28 Weeks Later - Plot

Plot

During the original outbreak of the Rage Virus, Don, his wife Alice and four other survivors are hiding in a barricaded cottage on the outskirts of London. They hear a terrified boy pounding at their door, who they let in. A few minutes later they find infected have followed the boy to them. The infected attack and kill most of the survivors, and Don, Alice and the boy are chased upstairs. Don is cut off from them by infected and, realising he can't save them, jumps out of a window and leaves them. Don finds a motorboat nearby and narrowly escapes.

After five weeks, all the infected have died of starvation. After eleven weeks, NATO forces headed by the US take control of Great Britain. After eighteen weeks the island is declared relatively safe, although still under quarantine. Twenty-eight weeks after the outbreak, an American-led force, under the command of Brigadier General Stone, bring in settlers to re-populate the area. Among the new arrivals are Tammy and Andy, Don and Alice's children, who were in Spain on a school trip during the initial outbreak. They are subsequently admitted to District One, a safe zone guarded by the US Army, on the Isle of Dogs. As they are examined by Major Scarlet Levy, the district's chief medical officer, she notes Andy's differently coloured eyes, a trait inherited from his mother. Sergeant Doyle, a Delta sniper and his friend, helicopter pilot Chief Flynn, are amongst the military presence charged with guarding the district. The children are reunited with their father, who had survived the original infection and was found by the US army, and who has become the district's senior maintenance engineer. In their new flat, Don explains what happened and that after he escaped, he arrived in a military camp and waited with the soldiers through the weeks.

The next day, Tammy and Andy, mournful over the loss of their mother, leave the safe zone and proceed to the depopulated London wasteland area to their former house on a scooter, hoping to retrieve and take their old belongings with them. To their shock, they find their mother in a semi-conscious state. Doyle had seen the two children leave the safe zone; they and their mother are subsequently picked up by soldiers and returned to the district. Tammy and Andy are taken back to their living quarters while Alice is taken to a biohazard room where she is tested and found to be an asymptomatic carrier of the Rage Virus. While she doesn't show the uncontrollable rage, she is extremely infectious and the virus causes her eyes to discolour red. Don sneaks through the security and makes an unauthorised visit to Alice in her isolation cell and asks forgiveness for abandoning her at the cottage. When they kiss, however, the Rage Virus in her saliva immediately infects Don, who savagely kills her before going on a rampage, killing and infecting several soldiers in the building.

General Stone orders the building to be quarantined and District One to be put into Code Red Lock-down, and civilians are herded into safe rooms. Despite the precautions, Don breaks into a room containing a large crowd and begins killing and infecting them, quickly causing a domino effect of attackers. Scarlet rescues Tammy and Andy from containment as the soldiers in District One are ordered to shoot indiscriminately. Doyle, unable to bring himself to comply with the order, abandons his post and escapes with Scarlet, the children and others through the Greenwich foot tunnel. General Stone then orders that District One be firebombed, but large numbers of the infected, including Don, escape the bombardment. Scarlet informs Doyle that the children may hold the key to a cure and must be protected at all costs. Flynn arrives by helicopter to pick up Doyle, but refuses to take anyone else as they would be shot down if carrying possibly infected people.

Flynn contacts Doyle by radio and tells him to head to Wembley Stadium, but to leave the civilians. Doyle ignores his instructions and begins escorting the civilians to Wembley, breaking into an abandoned car to escape nerve gas released to kill the infected. He is burned alive by soldiers as he tries to push start the car. Scarlet drives the car away, but an Apache gunship tries to destroy the car and children; she manages to escape the chopper with the kids. She drives them into the London Underground where, as the trio continue on foot, she is ambushed and killed by Don who then attacks and bites Andy. Tammy shoots Don before he can kill Andy who remains symptom-free, but with his eyes discoloured red like those of his mother, signifying that he is now an unknowing carrier of the Rage virus. The children continue to the Stadium and are picked up by a reluctant Flynn, who flies them across the English Channel to France, as previously instructed by Doyle.

Twenty-eight days later, a French-accented voice requesting help is heard from the radio in Flynn's abandoned helicopter. A group of infected are seen running through a tunnel which, as they emerge into the open, is revealed to be the exit of the Paris Métro Trocadéro station with a view of the nearby Eiffel Tower.