Miller Grange is a big Grange co-op farm in central Iowa. About 120 people live and work here inside an earth wall. The summer horde on Interstate 80 is about a month away, and everyone is getting ready.
Every summer the horde walks west from Illinois along Interstate 80. It gathers at Iowa 80 Nest in eastern Iowa for a few weeks, then moves across the state. Last summer it broke through the wall of the Carlson farm next door, and nobody there lived. Walt Miller found the bodies. The dead from the Carlson farm still wander the fields between the two farms.
Sadie Miller's scouts warned the Carlson farm, but the warning came too late. She blames herself. She takes risks her father does not know about, and she rides closer to the nest than she tells him.
Harriet Vogel, the chair of the Grange Council, has asked the Gate Compact and Continuity Command for help against the horde. Neither has answered. She knows both need her grain and wonders how long that will keep them polite.
Walt Miller, the farm boss. He wants every family alive at the end of the summer. He does not trust strangers until they have worked a full day in his fields.
Sadie Miller, his daughter. She runs the horses and the six scouts. She wants to make up for the Carlson farm, and she is braver than she should be.
Harriet Vogel, chair of the Grange Council at State Fairgrounds Hall in Des Moines. She wants help from someone, anyone, before the horde moves.
The farm families. They dig, store food and pray the wall holds.
Build the defenses. Ditches, Spike Boards, Can Alarms and Barricades. The work is hard, and every day counts.
Scout the nest. Count the horde at Iowa 80 Nest and guess when it will move.
Turn the horde. Lure it away from the farm with noise and fire, far from any walls. It is dangerous and could work.
Find help. Des Moines, Continuity Command, or Tollmen for hire. Every one of them wants something in return.
Salvage before the storm. The stores and repair shops at Iowa 80 Nest were never fully looted. Outside the summer weeks, only a few hundred dead stay there.
The summer horde. Tens of thousands of dead, with Zombie Packs at its edges and Bloater Zombies in it. Nobody fights it head on.
Dead from the Carlson farm wander the fields between the farms.
Summer heat on long work days. Hard work in the sun without water brings Exhaustion.
Raiders who hit Grange wagons on the roads.
Iowa 80 Nest, where the horde gathers.
State Fairgrounds Hall in Des Moines, the Grange headquarters.
Memorial Stadium Nest in Lincoln, a horde that joins the summer march.
Topeka Grain Depot and Halvorsen Farm in Kansas, other Grange places.
Kearney Arch Fort, the Tollmen headquarters on the same highway.