After a military plane crashes outside of a small American town, its cargo — a genetically engineered, sixty-foot-long python — begins stalking and killing the locals.

When Kat Walker, an exotically beautiful free spirit, takes a job at rustic Tamarack Lodge, she appears to have little in common with her strange new companions. Soon, amazing interconnections between them are revealed and their lives intertwine with passion and humor as they challenge one another on the steepest slopes of the body, mind and soul. After an avalanche traps Kat and her friends in the isolated lodge, she becomes increasingly haunted by seductive and terrifying visions. As a secret world unfolds, her mysterious past emerges and her new life awakens.

In Los Angeles, the young Jenny has a nice childhood with her Korean parents Joanne and David Kim. However, after the divorce of her parents, the judge gives her custody to her selfish mother that neglects Jenny while the disappointed David returns to Seoul. Six years later, Jenny is a troubled and reckless teenager expelled from the public school that has easy sex and uses drugs and booze, and her best friend is the orphan drug dealer Becky. The lawyer Elliot Krasner decides to call his former friend David to tell him about the self-destructive behavior of Jenny, and David returns to Los Angeles. He brings Jenny to live with him and support her, but the lack of emotional structure of Jenny imposes tough difficulties for their relationship.