In Spain, Manel and his wife Julia are going home in their car. Julia brings up the subject of having children because Manel hasn’t made up his mind about it yet and she needs an answer to plan the future. An argument ensues and they both get distracted, so Julia has to quickly move the car to dodge an incoming vehicle.
Unfortunately their car ends up in the middle of the road and they’re suddenly hit by a huge truck that sends the car rolling. A year later, widower Manel is living alone with his cat. On TV, reporters talk about the U.
N. discussing the possibility of closing the borders because there’s a strange virus going around. Prevention measures aren’t working and people are getting violent at the borders while trying to escape.
Manel is so deeply depressed that he barely pays attention and eventually mutes the TV. He doesn’t see a hospital’s security footage showing a patient slowly morphing into a zombie. Afterward Manel goes for a ride, noticing an ambulance passing by.
Various walls in town have graffiti saying that the end is coming. Manel makes it to the harbor to meet with two women that are interested in buying his boat, which he hasn’t used since his wife died. While looking for the boat’s papers, Manel finds Julia’s bracelet and his mind is flooded with bittersweet memories.
On his way home, Manel gets a call from his sister but he ignores it. He stops at the supermarket for some groceries and notices everyone is buying much more food than usual, almost emptying the shelves. Later at home, he ties the bracelet around the cat’s neck while hearing on TV that the virus has appeared in Spain.
In the evening, Manel video-calls his sister Belén who has big news. Since her husband works for the government, her family is being transferred to the Canary Islands and she invites him to come along, but Manel refuses. The next day Manel notices that all the neighbors are leaving, so he decides to do the same and brings his cat along.
During the ride, he hears on the radio that a new variant of the virus is spreading through Europe. This variant shortens the incubation to only a few minutes and is transmitted by wounds and bites. At the airport, Manel sends Belén a message saying he’ll be joining her after all.
As people are trying to board the plane, tickets get denied with no explanation and the crowd begins getting agitated, yelling at an employee who doesn’t know what’s going on. Suddenly the big screen shows that all flights are canceled and everyone gets a message on their phone announcing a civil security alert. The crowd panics and some people try to get into the plane anyway.
Manel gets a call from Belén, who tells him to hide at home and not to leave until they get more news. At that moment a man steals a gun from the guards and threatens to open fire, so the crowd rushes to leave the airport. Since everyone is trying to go home, Manel is stuck in traffic, and the radio says all roads and bridges are in the same situation.
As military helicopters fly above them, people start leaving their cars and arguing with other drivers. The news share some that the military personnel has been evacuated and people are rioting to the point many soldiers were injured. Eventually many drivers get tired of waiting, so they abandon their cars and leave on foot.
Manel grabs his cat and decides to do the same. He arrives at his neighborhood by nighttime and discovers that a group of soldiers have surrounded a building to set up a special tunnel on a house. There are weird noises coming from it and Manel is shocked to see two soldiers bring a zombie out of the house through the tunnel while the wife cries for her sick husband outside.
The zombie is taken away in a military vehicle while Manel realizes he knew the guy. Afterward Manel goes home and falls asleep. That night he dreams about the accident and Julia’s death.
The next morning Belén video-calls Manel and tells him they’re organizing safe zones to redistribute the population. However there are arguments in the army because the more people they take, the more chances to bring the virus into the safe zone, and other countries already had trouble trying this. She advises Manel to stay home no matter what.
Soon all big cities are declaring quarantine and not letting anyone seek refuge there, causing even more riots on the streets. The virus is no longer contained and people start seeing zombies eating people around the neighborhood, which they record for social media. Others make videos sharing ideas on how to make armor and defend themselves.
That afternoon the government announces a state of emergency and new restrictions are now in place: all commercial activity must cease after 2 p. m. and the population may be militarized.
The next time Manel goes to the supermarket, there’s almost no food left and people are stealing from each other’s hands. Manel grabs what he can and on his way out, he sees fighter jets flying by. Next he stops at the gas station for more supplies.
At that moment a wounded cop appears and after bumping against Manel he locks himself up inside the station’s store, locking the doors with his handcuffs. Soon more people show up in the area, running and crying out for help. Suddenly a zombie jumps on another officer and starts eating his face.
Manel grabs a mop and gets ready to defend himself but when the zombie is about to reach him, the fallen officer shoots him, causing zombie blood to fall on Manel’s face. Inside the store, the first cop pounds on the glass as he starts transforming. A worried Manel wants to check on the fallen officer, who shoots at the floor to keep him at bay.
After Manel leaves with his things, the cop self-deletes. Later that day, the president finally appears on TV and announces an extended lockdown. People who fail to cooperate with the army and their evacuation plans will get criminal consequences.
Following internet tutorials, Manel uses his tools to reinforce the house’s outer walls and installs a security camera. In the evening, the army arrives at Manel’s neighborhood to evacuate it, but Belén sends him a message telling him to stay home and that she’ll rescue him soon. Manel turns off the lights and hides with his cat while he hears the soldiers pounding on his door.
Thankfully they don’t bring it down and don’t see him at the window either, so they leave. Two weeks later Manel is starting to run out of food and can’t call his sister anymore because service is down. After lots of hesitation, he grabs a bunch of tools for self-defense, covers his body with layers, and finally leaves his home.
He breaks into multiple houses looking for food, but unfortunately he finds nothing. After a few hours of searching, he enters a house where he finds an old lady named Gabriela, who couldn’t join the evacuation because she’s wheelchair-bound. She doesn’t have any food either, but she tells him which houses may have something since she watched the neighbors who bought too much stuff before lockdown.
Manel visits every house on her list and finally starts finding food and other useful supplies, including a bike. Thanks to the bike, Manel dares to travel further and manages to get a good amount of food that he shares with Gabriela. He also gives her a walkie-talkie so they can communicate while he’s out.
Now there’s only one house left to visit: the one where the soldiers found the zombie. Manel finds no food, but there’s a tank with dead fish inside. Suddenly he senses someone behind him and he quickly opens fire thinking it’s a zombie.
It’s actually a normal human who immediately runs away thinking Manel is aggressive. Before leaving he checks one final cupboard and finally finds more food. Days pass and Manel and Gabriela often meet to dine together.
One night Manel gets drunk and sends Gabriela a message saying he regrets not spending more time with his family. Then he dreams about the accident again, remembering how they were taken to the hospital in a helicopter. He’s suddenly startled awake by Gabriela on the walkie-talkie telling him to turn on the radio.
Manel does so and hears a voice saying they’re sending survivors to the Canaries, so they share the coordinates for people to find this rescue group. Gabriela doesn’t trust them, but Manel points out they’re running out of food. The group appears to be at the Arousa Estuar and Manel says they could reach it using his boat, only for Gabriela to claim she can’t go because she’d be a burden.
Manel refuses to listen and promises to take care of her. The next morning Manel gets worried when Gabriela doesn’t answer his calls. He runs to check on her and discovers she self-deleted.
She left behind a note thanking him for the past few days and telling him to save himself. On his way back, Manel is suddenly attacked by a zombie, who manages to disarm him. After some struggle, Manel kicks the zombie off and jumps on top of a car, only for the zombie to grab his leg to bring him down.
The struggle continues as the zombie bites Manel’s arm. Thankfully it doesn’t pierce skin thanks to his protection, although the creature does spit blood on his face. Manel reaches out to open the car and starts beating up the zombie with it, getting her head stuck in the broken glass.
Then he runs to retrieve his weapon and shoots to kill the zombie right as she frees herself. Afterward he grabs her ID from her wallet and puts it on her chest in case the authorities find her. Later at home, he boils water to clean his weapon and sends Belén another message saying he can’t wait for her anymore, but there’s still no service.
Then Manel leaves with his cat on the bike, driving at high speed through the empty roads. Eventually he finds a barrier, so he has no choice but to go through the forest. There he’s chased by zombies, who aren’t fast enough to catch him.
Sometimes they try jumping so Manel has to pay attention to dodge. When he comes across an abandoned camp he fears what he may find there, but he has no other exit. He begins crossing it and a big horde of zombie campers comes out, so Manel starts going faster to dodge them all and avoid crashing against any equipment.
He manages to cross the area without getting bitten and reaches another road, only to find a pile of bodies blocking it. Manel is going too fast to stop in time and ends up falling off the bike instead. Thankfully the cat is safe in his crate.
Hearing the zombies approaching, Manel gets on the bike again but it won’t start, so he has no choice but to run. He crosses the forest as fast as possible with the zombies almost breathing on his back. Eventually he makes it to the harbor and when he crosses the bridge, he closes the gate behind him.
The zombies soon start pounding on the glass until they break it and cross as well, but by then Manel has crossed a stronger gate and finally gets to escape. At first Manel thinks hope is over because he discovers all the boats are gone from the harbor. However after looking around he finds an abandoned boat far in the water.
Manel swims to it and tests the engine, but the boat won’t start. At that moment he hears a noise and opens a door to find a zombie baby stuck on a chair. Afterward Manel and his cat leave on a small raft.
He tries reaching the place from the radio message, but it’s destroyed. No matter how far he goes from the shore he still has no signal, but he keeps recording messages for his sister. That night the raft stops in the middle of the trip.
When Manel checks on the engine he discovers a body got stuck in it. At that moment he sees a bright light coming closer and Manel waves his arms while yelling for help. It turns out to be a boat with Ukrainian men who agree to let him join them.
Manel and the cat are taken to a large ship and given food. The only man that can speak Spanish is Viktor, who explains the Canaries have been quarantined and the police didn’t let the evacuated survivors disembark, that’s why there are so many zombies on land. Manel is giving a room after he promises he’ll help them look for supplies in the morning.
In the middle of the night, Manel hears some voices and looks out the window to find some survivors on a boat asking for help. The next morning Manel asks about the new survivors, but Viktor swears nobody came last night. Then Manel is called to the captain’s office to help find important buildings on the map like hospitals and factories.
Afterward he discovers that the boat he saw last night is on the ship and the crew has the survivors’ possessions. He asks Viktor about it, but he refuses to answer. Since Viktor is a pilot, Manel tells him he knows where to find a helicopter, but Viktor tells him to keep his head down and stop asking questions.
In the evening Manel looks around and notices the ship is carrying all the boats that the crew took from random survivors. He gathers his things and hides his cat in his bag to sneak around the ship. In a room downstairs, he finds two survivors tied up.
Manel quickly frees the first man but as soon as he gets up, a guard shoots him down. At that moment Viktor also arrives and tries to disarm the guard, so they fight over the gun and accidentally shoot it, damaging the things around them. Then the men start punching each other and Viktor manages to grab a rope to choke the guard to death.
Now Viktor wants to escape too and agrees to find the helicopter. Manel, Viktor, and the other survivor carefully sneak around until they make it to a boat. When they’re about to leave, two guards open fire, killing the survivor.
As the boat takes off, Viktor fires back at them only to get wounded on his shoulder. Manel makes the boat go fast enough to escape before they can get killed. Moments later they make it to the shore and Manel helps Viktor walk.
They find a bunch of cars and zombie stuck inside a vehicle who Manel quickly kills. Afterward both men and the cat leave on a car to find the hospital where Julia died because Manel remembers the helicopter. During the trip Viktor explains the ship captain was a monster who was building a refuge on an island.
He only allowed those who served him to live there, so all the women and kids were taken for his pleasure. When they finally make it to the hospital, Manel is devastated to notice the helicopter is not on the roof. Suddenly a zombie jumps on top of the car so Manel starts driving like crazy to throw him off.
Then he uses Viktor’s gun to kill it and the noise attracts even more zombies who Manel quickly shoots down as well. Afterward the men and the cat enter the hospital and Manel searches for a tool he can use to remove the bullet from Viktor’s shoulder. At that moment he hears some voices coming from the first floor so Manel goes upstairs.
He sees a zombie walking by and hides before he can be seen. Then he hears the voices coming from the vents so he talks to them until another zombie appears behind him. Manel quickly pushes him off and shoots him down, only for more zombies to burst through the doors.
He immediately runs back to the initial room and makes sure to lock the doors behind him to stop the zombies. To Manel’s surprise, Viktor and the cat aren’t where he left them. When he turns around, a chute opens and Lucia tells him to join her.
The duo closes the chute and escapes right before the zombies break down the other doors. Manel is taken to an infirmary where nurse Lucia and Sister Cecilia have Viktor, the cat, and three children. The women take care of Viktor’s wound and stabilize him.
When Manel mentions the helicopter, Lucia reveals it’s parked behind the hospital in the quarantine area, which is full of zombies. That night the group shares the little food they have with Manel, who keeps thinking about his wife. He goes to the room where she died and remembers their last minutes together.
He also takes the bracelet from the cat and ties it to Julia’s bed. The next morning Manel goes to the roof to watch the zombies and suddenly his phone gets signal, so he receives all the messages Belén sent him the past few weeks. While Manel records an answer, he hears shooting and looks out to discover the ship crew is killing zombies to enter the hospital.
Manel rushes to warn the group about the incoming danger, so they decide to try to use the hospital basement to reach the helicopter. The basement is full of bodies and smoke, so everyone has to cover their mouths and noses as they move. Unfortunately the door is stuck and they have to hit it with an axe to open it.
A zombie comes out and tackles Cecilia to bite her. Manel pulls him away and burns his face against a hot pipe before Lucia kills him with the axe. Now Cecilia is infected, so she tells them to go on without her and leaves.
The group reaches a corridor and finds some zombies behind some furniture. Lucia manages to open the door without making noise but a child speaks when she sees her mother is one of the zombies. Thankfully they aren’t heard and proceed to walk to the door, only for a zombie to suddenly push down some shelves.
The noise alerts the other creatures so Manel hides with the child inside a cabinet while the others get behind the door. The zombies start pounding on the cabinet and for a second it seems it’s over for Manel, however the ship crew arrives and shoots all the zombies down in minutes. After a short argument they leave without seeing anyone.
Now the group can finally make it to the last door and they see all the zombies outside. Remembering the tutorial from the internet, Manel ties a bunch of cages together and they use them as a shield to cross the yard. At first it goes well, but when a wheel gets stuck, the noise attracts the zombies.
Lucia uses her axe and Manel a fire extinguisher to keep them at bay while Viktor continues to push the cages. They move very slowly but with lots of effort they make it to the gate. Lucia breaks the chain with her axe and stays with Manel to keep the zombies back while Viktor runs with the kids to the helicopter.
After lots of pushing Lucia and Manel manage to close the gate and lock it with a scarf, then they run to join the others. Viktor tries starting the helicopter but it doesn’t work and the zombies are starting to climb over the fence, so Manel goes out to fight them. At that moment Viktor finds an unplugged cable and reconnects it to finally make the helicopter work.
The sound of the engine gets the attention of the crew, who shows up at the yard and starts shooting down zombies. They cut the scarf to open the gate and threaten to shoot the group if they don’t cooperate. Viktor very carefully nods at Manel, who breaks another chain to open a second gate.
A new horde of zombies rushes into the yard and quickly surround the crew to bite them. A few zombies also approach the helicopter, so Viktor makes it hover to push them off. Manel makes his way through the horde by killing zombies with the axe.
The helicopter is about to leave but once all the zombies are down, Lucia throws a ladder and Manel immediately climbs it to reunite with his new friends and his cat. A few hours later the helicopter is getting closer to the Canaries. At that moment Manel gets a call from Belén telling him not to come.
Two fighter jets fly by, confirming the islands are infected as well.
