In this thriller, friends Lou and Ryan are headed towards Las Vegas on the desolate stretch of desert highway known as Zzyzx when Lou has the sudden and disturbing impulse to see if he could get away with murdering someone on the isolated stretch, so when he sees a Native American man stumbling across the road, he strikes the man and kills him. Ryan is understandably freaked out about what his friend has done--especially when the dead man's new bride comes looking for him. Trapped in a bleak area and caught in even bleaker circumstances, it becomes terribly clear that desolation and desperation can have a frightening effect on what seemingly sane people are capable of.