Within the rigidly defined scrap-metal confines of the Boston survivor colony, nine-year-old scavenger Ezekiel finds himself face to face with a mysterious refugee. Ez is intrigued with the stranger, who offers him knowledge about the baron wastes outside the city. After further investigation, Ezekiel learns that the man's name is Jack, a part of the first convoy to successfully cross the United States since the calamity smothered the world in an invisible cloak of poison.

Jack retells his stories of the end times in all of their seemingly hopeless grandeur. Through them, Ezekiel learns what it means to be a survivor, and in turn, what it means to be human. Yet even with all the understanding of the outside world on his fingertips, the child wonder must still make the ultimate decision; to live in stable, content, survivable conditions in the colony, or follow the little-known path of the stranger into a land long left untouched.