Donna guesses that the government may kill her for leaking the information and reveals Stephanie survived but refused to participate in the film. Years later, Donna leaks the gathered footage, revealing that the government managed to kill the isopods by filling the water with chlorine they then covered up the incident as the result of "unusually high water temperatures" and paid off the few survivors and relatives in exchange for silence. Stephanie is able to escape unharmed with her baby. Alex, who swam in the bay earlier, becomes infected and dies. Stephanie and Alex arrive to find the town mostly deserted, with corpses littering the street. The CDC also contacts Homeland Security, who write off the chaos as happening in a "small town" and fail to offer help. Officials at the CDC learn that the water in Claridge contained a slew of toxins and likely had a considerable radioactive rating, but it was never reported previously due to radioactivity not being a quality that is measured in water quality checks. Abrams is told by the CDC that no help is forthcoming he uses his final hours to document the mass of dead bodies within the hospital, among whom is the teenage girl from earlier. Mayor Stockman flees in haste, only to be killed in a car accident.Īn infected Dr. After being confronted by the sheriff and Mayor Stockman, he is revealed to also be covered in lesions he kills the sheriff and then commits suicide. Having gone insane from seeing what has happened, he euthanizes them, and then murders his partner Paul after one of the isopods bites him. Meanwhile, two deputies are overcome with complaints of citizens screaming in pain in a digitally enhanced audio recording, Officer Jimson encounters an infected family begging to be killed. The bridge to the town is also shut down as the citizens are forcibly quarantined. Stephanie and Alex, a young couple with a newborn, sail to Claridge, unaware of the danger as local law enforcement has shut down cell towers. The oceanographers are killed by a swarm of fully-grown isopods while doing further research, and their bodies are discovered shortly before the events of the film but are initially written off as victims of a shark attack. The oceanographers alert the city's environmental council, but Mayor Stockman, who heads the council, ignores the warnings. It is also discovered that the boils and lesions are the result of the isopods eating their hosts from the inside out. Because of this, the isopods breed and grow quickly, killing off millions of fish and causing 40% of the bay to become lifeless. The ispopods have seemingly evolved to affect humans as well due to the high volume of excrement from the chickens from the plant, who were pumped with steroids to promote rapid growth.
After encountering multiple eviscerated fish eaten from the inside out, they realize that the true culprit is the tongue-eating louse, also known as Cymothoa exigua. It is revealed that months beforehand, two oceanographers discovered high levels of toxicity in the bay.
Mayor Stockman continues to downplay and deny the situation. Two teenagers are killed by an unknown animal while swimming, and several citizens, including a teenage girl using FaceTime to speak with a friend, report bizarre symptoms, including the feeling of bugs within their bodies. The city descends into chaos as people begin dying en masse within hours. Abrams, the head of the local hospital, is overwhelmed with patients and contacts the CDC, who initially believe the issue to be caused by an unknown virus or fungal infection. Participants of a crab-eating contest also all begin to vomit violently. Despite Stockman's proclamations, as rookie reporter Donna (the individual behind the film's leaked footage) covers the event, dozens of citizens begin falling ill with severe lesions with no explanation. However, the chicken farm has come under fire from criticism from some citizens who are concerned about the water quality of the bay due to the dumping of chicken excrement and other toxins into the water, though Mayor Stockman, who is eager to further Claridge's burgeoning economy, insists the water is perfectly safe.
On July 4, 2009, Claridge, a seaside Chesapeake Bay town nestled on Maryland's Eastern Shore thrives on water, both from tourism and from how it benefits the chicken industry.
The footage is gathered from various news reports and home video, following multiple narrative lines. government until an anonymous source leaked the footage for the entire world to see.
The movie explains the footage was confiscated by the U.S.