In the rural town of Maple Hollow, 39-year-old Matteo Bourbon runs the Bourbon Slaughter Shack, a butcher shop as storied and worn as the oak tree in the square. Matteo is a rugged man of discipline and routine, raising his imaginative nine-year-old daughter, Yasmine, in the aftermath of his wife Clarisse's mysterious death.
One day, a nervous stranger arrives with a strange cooler and an even stranger request: store the "animal" inside for three months no questions asked. Against his better judgment, Matteo agrees. When the cooler is opened, it reveals something beyond comprehension: a semi-sentient, speaking creature, something like a jellyfish or a squid, it's scared.
As Matteo hides the creature in the cellar, life above continues with increasing tension. Yasmine is drawn to the creature's loneliness, sneaking into the cellar and forming a bond. When the creature reveals it once knew Clarisse-and that she hid it before her death-old wounds reopen. Clarisse had found the alien and tried to protect it, and her silence cost her life.
As Matteo investigates Clarisse's past, he uncovers journals, maps, and a trail of missing people-all pointing to a local man named Dale Carter. Clarisse had tracked Carter's grotesque experiments and human disappearances, and it becomes clear she died trying to stop something evil. The alien watched it all-and now, so does Matteo.
Driven by grief and rage, Matteo confronts Dale, only to discover Clarisse's severed finger-still wearing her ring-kept like a trophy. In a blind fury, Matteo murders and butchers Dale in his own cabin, returning to the shop to dispose of the evidence the only way he knows how: the meat goes to market, fed to the very community that ignored Clarisse's warnings.
The act is both horrifying and purifying.
But it's not over.
Sonia is a strong, attractive Australian 28 year old with a violent and dysfunctional family background. She gets a job, in the UK, with the Ethical Investigation Bureau (EIB); an organisation which monitors companies that supposedly have ethical/ environmental standards and others that might be breaking related legislation. After a period of menial information and sample-gathering Sonia persuades her boss (York) to give her an undercover assignment, which happens to be at SEICA (seeka), a medical research company 4 hours drive from the city where EIB and Sonia are based.
A few days later Sonia becomes infected by the Vaederon whilst stealing a sample of it. She drives down to EIB HQ but on the way, at a cafe in the woods, the drug overwhelms her. She comes to, in the forest, the next morning, with no memory but with heightened perceptions. Meanwhile the head of EIB (York) has used knowledge gained from the analysis of the first sample that Sonia stole to blackmail (anonymously) Dr Metcalfe. Sonia finds her way to the city (from whence she came) by requisitioning the car of a man who tries to sexually assault her while she is hitching. With the help of a video artist (Matt), she starts to piece things together from her recent past. This is possible because the Vaederon is making her mind transmit images that are picked up by Matt's equipment. Thus she begins the journey to recover her eggs and wreak revenge on Dr Metcalfe.
You can't please all of the people all of the time and a happy ending for York, Brian and Matt-the video artist isn't, necessarily the one that Sonia planned....but at least she ends up alive, content and..... pregnant.