1922

Wilfred James has farmed the same Nebraska land his whole life. When his wife Arlette inherits a hundred adjacent acres from her father, she wants to sell to a hog-farming company and move to Omaha. Wilfred refuses to leave. He turns to their teenage son Henry — telling him that if Arlette sells, she'll take him to the city and away from Shannon Cotterie, the neighbor's daughter Henry loves. Together they murder Arlette in the night and drop her body into the farm's well.

Almost immediately the land begins to turn. Rats appear — at first a few, then swarming. They come from the well. Wilfred begins to see Arlette's rotting face in doorways, at the window, at the edge of his vision. He tells himself it's guilt. He's not sure.

Henry and Shannon flee when she gets pregnant, hitting the road with no plan and no money. They rob stores to survive. Shannon dies giving birth to their son. Henry, alone and broken, is killed during a robbery. The baby is taken in by strangers and survives — the only one who escapes what Wilfred set in motion.

The rats take the farm. The livestock die. The bank forecloses. Wilfred James ends up in a room in Omaha, writing his confession to no one in particular — a long, careful account of everything he did and everything it cost him. He is found dead in the room. The rats had been at him for some time.