Bob hijacks Arlys’s live broadcast. Ranting that the Uncanny have caused the Doom, he warns the viewers to run and then threatens Arlys and the film crew. Arlys steadies her voice and names the team’s sacrifices to keep the news flowing. Bob swings between rage and grief for his dead son. He declares humanity finished and shoots himself on camera. Blood spatters Arlys, but she refuses to cut the feed and instead delivers the truth that her source, Chuck, gave her that morning. She states that the death toll already exceeds 2 billion, that the pathogen keeps mutating and remains unidentified, and that no working vaccine exists to this disease that affects only humans. She also reveals that President Ronald Carnegie has died and that Sally MacBride (the secretary of agriculture) is now president; military sweeps now detain those who are immune, and likely also those who are Uncanny, under de facto martial law. Arlys signs off with a promise to keep reporting.

Jim shifts into shutdown mode and urges Arlys to disappear. She runs Chuck’s protocol: She wipes and destroys her workstation and packs her notes. Fred insists on going with her and admits to having warded the building with protective symbols. Jim and most of the crew refuse to come with Arlys and Fred; they want to close the station “right.” Arlys lays out the plan: to hike the dormant PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) tracks to a 3:00 am meeting with Chuck in Hoboken and then head toward Ohio if needed.

Elsewhere, Lana dreams of walking, weighed down by despair and grief. In the dream, a dark-haired woman interrupts her brooding, encouraging her to keep moving. Max wakes Lana in a decrepit motel after a brutal run from New York; the two recently endured a dangerous Hudson crossing, navigated wrecks and barricades in both directions, and completed a stealthy drive through back roads.

At dawn, they prepare to leave the hotel. Lana starts the car with her will and practices driving. They stop at a gas station, and a puppy, Joe, bounds out. A man named Eddie Clawson follows. He is in his twenties, is bruised, and bears a hard-luck tale of being attacked by Raiders. Max makes Eddie empty his pack, looking for weapons. Eddie admits to owning a knife, but Lana’s instincts suggest that he’s harmless, so they all agree to travel together. The trio fuels up and heads west toward Pennsylvania and Max’s brother Eric.

Eddie unearths tire chains, tools, and a gas can. On the road, he recounts his experiences of staying at a rundown Catskills resort, meeting with a friend named Bud who fell ill and died, and enduring the loss of his mother and sister near Louisville, Kentucky. He explains that with the roads blocked and his truck dead, he has been walking for more than two weeks, avoiding bigger towns and predatory groups. Eddie also reveals the dramatic developments that just occurred in Arlys Reid’s newsroom on live TV. He shares Arlys’s revelations with Lana and Max, specifically the fact that the military is rounding up the immune for testing.

Shaken, Max predicts more deaths, failing infrastructure, fractured government, and surging violence. He argues that they should settle in rural strongholds in order to supply, maintain, and defend themselves. Eddie offers practical skills in gardening and basic hunting and then teaches Lana and Max how to put on snow chains. Lana offers skills such as cooking from scraps, kindling engines with her will, and lifting objects with her growing magickal powers. She resolves to learn new skills quickly, protect their “community,” and meet danger with skill and magick. Max asks her to marry him when they find a place to settle, and she says yes.

Meanwhile, Arlys and Fred drop into the 33rd-Street PATH. Fred’s faerie senses steer them safely past two men who are bragging about hunting women to torture. Deeper in, they find a young man nailed to the tracks, butchered. Fred prays, while Arlys clutches the gun and steels her resolve.

Arlys and Fred force themselves past the nailed victim and push toward Hoboken. Arlys lays out the rules: hide, run, or fight. If they separate, Fred must reach Park and First by 3:00 am, locate Chuck, and escape. Suddenly, their light falls on the Raiders’ graffiti and a dripping skull. A defaced subway car holds bloated bodies and a virulent swarm of rats. A knife-wielding scavenger claims the contents of the car as “his dead” and hurls fire at the pair. Arlys drags Fred into a sprint as flames hiss across the wall.

Arlys stumbles and falls over a corpse, and as rats scramble over her, she hyperventilates, vomits, and drops the gun. Fred retrieves the weapon and steadies her. A malignant glow rolls toward them, revealing a black-lit figure with red eyes; the figure flies along the tunnel roof with a mauled, half-alive woman hanging from his arms. Fred scratches protective symbols and holds Arlys still while the malignant sorcerer hovers, searches, and moves on. Fred and Arlys press downhill toward the river.

Near the Hoboken U-turn, ambushers yank them apart. One pins Arlys with a knife and taunts her. She feigns surrender and then shoves the gun into his crotch and fires twice. She empties the weapon into another attacker looming over Fred. Fred, white-faced and swelling, summons a blinding cloud of tiny faerie lights that she never knew she could call. The dazzle turns the fight in their favor. Arlys disarms the wounded man, collects a second gun and knife, and sprints with Fred along the tracks. The lights guide them up to the platform.

On the street, Fred opens a shuttered resale shop with a whispered spell. Inside, Arlys cleans up, discovering a knife slice along her forearm. Fred finds a first-aid kit and bandages the cut. They choose clean clothing, and Fred leaves a note promising payment if possible. After a short rest, they reach the rendezvous. Chuck steps from the shadows and hustles them to a fortified basement full of high-end computer gear, laying out an evacuation plan for the next day. Arlys collapses into sleep. Fred tells Chuck part of their story.

Lana, Max, and Eddie trek through a snowstorm. Whenever Eddie takes naps, they seize the opportunity to use their powers to move cars out of the way without alerting him to their status as Uncanny. At a three-car pileup, they find a dead driver in a hatchback, blood spattered inside a disabled Subaru, and a wrecked pickup with an empty gun rack. They roll the hatchback aside and muscle the Subaru into a shallow ravine. Lana adds a light magickal shove that Eddie misinterprets as unusual strength. They scavenge pantry staples, clothes, a wedding photo, cash, and a rifle, plus half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and some beer. Eddie drives while Max navigates.

Several roads are impassable, so Eddie threads the back roads until they reach a quiet mini-mart with working pumps. As Lana raids the half-stripped store for food, Max fuels up. Shots ring out, and a bullet rips into Eddie’s upper chest and shoulder. Max shoves Lana into the car, drags Eddie inside, and drives away as two gunmen charge. Lana hurls power that flings the shooters backward while Max lays suppressing fire. Armed townsfolk watch with cold eyes.

In the backseat, Lana clamps a scarf on Eddie’s wound, pours whiskey to disinfect it, and gives Eddie the bottle. She uses magick to stop the bleeding, draining herself. Max hides the car behind an isolated, filthy house and carries Eddie inside. He places Eddie into a trance and stitches the wound while Lana prepares a meal.

Max and Lana affirm their love and their fear. Outside, Max discovers the homeowner’s weeks-old corpse in the shed and offers a blessing, sparing Lana the sight. Inside, Eddie wakes hungry, lucid, and fever free. They resolve to leave at first light and drive the final miles to Eric so that they can start building a new place of safety.