Twenty-eight years after the Rage virus outbreak, a heavily-defended island survives connected to the mainland by a single causeway. When one of the group leaves the island into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.

After washing ashore in France, Daryl struggles to piece together how he got there and why, as he navigates a fractured, walker-infested landscape to find his way home. During his journey, Daryl has to protect a young boy, Laurent, who is seen as a messiah, while facing new, dangerous walker variants and the "Power of the Living" paramilitary group, as the connections he forms along the way complicate his plan to return home.

Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes awakens from a coma to find a post-apocalyptic world dominated by flesh-eating zombies. He sets out to find his family and encounters many other survivors along the way.