The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster was also an inspiration; as oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, he began reading reports suggesting the broken well might not be capped for decades.

[7] Four armed and unnamed women—a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a military-trained surveyor—cross the border into Area X, an unspecified coastal location that has been closed to the public for three decades.

The story is narrated through the field journal of the biologist, who gradually reveals that her husband was part of the previous expedition, from which he had returned home unexpectedly without the memory or ability to explain his reappearance.

In Area X during the present moment, the four women come upon an unmapped bunker with a staircase curving deep into the ground, which the biologist feels oddly inclined to think of as a "Tower".

Entering, they discover cursive writing that begins "Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead" and extends down the Tower's stairway wall into a seemingly endless sentence.

The biologist is amazed to see that the words bloom out of a fungal material along the wall, which she examines closely, accidentally inhaling some spores.

She returns to the surface and notices the psychologist, the team's leader, using specific sayings to trigger hypnosis in the other women, making them more obedient and tranquil.

The biologist is conscious of a "brightness" growing within herself, which she attributes to the spores, and she leaves to explore a distant lighthouse; the surveyor stays behind to protect their campsite.

Inside the lighthouse, the biologist discovers copious bloodstains and a large hidden pile of hundreds of past expeditions' journals, some detailing battles against a monstrous presence from the sea.

Traveling back toward base camp, the biologist senses the nightly moaning creature approaching; she narrowly escapes but is shot twice by the surveyor who, like the psychologist, is terrified of her "glow".

"[13] The Washington Post said that it was "successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future"[14] while The Daily Telegraph said that it "shows signs of being the novel that will allow VanderMeer to break through to a new and larger audience".