Summary

The morning after Seth walks into the Pacific Ocean and is crushed on the rocks by the brutal waves, he wakes up. It is impossible, his shoulder was broken, his skull pulverized on the sharp reef near his Oregon home. He has been transported to the small English town where he grew up (and left when he was only 8 for a better life in America). Everything is exactly the same as he left it...exactly. Nothing has moved, no one has trespassed, no one has cleaned. The house is filled with dust, the lawn has grown unruly and the cabinets are full of moldy food. When he steps outside he discovers that the rest of his block, his neighborhood, his whole town, has been completely abandoned. Seth is convinced he must be in hell, a personal hell plucked from his worst memories, that sent him into the frigid ocean in the first place. Then he meets two other survivors, although he isn't entirely convinced they aren't a part of his imagination, and begins to uncover the truth about the town that time forgot.