After Americans endure years of drought and chronic disease, a scientific breakthrough promises the ability to live longer and healthier with a new water additive. Just as fluoridation was put in the water supply years earlier, “enhanced water” is added to dozens of municipal water supplies throughout the United States.

When thousands die after drinking the new water, a series of events follow that nearly destroys the country. In the aftermath, eleven-year-old Jake Reynolds and his family struggle to survive under conditions that include martial law, weekly rations of food and water, and outbreaks of violence.

His father died after drinking the tainted water and his mother drank just enough to leave her chronically ill. While his older sister breaks martial law by sneaking out of the house to see her boyfriend, Jake finds solace in his friendship with Ben Harlow, an eccentric old man who lives next door.

Ben is a shrewd dealer, selling food and water in the rising black-market trade, but keeps his wife’s dead body enshrined in the upstairs bedroom because he is unwilling to accept that she died the morning the water stopped. During the difficult weeks that follow, Jake maintains sporadic contact with his Uncle Nick, a survivalist who moved his family to Canada years earlier.

When his uncle convinces him that the poisoned water might not have been an accident, but part of a sinister plot to control the water supply, Jake decides that it’s time to leave everything behind and start a new life in Canada. .