Jeremy owns a construction company that is working on a development in the Blue Ridge Mountains, called Wild Acres. The construction site has been vandalized several times now, so Jeremey and two of the men from his crew, Dennis and Renaldo, decide to stake out the site one night to catch the perpetrators. As the men wait for the vandals to arrive, Jeremey reflects on their different responses to fear and anger. Dennis, a white middle aged man who is full of working class rage, is drunk on beer and the promise of violence. Renaldo is a young Mexican man who serves as an element of comic relief to the hardworking crew of men. Jeremy is struggling financially, and realizes that the reason he is there that night is not truly to catch the vandals, but rather to get drunk and blow off steam. He thinks about his wife at home, and how she is the one person he confides in. He leaves the men at the site to go pee in the woods, and as he is zipping up his pants he sees a young boy in front of him, naked and pale in the moonlight. He runs back to the construction site to find his friends being attacked by a wolf-like creature. Dennis tells Jeremy to shoot the wolf and save them, but he drives off terrified in his truck, his rifle mounted just behind him as he flees, leaving the two men left behind to die. For months after, Jeremy struggles with nightmares, rarely ever leaving the house, losing his job, and gaining weight. He learns that Renaldo's family is bitter toward him, and Dennis' wife is being evicted from her home. Even half a year later, the event is still haunting him, and Jeremy begins to question if it really was a wolf, or if the creature was a werewolf or something more chilling, like the nightmares he has been having. Eventually, his wife gets him to leave the house and attend a Christmas party with her coworkers from the Elementary School she teaches at. At the party, jokes are made about wanting to be violent toward the young children who can be difficult to teach at times. The talk of violence disturbs Jeremy, and when a man who flirts with his wife at work goes over to talk to him, Jeremy snaps and begins fighting him. He leaves the party and returns to the scene of the attack, ready and waiting with his gun, but nothing ever shows up, leaving Jeremy to face his own fear and survivor's guilt.