The boy on the bridge

Ten years after the fungal pandemic that turned most of humanity into feral "hungries," the fortified settlement of Beacon sends out an armored rover crew to search for a cure. Aboard the vehicle known as Rosie are a mix of soldiers and scientists, including epidemiologist Dr. Samrina Khan and a brilliant but socially withdrawn teenager, Stephen Greaves, whose unusual way of seeing the world may be exactly what the mission needs.

As the expedition pushes deeper into the ruined landscape, tensions rise between the military escort and the scientific team, and Stephen's solo excursions bring him into contact with something unexpected among the infected. A prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts, this is a tense, character-driven survival story about the choices people make when a cure might cost everything.