After seventeen-year-old Russell Whitford confronts and kills a rabid dog, he seeks to prevent the news from reaching the dog's owner, whose hair-trigger temper is well-known in the small town of Riley, Alabama. Russell can count on silence from two of the three witnesses who watched him hack Hector Graham's Bloodhound to death, but the third, Michael O'Brien, isn't like the other two. His allegiance isn't as fixed as Russell would like it to be. When the Centers for Disease Control arrive in town, and dogs begin running away, and gun shots start ringing out in the dead of night, Russell's summer goes from bad to worse. All he wants to do is play his piano and guitar, maybe walk his dog every now and then, not have the weight of the universe hoisted upon his shoulders.