Nestled on the foot of the sacred Seche La Mountain is the village of Dagzê, Tibet, China. The normally quiet streets are bustling with the steady stream of arrivals and preparations for the coming Festival of the Medicine King; a time of celebration, healing, and renewal. But a shadow is sweeping the world, a plaque of apocalyptic proportion: the dead are rising and devouring the living, and no place is safe where humanity thrives. As Dagzê burns, overtaken by the hungry undead, five people come together. Three have journeyed far, trucking in gifts for the festival: Lama Tenzin, an elder monk, there too, looking for an old friend; Gu-lang, the silent warrior nun, Tenzin's protector; Cheung, a private in The People's Army, an ordered driver and escort of the Lama. Two are citizens of the mountain: Ten-year-old Chodren Dawa, witness to his sister's death and rising, and the brutal death of his parents; and Dorje Cetan, hermit monk of Seche La, Shaolin trained, lifetime seeker of Nirvana, dreamer of a dark portent, and haunted by the face of a girl. Together they fight their way out of Dagzê, driving up a treacherous mountainside trail to their only refuge?a long abandoned Buddhist hermitage clinging to a mist shrouded granite wall of Seche La. With the undead following and gathering at Eagle's Nest gate, they barricade themselves inside their dead-end haven, and battle the beasts without and ones within.