On a hot summer day in Elkwood, Alabama, Claire Lambert staggers naked, wounded, and half-blind away from the nightmare that claimed her friends and left her the sole survivor. Even as she prays for rescue, the killers (a family of cannibalistic lunatics) are closing in. A soldier returns from Iraq to be told his brother was among those murdered. A waitress, trapped in an abusive relationship gets an unexpected visit that sends her back on the road to a past she has spent years trying to outrun. Together a dream of vengeance will be realized as grief and rage turn good people into cold-blooded murderers and force alliances among strangers.