There is a shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow in the morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Eight years ago, a plague decimated the world, turning all who contracted it into mindless, violent monsters. Now, people remain in walled-off quarantine zones, barely scraping by in the cities where they once thrived. Callum Abernathy, assigned to a wintry perimeter patrol with his old friend Mace Camus, ventures out into the overgrown ruins of Huntington, West Virginia. Together in the wasteland, they reminisce about the past, think about the present, and dream about their future– if it even exists.