CHAPTER ONE The Die Off Snow crunched under his heavy boots as Keith Benning walked toward the abandoned trailer. With each breath, a plume of white fog hit the air. The coldest, darkest days of winter had arrived. The die off had begun. It was January in North Dakota on a remote square of land, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border. If the forecast was true, the area was about to plunge into the deep freeze. Wind chills of thirty to fifty below zero were expected for anot