A forty-three-year-old woman lives near a river in Detroit and often takes her boat out on the water. Sometimes, she takes paying customers near the bridge to see the old, sunken cars beneath the waves. Lately, she feels there is a haunting presence deep in the water, and she feels it growing. The water is severely polluted and dangerous. One day, she sees a child dip their toe in the water and run away screaming. Another time, she sees someone reel in an oily fish, but no matter how hungry she may be, she would never eat anything from the river. During the summer, the bodies of people who couldn't survive the heat begin to pile in the streets across the city. Then, four bodies are found in the river. The victims had died recently and were from Pennsylvania. When the woman drives her boat to the spot they were found, she sees the water moving and swirling on its own. Some time later, she hears screams and approaches someone who claims that a wave had just eaten their friends. In the shallow water she sees floating bathing suits and a pile of bones. Throughout the summer, reports of people missing or found dead continue to occur in the area surrounding the river. The woman notices that the victims are never people from Detroit, like herself, but are people from out of town, here for new jobs, despite the fact that those who were born and raised in the city are out of work and impoverished. That August, the woman goes out on her boat and ends up near the mayor's house. The mayor is a white man who was born in Grand Rapids and then raised in New York, and he was appointed to his position by the governor. He and his wife are hosting a party in their yard, when a wave grows out of the water and drenches them and their guests, though the water touches nothing else nearby. By the time the water calms, the mayor, his wife, and the attendees from out of town are all missing. Once the story is released in the press, masses of people move away from Detroit, leaving only the people who were raised there, one of them appointed the new mayor. The woman can't help but feel glad to have her city back, and she continues to search the water for signs of life or some other presence.