Content Warning: This novel and guide discuss rape, child abuse (physical, sexual, and emotional), domestic violence, murder, kidnapping, torture, and death by suicide.

The prologue opens in the summer of 1977 in Pantown, Minnesota. Heather Cash, the narrator and protagonist, details the terror and fear of growing from a girl into a woman—a harrowing experience with no guidelines and a steep learning curve. Heather notes that the race to adulthood stopped short for three teenage girls in Pantown, who were murdered before they could grow up. She states that everything starts in the tunnels underneath Pantown.

Elizabeth “Beth” McCain, a waitress at the Northside Diner in St. Cloud, isn’t sure whether she’ll go to Jerry Taft’s party at the quarries outside of town. She decides that since she’s leaving to attend college at UC Berkeley in only three short weeks, going to the party might liven up her dying relationship with her boyfriend, Mark.

As she leaves the diner, a man (who the reader later learns is Ed) asks if she’d like a ride. She recognizes him but feels anxious and declines. He grabs her by the arm before strangling her.