Horace Youngblood is a retired American intelligence officer who flees into the Nevada Desert to be alone after his family disappears under mysterious circumstances. Now, as the 1950s turn to the 1960s, the United States and Russia prepare for nuclear war and the future of mankind hangs in the balance. As the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates, Horace's peaceful, lonely town begins to fill with new people as they are lured into the Nevada desert by unknown forces and they await the impending nuclear doom.