Dr. Ben Cahill, a fine city doctor, gets so stressed by marital problems and alcohol that he freezes up under pressure in the emergency room. To get his act back together, he decides to unwind a few months in the house he and his ex bought on Orr island, an insignificant (former) fishermen place off the coast of Maine. He almost immediately becomes the butt of spite from a gang of local nobodies. After the doctor started examining, at the request of the reasonable sheriff Hobbs who leans to his side, some animal and human corpses with strange internal as well as external injuries, one of the brutes, not so handy handyman Jack Wald, has a fatal nocturnal accident crashing into Dr. Cahill's car. The doc observes one of the red cockroaches which recently infest the island has pincers, most unusual, reads up and contacts the university entomology department, where this African species isn't too well-known either...

The story begins in 1957 in the star-filled skies above California's Mojave Desert. It is a special night for noted astronomer Ted Lewis, who is preparing a special dinner for his beautiful, adoring wife Lana to celebrate their wedding anniversary. In another part of town, Tammy, a waitress at small local diner with big plans for the future, looks out her window and is excited to see a shooting star, which she takes as a good sign for her dreams. But, what Dr. Lewis and Tammy assume is a shooting star, is really an alien spaceship. The fiery ball hurtles toward earth and crash-lands on a butte in the desert. The only witnesses are teens Dick and Penny who are necking in a nearby lover's lane. A tall, metallic alien named Urp emerges from the craft unharmed, alarmed to discover that the monstrous Ghota, who was also on board, has escaped. The menacing one-eyed creature's unquenchable appetite could mean the end of civilization as we know it...

When Nick Parsons appears to be murdered his wife Libby is tried and convicted. Six years later Libby is paroled and with the help of Travis Lehman (her parole officer) she sets out to find her son and the truth behind the "murder".