When terrorist action releases a secret government virus in the Houston Federal building, the employees become aggressive and homicidal. Federal officials quarantine the building to wipe out the infected and control the story, but a small group of uninfected are fighting to get out.

In 1971, five college buddies from the University of Texas embark on a final road trip odyssey across the Mexican border before facing up to uncertain futures, in Vietnam and otherwise.

In effort to create the perfect nutria for breeding by the fur industry, a scientist and his assistant inadvertently create a brutal mutation that escapes into the nearby swamps.