Sheltering from the 1918 Spanish Flu at their seaside estate, a Progressive journalist and his socialite wife take in a mysterious grifter as a private cook. But when the plague descends on the posh island, the family and staff find themselves cut off from society and, like castaways, struggling to survive. The new cook sees an opportunity to rouse his fellow staff to re-think their stations and have the run of the mansion for themselves. Their employer suspects the cook’s coup is part of a far more sinister agenda. It is not long before the mind games between master and servant breed an all-out war for dominance over the home. Social restraints crack apart. And civility gives way to animal instincts that lurk beneath………