Pursued by a past he cannot bring himself to remember, Hal returns to his Midwestern birthplace, where he takes a job as staff physician at a veteran’s home. There, Hal finds himself the unwilling audience of his patients’ horrific stories, and descends with them into a Dantesque vision of the hell of war. Fleeing one hell for another, Hal searches the ruins of his ancestral home for clues to his own family’s descent into murder and madness. Between these two worlds, Hal finds a guide in Nell, who harbors her own secrets about both worlds. The ancient veterans compel Hal to hear what they did and what they suffered. As the veterans’ war stories grow stranger and more terrible, they lead Hal to a terrifying discovery: about his patients, his family, and his collapsing world.