Former UN employee Gerry Lane, his wife Karin and their two daughters are in heavy Philadelphia traffic when the city is overrun by zombies that are attracted to sound
As chaos spreads, the Lanes escape to Newark, New Jersey and take refuge in an apartment, home to a couple with a young son
Thierry Umutoni, an old friend of Gerry, sends a helicopter that extracts the Lanes and Tommy to a U.S. Navy vessel in the Atlantic where scientists and military personnel are analyzing the worldwide outbreaks
He suggests that they test this by deliberately infecting someone with a pathogen from the facility, but the pathogens are stored in a wing already overrun by zombies
Gerry continues to the pathogen vault while segen and the doctor return to the main building