supplies and Althea begins therapy sessions, a charade in which Jeff is uninterested, believing her attempts at alleviating their guilt to be "bullshit". After a brief incursion with the undead on the front lawn, Jeff retires to the medlab to sit with Anderson, who remains unconscious. Mursak joins them, making it clear that he is unimpressed by Rob's convalescence and seeks to prove he murdered the girl they found at the Gauntlett Center, culminating in Jeff agreeing to a scouting mission that will conceal their investigation. Shortly thereafter, Jeff discovers Melody in his room, where she asks to stay with him for the foreseeable future and insists that he just call her Mel.

While dozing off, Jeff receives a call from Alan. After exchanging pleasantries, Alan announces that someone in their group has murdered someone else, and that their water supply seems to have been contaminated, after which Jeff proposes a rescue effort. At the next group meal, Althea becomes concerned by Mel's recent temperament while Jeff broaches the possible rescue effort with a surprisingly receptive Rich.

The next day Mursak and Jeff head to the Gauntlett Center, ultimately coming to the conclusion that it is highly feasible Rob killed the girl whose corpse is decaying in the gymnasium showers. They return to TMHS, where Jeff rejoins Anderson just as he wakes up, hesitantly filling him in on the details of the last few days. Later in the evening, the group watches a news broadcast where it is stated that wounds on the extremities, such as those suffered by Julia, may not be as fatal as initially thought. Jeff has another breakdown, recovering when he considers that there's nothing he can do in hindsight. A further concern is raised when it becomes unclear whether the government will begin using nuclear weapons on American cities. Jeff clarifies the consequences of that action by showing the group The Day After, after which Jeff and Mel engage in a bitter philosophical debate.

Two days later, Jeff is inspired to review the video surveillance footage of the last week, enlisting the help of Anderson and Rich. They quickly discover that the group who attacked them days prior may not have intended to provoke them, after which Anderson reveals Helen claims Mel told their abductors that she wanted to abandon the group at TMHS. Jeff then informs them of his trip to the Gauntlett Center, suggesting that Rob may well be a murderer. Rich entreats Jeff to talk to Mel while he and Anderson mull over the situation with Rob, after which Jeff bumps into Jimmy in the hallway and tries to find a subtle way to explain the zombie apocalypse to a child.

Jeff is awakened the next morning to help put down a small zombie incursion. He returns to his room to find Anderson, who reveals that Mursak has been hoarding supplies. Jeff suggests that this adolescent chicanery is beneath sharing with the group at large, but Anderson counters that Jeff is behaving as the group's de facto leader and should address the issue accordingly. Jeff resultantly has a revelation that his procrastination has gone too far, seeking out Rich to insist upon revisiting DCCC and rescuing Alan and Jack. Returning to his room for the evening, Jeff asks Mel point-blank whether she wanted to throw in with their erstwhile assailants, but she insists that she was only doing what was necessary to survive. Though they fall asleep together, Jeff remains unconvinced of her motives and suffers from a bout of hypnagogia.

The next day, Jeff leads a group of Anderson, Mel, Karen, and Jake to DCCC for a reconnoiter. While the scouting and scavenging aspect of their trip is successful, Anderson irritates Jeff and Mel with his tactical analyses. A significantly greater problem arises when it is revealed that Karen is sick; after debating what to do, they decide to stay put so as not to force her into action, but quickly find themselves in the midst of a zombie siege. After several close calls, the group rests in a supply closet, during which Jeff imagines himself talking to an unresponsive Julia.

When enough time has passed, Anderson prepares the group to leave, using several Molotov cocktails as distractions. While the plan works initially, the sprinklers douse the group in freezing water, hampering their evacuation. Though they manage to escape without incident, they notice a gigantic complement of undead advancing on the freshly triggered alarm bells of DCCC. Once they return safely to TMHS, Rich reams Jeff for his failure to recognize Karen's illness, forcing Anderson to intercede before Jeff can assault Rich. With tempers cooled, everyone goes to bed, though Jeff is still troubled that Mel feels so comfortable sharing a bed with him.

The next day, Jeff visits Karen, who expresses little hope for a successful convalescence from what she believes to be influenza. After assuring her that the group will do what they can, Jeff helps Anderson catalog their newly acquired weapons and ammunition before sitting down for lunch with Mel, where Jeff finally engages her on the grim reality that they are facing the end of humanity. Mel acknowledges his assessment, but quickly turns it on Jeff, asking him to clarify what's going on between the two of them. With nothing solved, they go their separate ways and Jeff takes a nap, waking up well past dusk realizing that it's New Year's Eve. He joins the group to watch a celebratory broadcast in a secured Times Square, and at the stroke of midnight, Mel favors Jeff with a passionate kiss.

On New Year's Day, the group indulges in another extravagant breakfast as they recount their resolutions. What would appear to be a minor siege from the undead turns serious when a few surviving runners attack, but the group maintains their composure and dispatches them. Once the corpses are deposited in the pool, Rich reveals that Karen has suggested some antiviral medications to combat her sickness. Anderson details a complex and infeasible plan to locate looters and trade supplies for the necessary drugs before Mursak reveals that he successfully acquired the medication at the Temple University Ambler health center. The group celebrates by getting drunk and goofing off, after which Jeff once again finds Mel in his bed, but this time the two finally manage to embrace the compassionate uncertainty of their bond before falling asleep.

The proceeding day begins with Rich trying to coax some sort of plan regarding their forthcoming attempt to rescue Jeff's acquaintances from State College, with Rob suggesting that they call the effort Operation Prometheus. Later, Anderson and Rich tell an exasperated Jeff they've decided that any aberrant behavior from Rob going forward will result in his immediate execution. Jeff and Rich spend the rest of the day planning for Operation Prometheus with Anderson, who is to remain behind; they amass supplies, plan routes, and accord a generous supply of automatic weapons and ammunition to the voyage north. After conferring with Alan the next day, it is ultimately decided that Jeff, Rich, Mel, and Althea will make the trip, leaving Anderson, Karen, Mursak, Jake, Rob, Elena, and Jimmy behind.

At daybreak, Operation Prometheus officially gets underway. Jeff takes the lead with Mel in the Humvee while Rich follows behind with Althea on the bus. Early in the trip, Jeff tries and fails to contact Alan, who is supposed to meet them at a predetermined halfway point. The drive up I-476 provides Jeff and Mel an unprecedented opportunity to converse openly, with Mel finally elaborating on her family life, particularly how the sudden death of her father drastically changed her relationship with both her mother and her friends. She also finally acknowledges her abduction by the marauders from DCCC; without being specific, she asserts that she did her best to control the situation and protect the virginal Helen. The revelatory mood in the Humvee is scotched by a stark warning spray-painted on northbound side of an overpass; deeply disturbed by the implications of the message, Jeff insists that he advance in the Humvee alone and that Mel join the others in the school bus behind him.

Jeff's suspicions prove prescient when they arrive at the Lehigh Tunnel, which is apparently controlled by a small-scale but highly organized gang. After a fraught negotiation with the snowsuit-clad leader results in their safe passage, the group successfully reaches the halfway point of their journey, opening an opportunity for Rich to cast aspersions on Jeff's insistence upon this particular rescue effort. They remain at the halfway point as long as they can before continuing on I-80 toward State College, hoping that they've merely outpaced Alan. Jeff seriously considers turning back before hearing some radio chatter that he quickly identifies as his friends.

After negotiating a long bridge, Jeff finally reconnects with Alan and Jack and formally meets their party; Nick Wilborn, the pale and heavyset loner who previously murdered another member of their group, Heather Chapman, who is pretty and outgoing with a subtle attraction to Alan, Lada Dragomirov, a sturdy Russian expatriate, Andy Kremens, a vaguely distrustful and soft-featured nerd, Levi Hazen, a fit and stone-faced black introvert, and Nancy Candler-Hollowell, a traumatized old-money outcast. Once everyone has been introduced, they begin loading their gear on the bus and preparing for the return journey.

The trip back is immediately complicated by a buildup of the undead at the far end of the bridge; Rich's constant warnings don't dissuade Jeff from impetuously plowing through the parade of zombies until he plunges the Humvee into a ravine between the highway lanes. Jeff and Mel escape with minor injuries, struggling to rejoin the rest of the group as Alan aggressively attacks the oncoming horde from the windows of the bus. Alan's hostility gets the better of him and he's pulled from the window, dropping forty feet into the ravine. When Jeff finds Alan unconscious and severely injured, Heather rushes down from the bus to help as the undead descend upon them, and the resulting skirmish results in Heather getting bitten. Jeff, Mel, and Heather manage to drag Alan up to the highway, where Nick takes it upon himself to execute the moribund Heather. Jeff flies into a blind rage and punches Nick into submission before his friends pull him away and usher him onto the bus, loading Alan on a backboard to escape the horde.

After Jack tries and fails to talk through his grief over Alan, Rich sternly indicates that this outcome was one of the risks of their journey, setting Jeff off once again; this time, Jeff mercilessly tears Rich down, insisting that he's never been brave enough to take responsibility for anything in his life, particularly the loss of his family, and Rich instantly backs off. Depressed and drained, Jeff takes a nap. He's awoken again at the Lehigh Tunnel, where it seems a new gang has taken control. Another tense deliberation ensues, but Jeff manages to ensure their safe passage, catching sight of the snowsuit-wearing leader of the previous group being executed as they emerge from the other side of the tunnel. Althea promptly engages with Jeff, analyzing his reaction to their recent circumstances and concluding that Jeff isn't grieving, he's vengeful. Jeff dismisses her, and moments later, they realize that Alan has died from his injuries.

The rest of the journey is uneventful until they get close to TMHS and start receiving distressed radio signals from Anderson. Jeff does the best he can to prepare Jack's group for the worst before they arrive at their destination, finding a massive throng of undead sieging the school. As they exit the bus, Rich drives off into the horde. The initial offensive goes quite well, resulting in a linkup with Anderson, who explains his assault strategy. The unified group continues to make progress against hundreds of attacking zombies until a series of compounding setbacks results in a faltering defensive line, compelling Jeff toward a bold series of maneuvers that drags him further and further from the rest of the group. The ensuing combat gets close and tense as Jeff tries to fight his way back, and he nearly manages to get clear before his hand gets bitten. Someone yanks the katana from Jeff's belt and hacks off the affected appendage just before he's dragged inside, rendered unconscious, and has his wound cauterized.

Jeff awakens in a dark, silent room, bound with ropes and unable wrest himself from a supine position on the floor. While at first confused and irritated, the sensory deprivation of his environment results in a pronounced Ganzfeld effect that deepens and amplifies Jeff's earlier hypnagogic hallucinations, leading to an all-encompassing delusion in which he intuits his grief as a tangible abyss where losing his sense of self is interchangeable with the onset of symptoms which will render him a zombie. While thusly disturbed, someone enters the room with the apparent intention of killing him, but they are dispatched by an unseen force before Jeff is injected with morphine. The illusions begin to disappear as Jeff remains barely conscious.

Two days later, a lucid Jeff is awakened by Anderson and Karen, who confirm his amputation and assure him that the worst of his troubles are over. However, the siege on the front lawn continues and Rich has yet to return. After discovering that Nick made an attempt on his life and Anderson dispatched him, Jeff sluggishly traverses TMHS, ultimately running into Rob, who admits to amputating his hand before the two arrive at a brief, halfhearted reconciliation.

When Rob and Jeff part ways, Jeff ultimately passes out in the hallway, only to be revived by Mel, who helps him into a classroom on the second floor where he can observe the group's efforts against the horde. Once there, Jeff describes why he once enjoyed writing zombie fiction, and after he and Mel remain open to each other's opinions of their situation, Jeff selects his dirge: "Lucky" by Radiohead. As Mel leaves when the predicament outside seems to go from bad to worse, Jeff considers that the group may not survive for very long, but maintaining what they have will make the fight worthwhile.