Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.

In this shocking account based on a true story, newlywed Laurie Wade finds her marriage, and eventually the rest of her life, shattered by her deep-rooted psychotic behavior. The young woman soon begins a terrifying descent into insanity and brings danger to all those around her as she goes from brief "short-circuits" to overtly murderous behavior.

Two young men, one in need of medical attention, are cryogenically frozen in the early 1960s. The two are preoccupied with the fact that the police are pursuing them to realise what they are doing. The next thing they know is that they are in a strange new world (thirty years on).

A husband tries to keep his comatose wife alive by allowing doctors to terminate her pregnancy. Hearing about this, anti-abortion protesters start a legal campaign to gain legal custody of the fetus.

Roger Dollison, a police officer, and his wife, Kendra, are living the American dream. They have two children, Teddy and Sandy, a lovely home, and a dog named Rex. What they know and how they live as a family is irreparably changed one day when it is discovered that a classmate of Teddy's is the apparent victim of sexual abuse and molestation at the respected neighborhood daycare center. Like all other parents, the Dollisons are tormented — "we should have known, we should have seen" — but their devastation is complete when Teddy tells his own story, one he promised his abusers he would never tell.

In 1973, 7-year-old Steven Stayner is kidnapped by pedophile Kenneth Parnell. Under the belief that Parnell has been given legal custody of him, and that his family has moved away, he stays with Parnell for seven years, enduring repetitive sexual abuse the entire time. Finally, in 1980, when Parnell kidnaps another young boy, Steven finds a way for them both to escape and return home.