The story takes place primarily in two mythical counties, McBee and Wofford, ostensibly in the upstate South Carolina. Jadie, a boy of thirteen or fourteen, his mother having died when he was very young and his father in and out of jail, is virtually alone in the world. Having spent most of his young life being shuttled from one foster home to another, he finds himself in the custody of an ill-tempered aunt, an obese and miserable woman who seems to value the monthly check she receives from the state social services much more than she does the boy.
Their lives become inextricably and fatally intertwined with two nameless drifters who roam the rural countryside looking for the boy whom they believe can link them to a heinous crime. Subsequently, as the story unfolds Jadie feels, and the reader knows, that one of the drifters is closing in on him and that an encounter is inevitable and destined. The boy must run. His flight leads to entanglements with a host of characters- an itinerant preacher, a deputy sheriff, a carnival owner, and others-each of whom he believes may be his salvation, but deliverance turns out to be elusive and illusionary.
Bad Creek is a story of alienation, desperation, and struggle as seen through the lives of what may be called the "invisible" people. Their poverty, corporeally as well as morally, is real and palpable. But it is also, alas, a story of hope and how this hope is embodied in the wits and will to survive in the seemingly insignificant life of a young boy.