It starts with an extensively drug resistant strain of TB in Western Australia, and total extinction of all human, animal, plant, and bacterial life on the planet. Only the birds remain. The birds, and a few bedraggled and starving survivors. Some are the lucky ones who survived their infection. Others are the resourceful ones who managed to avoid the airborne Red11 infection altogether.
Aoife and Niamh are two of the latter, sisters who live on in post-apocalyptic Ireland, having avoided the disease altogether through reclusiveness, caution, and luck. They spend their days trawling the Irish countryside for anything that will help keep them alive, staying one foot ahead of starvation and infection, not daring to approach the lawless anarchy of the big towns and cities that are left. At night they retreat to their base, a small house deep in the wilderness, where they read, play board games, and remember the past.
Their routine is turned upside down when they encounter an intruder, a desperate loner trying to outrun a group he calls 'The Lost Boys'. Knowing the danger he poses them as the only other person who knows the location of their house, the girls cannot let him go. They consider what they should do with him in grim conversation, and end up holding him as a prisoner. He speaks of a rumored town out west near Galway, the town of New Hope, where people have come together and civilization has started again. When The Lost Boys catch up with them the girls are forced to flee their last refuge and take off on a desperate and deadly journey across the barren country in the pursuit of New Hope...