Wandering lost in a remote upstate New York forest; twelve-year-olds Julian Carter and Steve Ross find a mysterious abandoned camper and unknowingly awaken an ancient and hungry evil. The boys discover, to the dismay of their small town, that not all things that hunt children hunger for flesh and blood; sometimes souls feed the hunter. When Elizabeth, Steve's sister and Julian's budding adolescent love interest, becomes the fifth child to disappear, the boys realize it is time to finally shoulder responsibility for what they awoke. They set off intent on saving Elizabeth at any cost. Fast forward twenty years - once again, the children of Liberty, NY have begun disappearing. Steve, now the Sheriff and a father of three young children, calls his boyhood friend and asks him to return and help. Julian does, and as adults they decide to face once and for all the ancient evil that lives in the forest.