Layne Prescot, a former high school teacher returning to America after months of living abroad, meets a strange man in a Shanghai airport and ends up carrying a mysterious briefcase with an attached wrist shackle home with him. Back in the small town of Lilly's End, Layne must cope with more than just the effects of his past indiscretions and his recently deceased father's funeral. Each day at precisely 11:23, the small town of Lilly's End sinks into violent chaos, and people are dying. Cut off from the rest of the world by a strict military quarantine and with the population in rapid decline, Layne and his friends wait with dread as the clock ticks downward.