Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before.

When a robbery goes awry, the bandits all end up in a puddle of blood and only one lives and goes to jail for five years. Upon his release, the girlfriend wants her new boyfriend to kill him. Only trouble is the boyfriend knows that the fault was not the ex-con s and can t bring himself to do the town. Meanwhile, the ex-con tries to turn his life around by becoming a boxer and training under a former heavyweight contender.

A car roars through the darkened country roads. Inside, a distraught Sarah, holding her stricken dad, Mark, is desperately trying to stem the flow of blood. Having been re-directed to an Evacuation facility on the edge of town, Steve, an off-duty Paramedic is in a race against time fully aware that Marks chances of survival are rapidly slipping away. The scene that greets them on arrival is one of chaos. The floor, awash with blood, is covered with the bodies of the dying and injured, doctors dart back and forth, clearly overwhelmed. A violent convulsion causes Mark to lose consciousness, heart stopped he slumps to the floor. As the adrenalin needle slams into her Fathers heart Sarah stumbles back and her world fades to black. Upon regaining consciousness Sarah is greeted by the uneasy silence of a seemingly deserted building. Bleeding and dazed she stumbles through the darkened corridors unaware of the fate that awaits her...