Zach Orfman is left utterly gutted when his girlfriend, Beth Slocum, dies after a venomous snake bite during a hike. The loss throws him into an uneasy period of grief, and he begins spending long hours with Beth’s parents, Geenie and Maury, hoping to find some sense of closure. In quiet conversations, Zach opens up about the problems in their relationship, but Maury brushes off the severity of what Beth and Zach were dealing with, trying to keep the peace and preserve a sense of normalcy.
When Geenie and [Maury] withdraw and cut off contact, Zach’s mounting worry drives him to the Slocums’ house. Through a window, he glimpses Beth and is desperate to be let in. His brother Kyle, a security officer, intervenes and escorts him away that night. Undeterred, Zach breaks in again, uncovering a disturbing truth: Beth is not really gone. She has been reincarnated, and her parents have been covertly sheltering her, keeping her presence hidden from the world. This revelation is the first crack in the fragile calm around the Slocums, and it triggers a new, troubling dynamic as Beth’s parents resist telling Beth that she died and resist letting her face daylight.
Zach’s attempts to interact with Beth become increasingly perilous. He takes her out for a daytime date in the park, only for her face to blister under the sun, a clear sign of something uncanny at work. Maury bans Zach from seeing Beth, but Zach cannot stay away. He continues to sneak into the house, drawn by the eerie hold Beth seems to have over him and the sense that something otherworldly is at play.
As Beth grows more volatile, her mood swings become harder to manage. Zach reaches out to his childhood friend, Erica Wexler, to make sense of the strange events and escalating danger. After a tense encounter outside a diner, Zach accidentally runs Beth over in his car—though she is unharmed, she unleashes a terrifying scream that frightens nearby bystanders. A subsequent confrontation with Erica intensifies Beth’s suspicion that Zach is unfaithful, and Zach confronts the heartbreaking truth in a painful moment: he brings Beth to her grave and confesses the full truth of Beth’s death to her. He tries to end the relationship, only for Beth to lash out and drive away in his car, leaving him engulfed in a mix of guilt and fear.
Maury then urges Zach to reveal that Beth’s death was a lie and to remain with her forever, a plea that Zach reluctantly accepts. He hopes that staying with Beth might stabilize her, and he even considers fleeing with her to escape the growing turmoil in town. But Maury’s hold over the situation tightens; he knocks Zach out to force Zach to take Beth back home. When Zach comes to, he discovers a grim scene: the backyard is filled with bodies, and he fears his family lies among them.
The situation spirals as Zach plans to leave the state, only to return to the Slocums’ house. He finds it in disarray, but the most shocking change is Beth herself—now a full-fledged, bloodthirsty zombie. Beth has already fed, taking Maury and injuring Geenie, and Zach must decide how to respond. He helps Geenie escape and tries to calm Beth by promising to hike with her, attempting to preserve some human connection in the chaos. They run into Kyle, who is actively hunting zombies and explains that their parents are still alive and have escaped to a safehouse. Kyle entrusts Zach with a handgun and urges him to end Beth’s suffering, a choice that tears at Zach’s conscience but seems necessary to stop the carnage.
The two confront Beth at a cliff’s edge, where Zach tears up over missed chances and broken promises. He apologizes for not fulfilling Beth’s desires while she was alive, and the pair confess their love for each other in a bittersweet moment. In the end, Zach shoots Beth in the head, ending her thrall and saving the distant memory of their love from a brutal, irreversible fate.
Zach is eventually reunited with his family at the safehouse, alongside a traumatized Erica, who herself has suffered profound losses, including the killing of her grandmother under pressure. The survivors begin to make plans to leave town, hoping to reclaim some semblance of normal life as power flickers back on and a TV broadcast seems to declare that things have returned to normal. In a quieter afterword, Zach visits Beth and Maury’s graves, a somber ritual that underscores the toll of the ordeal. He then invites Erica to dinner, and she accepts, the two sharing a hopeful smile as they set off together toward an uncertain but possible future.
