In the wake of a viral form of necrosis, a desperate father takes his family into the wild to avoid the contagion, but there he encounters a manipulative survivalist who intentionally infects his wife and children. Now the father faces an impossible choice; leave his family to die, or sever their infected parts?

SYNOPSIS:

Society is collapsing in the wake of a viral form of necrosis. Those infected with ‘the creeping death’ are left with two choices; a slow demise, or amputation of the affected limbs. Survivors live in camps on the outskirts of cities, but even within these camps, infections are on the rise.

Tobias Carter is a loving husband, father, and former school teacher who now spends his days burning the bodies of the dead. After the last remaining doctor in their camp dies, Tobias takes his teenaged daughter, Liz, young son, Mike, and pregnant wife, Mary into the wilderness and as far as possible from the risk of infection.

Once in the mountains the Carter family find a cabin and make it their home. But they are still faced with a long winter and a lack of food. Tobias struggles to teach himself to hunt and suffers a bite wound to his leg when he is attacked by wolves.

And the family are not alone.

Mary finds footprints outside the cabin and Liz feels like she is being watched. But their fears and suspicions regarding their unknown visitor are allayed when Eli, a preacher turned survivalist, arrives in time to assist Mary with a difficult labour and birth.

Eli teaches Tobias how to hunt, how to grow their own vegetables, and how to secure the cabin from potential intruders. But any relief is short-lived when Mary becomes infected.

Eli reveals that he too once had a wife and son, and that he regrets not doing what needed to be done soon enough. And so, Tobias isolates Mary from the rest of the family, separating her from their newborn daughter, Autumn, and reluctantly amputates her infected arm.

But the infection spreads.

After Mary dies, Tobias becomes even more paranoid and overly protective, even punitive, towards his surviving family. When Liz also becomes infected, she too is isolated and faces the prospect of losing a limb at the hands of her own father.

Liz escapes to a nearby town, where she discovers a vaccine has long been available and society is steadily returning to normality. She also meets Eli’s son, who is very much alive, and informs her that Eli is sadistic and manipulative and that he carries with him a severed, infected hand that he uses to infect others.

Back at the cabin, Tobias, now desperate and at the brink of madness, is convinced by Eli that prevention is better than cure. Namely, if he is to spare Mike from the virus, he’d be wise to start amputating his son’s extremities before they can become infected.

Now Liz must return to the mountains, back to the cabin, to save her remaining family members before Eli infects their bodies - and their minds.

THE SEVERING