In 2002, during the initial outbreak of the Rage virus,[a] a young boy named Jimmy Crystal flees his house in the Scottish Highlands as his family are attacked by the infected. He takes refuge in the local church with his father, a minister, but finds him praying in ecstasy, since he interprets the virus as a harbinger of the end times and the Day of Judgement. Jimmy's father bequeaths him a cross necklace and helps him to safety before submitting to the infected as they break in.
Twenty-eight years after its second outbreak[b], the Rage virus has been eradicated from continental Europe, while the British Isles remain under indefinite quarantine with few survivors. A civilised community has subsisted on the holy island of Lindisfarne, defended naturally from Great Britain by a causeway that floods with the tide. Among them are Jamie, a scavenger, his wife, Isla, who has an unknown, mentally debilitating illness, and their 12-year-old son, Spike. Jamie and Spike cross to mainland Britain for a coming-of-age hunting ritual.
On the mainland, the pair find an infected tied up and branded with the name "Jimmy", and they encounter a large pack of infected led by an "Alpha", an evolved infected that is stronger and more intelligent. They are forced into taking shelter overnight in the attic of a run-down cottage, where Spike observes foreign boats on quarantine patrol and a fire further inland. When the attic suddenly collapses, the Alpha pursues Jamie and Spike across the partially inundated causeway until the village sentries kill it with a ballista.
The village throws a party for Spike to celebrate his first kill. Spike becomes upset at Jamie's embellishment of their trip and leaves, discovering Jamie's affair with Rosie, the village schoolteacher. Back at home, he discusses the fire with family friend Sam, who reveals the existence of Dr Ian Kelson, a former GP in exile. The next morning, Spike confronts Jamie over his unwillingness to seek medical care for Isla and his infidelity. Jamie insists that Kelson, whom he once witnessed burning corpses in an apparently ritualistic manner, is too mentally unstable to help. Unconvinced, Spike escapes the island with Isla.
The next day, Spike and Isla are rescued from a pack of infected by Swedish Navy seaman Erik Sundqvist, the sole survivor from a stranded NATO quarantine patrol boat, who joins their expedition. Isla discovers a pregnant infected and helps it deliver an uninfected baby girl. A paranoid Erik shoots the infected mother and threatens to kill Isla and Spike alongside the newborn if they do not let him kill it, believing it to be infected, but the Alpha father appears and decapitates him.
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