Mel Timberley, professional lorry driver, swerves to avoid a hare and crashes into Claerwen Reservoir, polluting the entire water supply of Birmingham with the most deadly weedkiller ever created. Ron Blythe was the chemist who helped to create the spray and now, with thousands of people suffering and dying, his conscience forces him to try to work to find an antidote. Unfortunately, he gets stranded inside Birmingham, now sealed off, and full of anarchists, escape criminals and weedkiller-poisoned sufferers from the Thirst, all of which turn the city into a hell inside England.

Relentlessly, silently, the snow fell, shrouding the hills. Already the village was completely cut off, no on able to get out, no help able to get in. Well stocked up with food and fuel, they should have been able to survive. But this time everything was different. This time there was something more in the village. The first victim lay staining the snow with dark blood. His face, eyes staring blankly, was a weeping mass of ulcers. His expression was a mask of animal hatred. Now the others, crazed with thirst and blood lust, were stumbling through the streets. And still the soft snow fell.