The story opens as two New Englanders, John Branner and his brother Griswell, are travelling in the South and spend the night in a deserted plantation manor. Griswell awakens from a troubled sleep to see Branner walking up the stairs in a trance. He is horrified when Branner returns, no longer alive but an animated corpse gripping the bloody axe that had split his skull. Griswell flees the house in a blind panic and runs aimlessly into the woods.