A retired teacher looks back on her teaching career. She focuses on one incident in which a troubled child killed a school pet and wonders if she made the right choice in turning the child in to her parents.

A growing family moves into a new house in upstate New York, in order to escape the danger of the city. However, as they begin to settle into their new home, the family is torn apart by an infestation of rabies and curious hauntings.

A Jamaican man from New York narrates his life story in the way he knows best--verbally, chronological, and somewhat speculatively.