To Jerry and Donna Priest

I used to joke that they could come home and find a bus full of first-graders crashed on the front lawn, caught in the cross fire of a bank robbery, in the midst of an alien invasion . . . and they’d have the situation under control in under a minute. But for the record, I was only kind of joking.

This is a work of fiction, featuring impossible politics, unlikely zombies, and some ludicrously incorrect Civil War action. I hope you enjoy it! And I’d like to thank you in advance for not sending me e-mail to tell me how bad my history is. I think we all know I’ve fudged the facts rather significantly.

(Except the zombie parts.)

Acknowledgments

At the risk of sounding redundant, my first paragraph of thanks and warm kudos goes to the usual suspects: my husband, Aric Annear, for not yet admitting that he’s sick to death of hearing about these stories, bless his heart; my editor, Liz Gorinsky, for saving me from many a prose misstep and being my in-house champion over at Tor; my agent, Jennifer Jackson, for making all the hard phone calls and letting me periodically stomp around like a tiny Godzilla; and to my publicity team at Tor-Patty Garcia and Amber Hopkins-for meeting me in strange cities and booking my travel so I don’t have to.

And I can’t have a thanks page without a nod to my day-job chief, Bill Schafer. Thanks for helping me keep the lights on without crowding out the writing work, dude; and thanks to Yanni Kuznia, because she seriously does manage to do it all, and I don’t know how-but I sure am glad for it.