The last thing Tom Keighley remembered was nearly being hit by a car one grey, wet, Monday morning. That was nearly a hundred years ago. When he is plucked from a strange contraption in a mysterious building, Tom is thrown into the tiny village of Charles Brook, the last beacon of humanity known to exist in the world. Tom must find his place in the Brook, a village where the streets are so narrow that his shoulders touch the walls. A place where only the well armed or foolish go outside at night. A place where the high, thick wooden walls keep out the dead.