In idyllic Zephyr, Alabama, the year is 1964. People either work for the paper mill on the Tecumseh River or for the local dairy. It's a simple life, but it fuels the impressive imagination of 12-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson. He is sure that he heard ghosts whispering to each other in the cemetery. He had heard of strange smugglers lurking in the darkness beyond the city. He saw a deluge of snakes on the main street. Cory is as excited about it all as a little boy can be.

Then one morning, when he accompanies his father on a milk delivery, he sees a car go off the road and slowly sink into the bottomless Saxon lake. His father jumps into the icy water to rescue the driver and finds the battered corpse, naked and chained to the steering wheel - with a copper wire tightened around his neck. Over time, the townspeople seem to have completely forgotten about the unsolved murder. But Cory and his father can't.

Their search for the truth is a journey into a world where innocence and evil collide. What lies before them is fear and awe, magic and madness, fantasy and reality…