Writer Ben Mears has returned to his childhood home of Jerusalem's Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book.

'Salem's Lot is a small New England town with white clapboard houses, tree-lined streets, and solid church steeples. Of course there are tales of strange happenings - but no more than in any other such town.

Ben Mears has returned to the Lot to write a novel and exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood - since the event he witnessed in the Marsten house.

He finds the house has been rented by a newcomer, a man who causes Ben some unease. And then things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed - nothing unusual, except the list keeps growing .