[7] One year before the events in The Enemy, an unnamed user posts a video on YouTube titled "The Scared Kid", in which a boy frantically talks to the camera about how his friends Danny and Eve have been killed by "mothers and fathers" (zombies) and shows them standing outside his window.

Two weeks into the apocalypse, two 14-year-old boys, named Jack and Ed, are trapped with a group of other schoolboys in a boarding school in Kent, where they are defending themselves from their now-zombified teachers.

They are saved by the timely arrival of a motor coach driven by an adult named Greg Thorne, who claims he is immune to the disease.

Brooke immediately develops a crush on Ed, whilst Greg eventually catches up with Matt's group, who are all still journeying towards London.

He says a younger child, who'd gone crazy after losing his family, "didn't make it", indirectly revealing that he had killed the boy and made him into the dried meat he was seen eating.

After a close call where Greg nearly leaves Jack and Frederique behind to a group of zombies, the motor coach stops for the night on the outskirts of London.

Greg wanders off into the streets, whilst the "Bus Party" meets the museum's leader, Jordan, and his second in command DogNut (who develops a crush on Brooke).

Jack, Ed and Bam make their way to The Oval cricket ground, finding dozens of emergency vehicles outside filled with dead bodies.

They find that the stadium is full of diseased corpses that were stacked to be burned, as well as numerous bodies seated in the stands, but the law enforcement and medical officials were themselves killed or succumbed to the infection before they had a chance to finish the job.

Jack accidentally shoots a propane tank with a submachine gun whilst trying to fend off an attacker, causing it to explode and setting off an avalanche of corpses.

Ed cremates his friend by burning the entire house down, and heads back to the museum under a spreading cloud of smoke and ash emanating from a large fire they'd seen earlier in South London.

Armed with additional weapons from the museum, Ed and David lead their respective groups and attempt to cross the Lambeth Bridge.

Ed is helped by another boy named Kyle, and although the fighters initially seem to be overwhelmed, they are rescued by Jordan, DogNut and their his crew, who had been forced to abandon the museum.

He accidentally crashes the boat into the bridge and it splits in half, causing a number of kids to drown, including Aleisha.

Meanwhile, Greg finds himself in Trafalgar Square and puts on a St. George T-shirt from a souvenir stand, deciding to get revenge on those he holds responsible for Liam's death.

A few days after this, Ed, Kyle and Jordan witness Small Sam and the Kid arrive at The tower, and are shocked to find that they look identical to the Lamb and the Goat children from Matt's prophecy.

Part of the appeal of The Dead, as with Higson's other books, stems from the author's inclusion of accurate geographic details (e.g., the locations of and attractions surrounding various Tesco stores; Jack, Ed, and Bam's trek from the Imperial War Museum to The Oval; the trek of Ed's "bus party" and David King's group from the Imperial War Museum to the Lambeth Bridge); descriptions of various sites and historic events, e.g., the Great Fire of London (1666); and references to popular culture, e.g., the Gormenghast series).

Additionally, Higson incorporates elements of wartime resilience reminiscent of the Blitz spirit, drawing a parallel between the struggles of his young protagonists and the collective endurance of Londoners during World War II.

References to popular media, such as the survivalism in Lord of the Flies and dystopian tropes from 28 Days Later, enhance the story's cultural resonance.