When a nightmarish blizzard drives college students Nick Bookman and Robin Kelley to take shelter in a small-town Minnesota church, they are forced to confront the intimate secret that is tearing their friendship apart. The appearance of another storm refugee, Alicia Morgan, an attractive high school senior and self-described witch, arouses Nick's interest and threatens to strain the old friends' relationship past the breaking point. Then one of the men trapped in the church disappears in the deep of the night, and his young daughter stumbles in from the storm babbling about monsters. Only Alicia recognizes the creature from the child's tale—a wendigo, an ancient spirit that embodies the hunger for human flesh. Soon these monsters are on the hunt, and the refugees discover they must fight not only with the menace that haunts the storm, but their own darkest desires. If they cannot control their hungers, they will be consumed by them. Only the strongest hearts among the strange band of storm refugees have any hope of surviving the long dark night.