Machinery Technician Third Class Eric Hagen of the U.S. Coast Guard abandons his post out of Jacksonville, Florida, after his whole world is transformed. The streets are teeming with crazed people, possessed by an insatiable appetite for human flesh. He soon learns that these manic people are not what they appear-they are undead. Traveling north in a post-apocalyptic world, Eric leads a team of four to Baltimore, Maryland, in search of his family, and in the process forms a family of his own. The cold winter months provide some relief from the undead, but Eric soon realizes that dangers from within his newly-formed family are just as deadly as the perils outside.