Katherine Jones

Though enjoying an increase in business following his last case, life isn't all roses for private investigator Harlan Ulrich. His newest job, another missing person's case, is unlike any other he's ever taken on. Local businessman Michael Poole hires Ulrich to find his estranged daughter. The problem? She's been dead for a decade.

The year is 2023. The world's power grids have been destroyed by a Carrington-level solar storm. Humanity is plunged into a new and savage dark age, pushed to the brink of extinction by famine, disease, and social unrest, and preyed upon further by demonic forces. Desperate survivors turn to a divided Catholic church in search of hope. On one side there is the church of Rome. On the other, a rival papacy set up in Avignon, France.

College students Eric and Lydia are looking for a novel way to spend Halloween. They decide to put together a documentary about the supernatural and take a camcorder into the long-abandoned house on Kenwood Drive. It's said that a vengeful spirit lives there, and Lydia thinks it the perfect location. Eric, though, has his reservations. Having grown up in the area, he's familiar with the stories of the spirit they call the "Upside-Down Man", and as their trip to the house draws near, his fear begins to mount.

Penny hates the outdoors, but when her boyfriend, Jared, plans a romantic weekend getaway in the woods, she decides to tag along. The pair drive to a remote Kentucky campground with a strange and sordid history. Within the confines of the Swan Creek State Park are the ruins of a town abandoned under terrifying circumstances in the 19th century. The town of Newsom's Landing had been the site of the last-known witch trial in US history, and the ghost of its defendant, the infamous Ellie Pomeroy, is said to still linger.

The door has been opened. It's already too late. The hunt is on for the thing that escaped from Chaythe Asylum. A life hangs in the balance. Dark plots set in motion more than thirty years ago wind to a close in this final, terrifying volume. Will Stephen Barlow intervene in time to spare the world the horrors of the Occupant?

Kim and Julian try to adjust to their new home, but reminders of the previous owners are many. For Kim, it's difficult not to fixate on the mysterious disappearance of the house's last tenants and she quickly grows obsessed with learning more about them. All the while, the house's quirks and flaws become more than just an annoyance. They're becoming frightening. The strange door in the basement, which had been wallpapered over so as to keep it hidden, has opened of its own accord.