A confrontation within a prison between the inmate Franklin and a National Guardsman, there to staff the prison during the 1977 Wisconsin state employee strike, starts a series of events neither man foresees nor can ignore as chance soon brings them together again. Our hero has travelled with his wife and sister to help take Rick and Paula's large trailer into Nicolet National Forest in upper Wisconsin, to hunt deer in the days before Thanksgiving. Other friends have joined them. All look forward to the fun, to the hunt, and to help a friend establish a new home. The fun ends abruptly when Franklin and his convicts, having escaped from prison the evening before, enter this forest to avoid the law and find their camp. They forcibly take command yet not every camper has been caught. An on-going struggle littered with death ensues and, as it does, Franklin and our hero discover their paths have crossed again. Franklin takes delight in this, knows nearly every advantage is his to take, as he begins to hunt our hero down. Our hero is terrified, confused, emotionally shocked, from witnessing the convicts kill as he begins to fight back. He takes a questionable stance, makes tormenting choices and daring actions, with unknown results that could either save or kill his wife, sister, and friends. A wicked blizzard compounds his problems for survival. Then he learns Franklin is foremost among those he fights-from Franklin himself. As Franklin pursues him in the snows his life already ebbs away ... can he save the others-are they still alive-can he save himself-what can you do when there's no one to help and no where to run and you know you're slowly dying?