Hig, the narrator, is a former contractor who lives in an old hangar at the former Erie Airport, outside Denver, Colorado. Hig’s language is a hybrid of the commonplace and lyrical, and his use of colloquialisms paint Hig as an everyman. Throughout the novel, Hig displays deep empathy, evidenced by his trips to a group of Mennonite families affected by the blood disease that has spread after the flu. A pilot of a Cessna plane named the Beast, Hig’s relationship with nature, fishing, hunting and survivalism drive the novel. While Hig never imagines himself the type to murder, circumstances force Hig to act counter to his beliefs, in order to survive. Hig kills his wife, Melissa, upon her asking, to relieve her intense suffering from the fatal flu. It’s Hig’s love of poetry, and his longing for his former life, that suffuses the book with humanity and insight.

Bangley is a former farmer with shoot-first-ask-questions-later, survivalist beliefs, who one day, before the novel starts, shows up with a trailer full of weapons and ammunition at the airport where Hig lives. Bangley always wears a belted sidearm, and he helps Hig construct a berm from which the two men can scope out and defend their perimeter from intruders.