It is post-apocalypse, and the city is inhabited by two types of zombies - Boneys and Fleshies. Boneys have completely decayed, whilst Fleshies are still in the process of decaying. A zombie by the name of R lives in a community of the dead on the outskirts of the city. He cannot remember what his name used to be and so refers to himself by his initial.
Zombies comb the city for the living, so that they can eat their brains, which enables them to retrieve the memories of the person they have just consumed. R does not seem to fit in with the other Fleshies. He doesn't like to eat human flesh and he can still speak like a living being. His thought processes are still intact too.
R participates in a hunt and finds a young man called Perry, whose brain he consumes. Accessing his memories he sees a young woman by the name of Julie, who was Perry's girlfriend. Although out of character for a zombie, he saves her from his fellow hunters. He rubs zombie blood on her scent to throw her pursuers off and takes her back to the abandoned aircraft he resides in. Slowly, Julie begins to trust him and she agrees to stay for a little while, at least until the others have forgotten about her and have stopped hunting her down. He fetches food from the airport restaurant for her and Julie teaches him to drive, because he has found an abandoned car and managed to get it to start. As they become friends, R feels guilty about killing Perry, although he is still eating his brains little by little.
Julie is attacked by a small group of zombies and when R is seen fending them off, bad feeling erupts in the Fleshies community. In particular, his friend M is angry. They call in the Bonies to talk to him and one shows him old photographs of zombies and the living fighting each other, telling him that this is how things are meant to be. That night Julie persuades R to take her home and zombies watch as they leave.
Soon the Boneys attack them, but M, now warming to Julie, helps them escape in the car. They spend the night together in an abandoned house; the following morning R goes out for gas for the car and Julie calls her father, but when R returns Julie has already left. He walks back to the airport; it begins to rain and for the first time since he died he feels the cold. He encounters M who has been chased out of the airport by the Bonies. Some of the Fleshies are experiencing similar feelings to R; they are having dreams and their memories are beginning to become very vivid. R decides to go after Julie and is reunited with her at her home. He realizes that Perry's soul is living inside his.
Grigio, Julie's father. realizes that R is a zombie and despite Julie's protests, attacks him. Nora holds a gun to his head which allows R and Julie to escape. There are more zombies outside, because since R started to change, so did they. The Bonies catch up with them and renew their attacks, but Julie and R manage to escape up onto the roof, from this new vantage point the see the Boneys and the living engaged in a large-scale fight. R and Julie kiss; their love is such a pure force that R is cured and both the couple's eyes become golden. Grigio finds them on the roof and tries to kill R but is attacked and killed by a Boney. Julie takes Grigio's gun and shoots the Boney who disintegrates whilst still on the roof. This seems to deflate the baying hoard of Boneys who give up the fight and disperse.
After the battle, the living decide that they will give the dead who are reviving a chance to assimilate into society again. Perhaps in time they will all learn to live happily ever after.
