Three weeks ago, Daddy left town with the other volunteer firefighters to fight the fires in the city, and Tom and Mother have looked after the farm. Radios, phones and TV broadcasts have fallen silent, trains have stopped coming and the main road has remained empty. When Tom finds a large metal egg on the farm, and a metal-spiked echidna hatches from it, the neighbour Mr McGregor wants to kill it. Whatever has silenced the rest of the world is creeping into town. Roads start talking and zombies come into town, wanting to tell everyone how they died. People must fight back. But Tom thinks differently. The echidna, which he names Thing, is a true friend. Thing protects Tom from the greedy roads, the evil zombies and even Mr McGregor. To find Daddy, Tom needs to follow a map he has found in a vagrant camp site, a map which leads him straight to the place where all the trouble started.