Lanny Bells just wants to do the right thing. He saves the life of a man who has been tortured and left for dead, his chest and abdomen sliced, his arms and legs tied to the ground. It looks to Lanny like an attack by some sort of fanatic cult. A ritualistic sacrifice. It's a crazy idea, but Lanny is finding that the world he knows isn't as sane as he once thought, and some crazy ideas are horribly close to the truth.This particular man was supposed to die. Death is the natural order, and now Nature itself wants payment. The earth has come alive and needs the sacrifice that Lanny prevented. But some don't want the sacrifice completed, and are happy to see the devastation. If Lanny can't find a way to stop it, first the town of Oakview will be swallowed whole. Then all of humanity.Lanny is about to discover that sometimes doing the right thing is wrong.