Opens with Artie alone in the school, walking the halls with his walkie talkie. The school is deserted.
Alicia is walking alone in the middle of the street, earbuds in, skate borders zooming by her. She’s now outside Matt’s house. The front door is ajar. Helicopters buzz above. She decides to go in. She calls out for Matt. He doesn’t answer. Nice house! She sees a bouquet of flowers on the floor, and a table and lamp overturned. She looks around and calls out for Matt again. She hears moans and looks at something we can’t see, and says ‘oh my god’.
Travis and Maddie almost get in an accident as they barrel out of the tunnel and back onto city streets. Nick changes the radio channels and no one is talking about how the dead are coming back to life. He’s incredulous. Travis says they have to all leave town. Maddie suggests the desert. It’s agreed, they’ll all go there and wait it out. Maddie calls Alicia and says they have to leave. Alicia is with Matt and she won’t leave. Maddie says to call 911 and Alicia says she tried, but there was no answer. Travis says they’ll go to Matt’s.
Meanwhile Chris gets on a public transit bus, and ignores calls from Travis. In fact he just hangs up the phone. Bratty kid.
Travis, Maddie, and Nick arrive at Matt’s, who is in bad shape. He’s in bed, covered with blankets. They tell Alicia to move away from Matt because he might be contagious, but she says if he has it, I have it. Travis asks Matt where his parents are. They’re in Vegas. Matt is coughing and sweating and has a fever. Travis asks Alicia to go get a glass of water for Matt. Nick looks for drugs and finds none. Travis sees that Matt has a big bite on his shoulder. Alicia peeks in the door. Maddie says they have to go, Matt tells Alicia she has to go. Does he know how bad off he is? He actually might. He says his parents will be home soon and he’ll be fine. She says she’s not leaving, he gives her a weak smile, and touches his drawing on her arm and tells her she has to go. Travis and Maddie quietly watch. Alicia hugs Matt. Matt looks at Maddie. Maddie takes Alicia. Matt looks like he’s going to throw up. They all leave.
Chris is sitting on the bus and he sees an ambulance zip by. A guy jumps onto the bus and says the cops shot a homeless guy like 20 times. Everyone exits the bus to go see what’s going on.
Travis and company get home. Across the street the neighbors are having a birthday party for their daughter who is turning 9. The mom thinks her daughter turning 9 is scary. They have set up one of those inflatable bounce houses with all the balls inside for their daughter and her friends. The mom says they should come over because with the sickness, most of the kids have bowed out. Travis sees another neighbor, coughing, and loading up his car with plastic gallon jugs of water. This is Pete Dawson. Nick is watching the party people across the street and wonders if they’re going to tell her what’s happening. No one is paying attention, says Nick. It’s like it’s not real. Maddie says it’s real. Maddie says that Nick saved her and Travis. Nick says he’s about to step into a world of shit, and you know that right? She knows it.
Travis can’t reach Liza, or Chris. Maddie tells him to go get them. Travis washes the blood off of the front of the truck while the couple across the street have an empty party. Travis goes to get Liza. Maddie walks across the street, maybe to tell them about the ‘virus’.
Travis calls Liza and he says he’s coming over. And where is Chris? She says he’ll be home soon, and no, Travis can’t come over. They have a settlement agreement. He’s frantic because of the walkers. He says ‘Now, Liza!’. This goes over super well, and she says ‘I’ll see you next weekend’, and hangs up. She rolls her eyes.
Chris is downtown and a protest over the dead homeless guy is just starting to boil over. Chris pulls out his camera and begins to film. Alicia is up in her room looking in a mirror and then at her acceptance letter to UC Berkeley. Maddie asks her to get the bucket and then she calls the doctor but only gets his voicemail. Nick is in severe withdrawal. Alicia wonders whether they can use the vicodin from when she got her wisdom teeth out. Maddie tells Alicia not to leave the hosue, she’s going to get drugs for Nick.
Travis is stuck in traffic and goes through a parking lot to try to get moving again. He sees a cop loading up jugs of water into his cruiser. Number 13. Lucky number?
Maddie goes to the shool and parks in the empty parking lot. She goes in the front door and sets off the metal detector, but no one is there to stop her. She goes down the empty hall and into the principal’s office to get keys. She looks around, probably to see if anyone is there who will stop her. She goes down another empty hall. Finally she ends up in the nurses office and pries open a cabinet. She can just barely reach in enough to grab some drugs in baggies. I can’t tell if they were confiscated or prescription, but they might have been confiscated. Tobias walks in and sees what she’s doing, startling her. He asks for his knife back.
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Back at the protest… ‘This is wrong man, this is wrong, wrong, wrong,’ says a black man. Police order everyone to clear the area as it’s a crime scence. ‘Put the camera down’, a cop says to Chris, and someone else says keep up the cam, we have freedom of speech and all. The cop gets on his shoulder radio presumably to get backup to arrest Chris.
Back at the school. Maddie gives Tobias back his tiny, tiny knife. She tells him to be careful. As they leave, she locks her office door for the last time and looks inside the darkened room from the outside.
Meanwhile, back at home, Alicia gives Nick the bucket and some soup. He throws up. Alicia is looking at the party across the street and decides to go to Matt. Nick says no, don’t leave. He tells her that Matt is not safe and that he’ll hurt her. He starts writhing on the floor and ends up on this back while he continues to throw up. She comes back inside and turns him over. She calms him, but she’s upset.
Travis is at Liza’s. Se’s not amused. Travis talks to her about the virus. On Chris’s end we hear chants of ‘hell no we won’t go’. I suppose that to mean that they won’t leave the crime scene. It’s a really clunky scene. Travis picks up Liza’s phone and calls Chris. He answers and says there’s a protest and they’re doing something important. Liza knows where he is, as she watches it on TV.
Maddie and Tobias are at the school. He’s on it, a real mini-prepper. He says that in an apocalypse, first food shops, then gun shops, then pharmaceuticals and then alcohol will all get looted. They begin taking cans of food out of the cafeteria. Tobias asks Maddie if she’s seen ‘any of them’. He’s only seen ‘them’ online. It’s going to be awhile he says, and they need to stock up on food. She’s skeptical.
Alicia is scrubbing the floor from Nick. Nick thanks her. She says, ‘I hate you’. He smiles and says ‘I know.’ The lights go out.
Maddie and Tobias have a cart of food. Tobias says the electrical grid will go, and that when civilization goes, it goes fast. They hear a noise. Maddie goes toward it. It’s walker sounds from the surveillance device that the principal uses. Tobias says it’s ‘one of them’. The metal detector goes off. It goes off again. And then it goes off a third time. The two of them run down the hall. A can of food falls off the cart and Maddie says ‘leave it!’ They see Artie staggering away through a hallway door that is slightly ajar. Maddie calls out to him through the open door. He sees them and zombie walks to them. Tobias knows what’s going on, but Maddie continues to walk toward Artie. We can see the big bloody wound on his back. It doesn’t look like a bite, but we’re never told what happened to him, how he died, or how long he’s been dead. Tobias is freaking out and Maddie hits Artie when he attacks her. Tobias hits him with his knife and they both go down the stairs. Artie tries to bite him and Tobias screams for help. Maddie rushes down and bashes Artie’s head in with the fire extenugisher. It’s hard work and she has to bash him several times before Artie finally dies.
Tobias and Maddie leave the school.
(Missed a bit of this while we buffered up.)
The protest goes on and Travis and Liza are scanning the crowd for Chris. Lots of slow mo scenes of the cops and the protest. Liza sees the homeless dead guy on the ground all shot up when the sheet blows off of him. An ‘alternative’ looking female walker with multicolored hair starts walking up behind a cop and is told to stop. She doesn’t of course, and the cops shoot her, hitting her in the head. She falls down dead. Travis, Liza, and Chris run away. Riot police arrive, shields up. Much chaos as people try to get away. We also see looters and people tipping cars over. We see a barber just finishing up with a client and both barber and client view the chaos outside. As soon as the client leaves, the barber closes up shop. He starts to roll down his reinforced steel door, but Travis asks if they can come in and wait it out. The barber, Daniel Salazar, says they’re closed, but his wife, Griselda, says to let them in. He relents and lets Travis, Liza and Chris in. Travis thanks him. They lock up the door just as people bang on the steel outside. There is no back door or roof access. Ofelia, their daughter walks in and Travis says they are riding out the chaos. Everyone is tense but polite.
Offcials on the radio tell people not to leave their homes if they don’t have to. Maddie asks Tobias if he wants to stay with her and Travis until the upheaval ends. He says no, ‘this doesn’t end.’ He looks resigned as he leaves the car to go into his house. It’s not clear who’s in a worse position, Tobias with his knowledge and pitiful weapons, or Maddie who is still pretty clueless but tough. A car drives by and Maddie sees the kids in the backseat with dust masks over their noses and mouths. The dust masks have big teeth drawn on them with black markers.
Griselda is praying at her alter. Chaos still outside. They turn off the lights and there is only candlelight now. Much screaming and Travis tells Chris to get away from the window. Travis looks outside as Liza looks on. She asks Travis what he knows. He says it doesn’t make sense. ‘They don’t die. They come back. We have to get far away from what’s outside – all of us’. We see the jam-packed freeways and know they aren’t going anywhere.
Maddie gets home. She asks if Travis has called and he hasn’t. Maddie sees blood on her jacket – Artie’s blood. She brings oxy to Nick and tells him to ration them. Nick tells Maddie that Alicia tried to leave and that he stopped her. Umm, right. The lights are on here. Maddie goes into the bathroom with more drugs and goes to wash off the blood on her jacket, then she breaks down. Just for a moment. Travis calls. He tells her they’re stuck (the lights are back on at the barbershop). Travis tells Maddie to go the desert and she says no, she’ll wait. Lights go out again at the barber. You’d think they’d start charging up their devices, but no one does! Alicia sees Maddie’s been crying, but when asked about it, Maddie becomes stoic again.
Montage time. We see Artie dead on the floor at the school. Over at Matt’s house we see his parents’ car in the driveway, luggage sitting by the car, front door open. Matt’s parents must have gotten home and encountered Matt. At the protest, which is now a riot, there is looting and general chaos. Nick is sleeping by candellight. Across the street, the party is long over. All is quiet outside at Maddie’s and then there are screams. They look across the street and see the mom getting attacked. She appears to get away. Her husband is a walker. Or maybe it’s Pete Dawson who attacks her. Alicia wants to go help, but Maddie won’t let her. Alicia asks her ‘what’s the matter with you?’ But Maddie knows that nothing can be done to help the neighbors. At the barbershop, Griselda prays as others wait and watch her. Sirens continue to go off. Griselda blows out the candle and tehy are left in total darkness.