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It's January 20th, 1925, in the ice-bound Alaskan town of Null.

Dr. Curtis Welch mobs his brow as he makes his rounds in the town's small hospital,

a nurse following behind with a notepad and pen. Right now the hospital is unusually busy with

patients and as the town's only doctor, it falls on him to treat every one of them.

Dr. Welch steps into a large room and approaches the bed of three-year-old Billy Barnett.

Welch sighs concerned. He admitted Billy almost two weeks ago for a sore throat and fever.

But after numerous treatments, Billy is still sick.

Welch pulls out a tongue depressor from his pocket and asks Billy to open his mouth.

Welch almost recoils at Billy's fetid breath, but forces himself to look closer because

something worrying catches his eyes. Gray lesions in the back of the throat,

a symptom of diphtheria, an extremely contagious disease with a high mortality rate.

Dr. Welch quickly turns to the nurse and tells her to get the serum for treating diphtheria

from the medicine cabinet. But the nurse can only find a single vial.

Welch's brow furrows as he swirls the small amount of liquid at the bottom of the bottle.

There's barely enough or even a few doses. He draws some into a syringe and injects it into Billy's

arm and drops the syringe on a tray. Welch knows they'll need to order more serum,

but the port will be iced up for at least the next five months. The only way in and out of

known is on snowbound trails and the nearest settlement of any size is nearly 700 miles away.

With a sinking heart, Welch realizes that by the time the serum arrives, hundreds of people might be dead.

...