The Fever burned hot and bright across a world unprepared for the devastation the virus would bring. Silence dominated the shattered wasteland left behind. Cell phones no longer worked. Static hissed from the old radio. No ships sailed through the nearby inlet. No airliners carved white trails across the sky. Stranded on a lonely barrier island, William Hill struggled to make it through a brutal winter. The days of easy food from the ocean vanished when the cold set in. Day by day, week by week, he watched those around him grow weaker and thinner. The sense of isolation grew until it felt like the world had died and left the little band of castaways as the only living souls to bear witness to its passing. Even the island seemed empty and barren. The fish had disappeared, along with the ducks, and even the shorebirds. Everything had fled. Everything except the demons.