In this alternate history fable set in the 1980s AIDS Crisis, a closeted young man is thrust into the midst of an anti-government coup and finds that the animal within is stronger than the monsters that oppress.
Thrown to rot in a narrow and gloomy cell of a hideous Soviet prison, a weary new inmate struggles to come to terms with the new reality. Within the grey cage, an unwelcoming fellow convict cautions the newcomer not to touch the intriguingly mysterious red wooden box which rests on the lower bunk, moreover, not even think of opening it. Why is there so much secrecy about the contents of the box? Could there be hiding the means to his escape?
First the atomic war broke out, new machines were made, dead birds appeared. In 1999, a bacteriological warfare began, there were sandstorms and giant locust infestations; the human tissue was transformed and a new being, once legendary, now real, emerged: the vampire. Only Robert Neville, the last man on Earth, remains unpolluted, living in constant struggle with the new inhabitants of the planet.