Carlyle, Missouri looks like any other unassuming river town along the mighty Bucolic environs, small historical districts where town legacies are kept alive, for better or worse, and a population made up of simple, salt of the earth people averse to change in any form. But when a promising new biochemical is released into that old, mighty river to help clean up a century of accumulated waste, pollution, and human hubris, things backfire, spectacularly. Carlyle will be ground zero for change, not just on a societal level, but molecular. Biological. As their sleepy little river town is transformed into a Dante-esque hellscape, it's up to a surly old Vietnam vet-turned biker, a new sheriff from the mean streets of Saint Louis, and a woman who has endured more than her share of domestic horrors to band together and escape, before they too, become unwilling proselytizers for the growing new congregation spawned from those old muddy The Church of the Worm.