When a two-thousand-year-old mummy is unearthed in central China, investigators from around the globe gather in Washington, DC, hoping to find an answer to its mysterious genetic anomalies. But their secret tests unleash a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origins. Soon, a worldwide plague breaks out—one that penetrates the barriers of the human immune system. Sino expert Eric Logan and archaeologist Dr. Marcia Kessler lead an expedition back to the glaciers of China to extract a much older twenty-thousand-year-old mummy in the hope of formulating a cure. Even as they embark on their mission, the strange illness afflicts the people around them, turning men into mindless monsters. The team retreats to a remote Buddhist monastery in the Bogata Feng mountains of central Asia. There, they struggle to hold off a vicious army of victims as they wrestle with the very real possibility that they may be the last living humans on earth . . .