Cal is an eighteen-year-old boy in his last year of high school. He lives in a trailer park with his father in Montana. Cal enjoys being with his father. His father has always been a quiet man, and he sometimes takes Cal hunting. One day, Cal enters the trailer and sees that his father is gone; the man never returns, and no sign of him is ever found. Life must go on for Cal. He graduates, takes up a job at a Chinese restaurant, and bonds with Jenny, a man who also lives in the trailer park. Cal lives alone with his dog, Koda. He hears from the Korean grandma who owns the restaurant that there’s a cougar on the loose. Cal’s visited by his friend Blake, who encourages him to move with him to Florida or Canada or, at the very least, work with him at an oil rig in Missoula. Cal sends in an application. Soon after Cal hears that he’s been accepted for the position, the cougar attacks Koda. Cal tries shooting the cougar, but he misses and shoots Koda’s leg instead. He brings the dog into the trailer and wraps her in a blanket, but she’s missing the next morning. Not long after, Cal finds Koda’s dead body. Cal never makes his way to Missoula, and he gets fired from the Chinese restaurant. He goes to tell Jenny about his recent unemployment. However, he finds Jenny, who’d steadily been growing skinnier from some mysterious illness, naked on the floor. Cal comes back the next day. Jenny admits that he’d been feeding the cougar to keep it from being hungry and that he hopes that Cal will do the same when he’s gone. A few nights after, Cal sees the cougar again, silently stalking in the dark.