The Children

Jim and Slim leave the Ravensback chemical plant as a pipe leak releases a yellow toxic cloud that drifts toward town. The escalating leak foreshadows the chemical threat that will envelop Ravensback. This opening event establishes the peril that drives the rest of the story.

A school bus continues its route toward home, dropping off one child and leaving five onboard. The bus travels along the road toward Ravensback, carrying the danger as the town faces an unseen threat. The scene heightens tension for what the adults will confront later.

Sheriff Billy Hart discovers the idling bus abandoned near a cemetery and radios his deputy. He orders a roadblock at the main highway and the lone road into town, recruiting armed locals to search for what may be kidnappers. The moment builds the sense of an emergency looming over Ravensback.

On the road, Billy and John pick up Janet Shore, who is dazed and pale like the other zombified children. They drive her toward her home, keeping her in the car as the situation unfolds. During the ride, signs of transformation begin to appear as her fingernails darken.

As the ride continues, Janet becomes more like a radioactive zombie and lashes out, but Sheriff Hart dodges the attack and she flees the vicinity. The scene demonstrates the rapid, escalating threat posed by the children-turned-zombies. The car ride becomes a tense precursor to town-wide danger.

Ellen, Tommy, and Paul, now zombified, converge as a small group. The deputy spots them and radios the station, but is killed soon after by the spreading threat. This moment marks the infection reaching members of the town’s response team.

The trio approaches the general store, where the dispatcher goes outside to greet them and is roasted to death. John and Billy hear the dispatcher’s screams on a police radio, realizing the danger has reached the town center. The calm of town life collapses in a single moment.

Billy fires his pistol at the zombies, but the bullets have no effect. Cathy, unaware of the children’s condition, knocks Billy out with a glass object to stop him from shooting. She then finds Clarkie's roasted body and tells John, who runs upstairs to lay the child back to bed.

Paul attacks the adults, and Billy instinctively grabs a replica katana to cut off both of Paul’s hands, killing him as the fingernails on his severed hands revert to normal. The brutal moment underscores how the infection manifests through violence and body horror. The scene underscores the collapse of empathy as the threat intensifies.

Ellen breaks through a window with one hand, and Billy severs the hand, causing her apparent death. The grisly sequence emphasizes the toll the situation takes on the family—even the gentle actions of the children are deadly. The immediate threat remains focused on those still alive.

The remaining three zombies—Tommy, Janet, and Jenny—converge at the upper level of John's barn. John and Billy confront them and promptly dismember and kill the trio, ending the immediate danger from the children. The barn becomes a final fortress where the last threat is eliminated.

The next morning, Cathy yells that it's time as John rushes to help deliver their third child. The scene pans over all of the dead bodies, including Sheriff Hart, and shows the five zombified children laid out. The newborn’s arrival adds a chilling sign that the danger may persist.