Boulder, Colorado

People in hazmat suits are walking into a church filled with rotting corpses. Someone runs out, losing his lunch. Krycek from The X-Files is there to tell the guy it's OK to be nauseated.

He next addresses a crowd of people who have been helping them dispose of the bodies. He wants them to be honest about whether they'll come back. Only Harold Lauder doesn't raise his hand.

Five months earlier

It's the fourth of July. A girl takes her dad some water. He's working in the yard, hacking up a lung. Everyone has the same illness daddy has, so her show wasn't great. She thinks he's burning up, and he suggests a nap.

Harold is peeping on them, and two other guys pull him back and threaten him.

Lauder wrote something fictional for school about a shooter, and they don't think much of his creative side.

He's riding a bike but can't get up enough speed to outrun the guys running behind him. There is a dead animal in the alley, and Lauder swerves to avoid it, sending him hurtling over the handlebars. The guys catch up, humiliate him, and promise to share photos on social media.

Later, he's walking with his bike in two pieces across the beach, and people stare at him. At home, his mother is coughing like the guy from the yard.

He opens a piece of mail from Cemetery Dance Publications, and his blood splatters on the paper. Neither of his parents is doing well, so his mother suggests he clean up and mow the lawn.

His sister is going to get married, but she's ill. Some fucking bridal shower.

The letter was a rejection for his submitted piece. He destroyed his laptop in his accident, and in anger, snaps it in half, annoying his sister.

Arnette, Texas is completely cut off from the rest of the world because of a quarantine. Military is keeping the media out, and cell service and the internet have been jammed. He beats off to a pic of that birl.

Stu Redmond has been kept a prisoner by Jim Ellis. He has no idea why he's been detained and wants to know why he's there. Stu isn't contagious, so Jim says there isn't any reason for him to wear a mask.

Captain Tripps is what the superflu has been named.

Stu recalls what happened to bring him here. A guy almost crashed into gas pumps.

Men dragged Stu and all of his friends and family were brought into the place with them, but almost all are already dead. He's the only one who has survived. The guy who wrecked was named Campion. They're trying to determine how many people he infected before he arrived here.

Jim hopes that Stu will submit to as many tests as he could possibly sustain with the hope that they'll find out why he's immune. He agrees, and within seconds, they're ready to poke at him. The woman who enters sneezes, blaming allergies.

Harold is peeping again, seeing the girl shoveling a hole into the yard. He backs up, begins calling to people. Frannie says she's there, unsure that she wants to answer. They are the only two people alive.

His whole family is dead. He's very stoic and not at all concerned about his loss. He thinks it was the government that made the virus. That scares her, but he wonders where the heck she's been when it was all over the internet before they shut it down.

He tries to help her, but she lashes out, so he leaves.

She pins one of her dad's medals onto his shirt, dons his dog tags, gets a family photo, and prepares to bury her father in the back yard. While rolling him into a sheet, his body makes noise, and she freaks out.

Harold opens the door to a police car in town, taking the officer's gun while coughing away the stench. It looks like he's feeling pretty confident, enjoying the solitude and his new place in the world.

The president delivers a speech assuring the few people remaining that it wasn't a government operation. Of course, he's on his way out, already infected. As she's watching the broadcast, the electricity goes out around Frannie.

Frannie is in a cornfield where she hears little kids running through the stalks. She follows the sound to a crop circle, where she finds a baby doll and Abigail Freemantle. Abigail tells her to look for her in Colorado. Frannie wakes up.

Stu and Jim get into a vehicle on the way to a secure facility. They want Stu to put a hood on, and he's not pleased about it. Jim doesn't even look toward the guy.

Harold is listening to the radio. The DJ won't die by Captain Tripps. He signs off with a gun blast. Harold just shirks. He's planning on getting Frannie to leave with him. He's practicing his speech and greasing his hair back. He's sure that they've been spared because they are supposed to be together.

Stu and Jim are at the secure location now. A 4-star Army general is in control of the place.

Harold is wearing the equivalent of a leisure suit and black, patent leather boots as he knocks on Frannie's door. Stu breaks down the bathroom door. Frannie has taken pills and is sitting in the tub with the water running waiting to die.

He has a record playing, candles lit, and makes her a beverage to help her get better. They're listening to Black Sabbath, Changes.

Frannie put his first rejection letter on the wall and told him never to give up.

He tells her the fatality rate is 99%, and they realize they are the future of the world. He thinks they should go to the CDC in Atlanta to allow them to be tested. She thinks it's a smart idea. He's not a little kid anymore.

Stu is dreaming of the corn. He doesn't find Mother Abigail but a wolf with red eyes. When he wakes up, Jim visits his room. He's sick as a dog. Even Dr. Cobb is down for the count. There isn't anything confirmed, but there are reports of others like Stu out there. Jim laughs. A month ago, they were all worried about ebola.

Stu wonders what happens now. Jim wants to kill himself and tosses out the ways he's considered. The General is watching them on camera when Jim gives him the scalpal as his means of escape.

Jim really thought he'd be the one to stop it all. Nope, not so much. Cobb enters. His neck is swollen with a huge goiter. He's got a gun and wants to get Jim out of there. He shoots Jim, and when he turns to Stu, Stu slashes his goiter. So fucking gross. The elevator door opens, and a voice tells the "soldier" to go that way and follow the lights.

Stu leaves the gun as requested, gets on another elevator, and is transported to the command room with the general, who I think is Conrad's father from The Resident. Oh, no. I'm wrong. It's even better! J.K. Simmons. He's got a gun, finger on the trigger.

He's got the bug, it seems. It's been days since they've heard anything from the outside world. The general says that Cobb was running the joint. The general talks of his daughter, apocalypse modeling, and reads from a book before Stu takes his leave just after the general shoots himself.

Harold leaves a message on the wall for anybody who might be looking for him and Frannie. They get on their vespas and head out of town.

In Boulder, a cleanup crews fill pits with bodies.

Harold wrote that pride and hate were great virtues because the world must change because of you. He's on a great adventure.

Harold saves someone's life, and the two become friends. He's pleased to be starting a new life for himself. Harold gets the call of the wolf just before Randall Flagg arrives to hand him something. He doesn't want to stay in Boulder. He wants to be a prince out west.

Frannie is pregnant, together with Stu. Harold is on the body crew, a big smile on his face. His greatest desire is to kill Stu and just maybe Frannie.

Flashback to Campion and the dawn of the infection. An infected woman makes Campion institute a lockdown, but he escapes with his family, unleashing the whole thing.

Campion drove past Randall Flagg, who appeared in his backseat next to the baby, a sly grin on his face. Billy Joel's The Stranger runs in the credits.