Seven groups of people from different places in America-geographically and ideologically-are thrown into a dangerous new world together when people around them begin killing and eating others. Some search for safety, some search for loved ones, and some search for answers about the dangerous, evolving creatures around them, and what they have to do with a man in a prison cell in California. When our way of life comes tumbling down, what will we find in the lone and level sands that remain?