The plot follows detectives Karl Roebuck and Elise Wasserman working together to find a serial killer who left the upper-half body of a French politician and the lower-half of a British prostitute in the Channel Tunnel, at the midpoint between France and the UK. They later learn that the killer—who comes to be nicknamed the "Truth Terrorist"—is on a moral crusade to highlight many social problems, terrorising both countries in the process

Yumi, a writer of a science magazine, witnesses a mysterious death of a high school girl who received a "one missed call" from her own cell phone, two weeks in the future. The disturbing message on the cell phone turns out to be the screams of the victim.

In 1963, in the fictitious city of Antares in South of Brazil, the workers decide to strike, fighting for better salaries and working conditions. Meanwhile, seven locals die: the conservative and Catholic matriarch and very powerful lady, Quitéria Campolargo; the corrupt lawyer Cícero Branco; the Spanish anarchist shoemaker Barcelona; the drunkard Pudim de Cachaça; the prostitute Erotildes; the student João da Paz; and the pianist Menandro Olinda. Once their bodies remain unburied due to the general strike, they decide to claim to the local authorities the right of being buried. The Major Vivaldino Brazão, the judge Quintiliano do Vale, the "Colonel" Tibério Vacariano and the local sheriff are not able to force the workers to return to their normal activities, so the dead citizens disclose dark secrets about corruption of the leaders and the dwellers. Once they are corpses, they are not subject to the laws of the living and they can freely speak about the sordid hidden secrets.