In Trinity, South Caroline, the boy Caleb Temple is celebrating his birthday with his deranged father and his beloved disturbed and traumatized sister Merlyn Temple. Out of the blue, she starts repeating over and over "someone's at the door" and her father tries to kill her. Caleb flees and brings Sheriff Lucas Buck and Deputy Ben Healy that arrest his father. However Ben accidentally witnesses Lucas breaking Merlyn's neck in her room and blaming her father for the death. Caleb goes to the hospital and the alcoholic Dr. Matt Crower examines him. Lucas comes to the hospital expecting to adopt Caleb and does not allow that the sheriff takes custody of the boy. Then Lucas goes to the jail and Caleb's father mysteriously commits suicide. Meanwhile Caleb's distant cousin Gail Emory comes to Trinity to take custody of the boy. Caleb receives messages written in blood telling him to go home and he goes and meets the spirit of Merlyn that shows that their mother was raped by the sheriff. Lucas uses the schoolteacher Selena Coombs, who is his lover, to control Ben. Gail and Matt go to Caleb's house trying to rescue the boy from Lucas.