Sheba is impulsive, unconstrained by convention, and fond of men. When she comes into a small amount of money, she decides on a lark that she wants to purchase an old house—sight unseen—and turn it into a hunting lodge. The house and many surrounding acres are priced very attractively. She talks two sisters and her roommate Donna—her good friends—into quitting their jobs and coming to live and work with her, but each of them wants to give one- or two-week notice. Impatient, Sheba jumps in her car and drives to the house that she purchased, arriving after nightfall. Approaching the house she first must cross a bridge—so slippery, narrow. And the fog, thick, seeming to come out of nowhere, covering the windshield, smothering, blinding. Then blackness . . . and icy water. The hunters were puzzled when they found her the next morning on the shore. How could she possibly have escaped, with the car still under water, locked? In a panic, Sheba calls her friends and convinces them to immediately fly down and join her. They all arrive and move into the huge, dark, old multi-story house and begin preparing it as a hunting lodge. Strange things begin to occur almost immediately. Over time they learn that several persons have previously drowned by running off the bridge after dark. Why did Sheba survive? There also seems to be an unexplained presence in the house, and it seems to be getting stronger with each passing day. Donna—the calm manager—finally makes a trip to the attic and is puzzled by the things that she observes.
