In the opening chapter of The Dog Stars Hig, the narrator, introduces the eight-mile area in which Hig, neighbor Bruce Bangley, and Hig’s dog, Jasper, have survived the nine years since a devastating flu, and then blood disease, wiped out the majority of the human and animal populations in the world. Hig and Bangley live at an abandoned airport, still stocked with supplies. Within their secure area are also nearby homes. Hig flies a 1956 Cessna 182— nicknamed the Beast—to patrol the perimeter, “which is the distance of open prairie to the first juniper woods on the skirt of the mountain” (4).

These patrols provide safety from neighboring groups like the Mennonites, who Hig helps sometimes, and also allow Hig to fly to different airports for supplies. As the chapter progresses, Hig jumps back and forth between present action and memory, describing the surroundings and providing backstory that contextualizes the dire situation he finds himself in. The chapter closes as, in the middle of the night, five individuals approach Hig’s house and hide ninety feet away, behind the cover of a dumpster placed there by Hig and Bangley. Hig counts to two hundred, knowing Bangley never takes longer to arrive with help.