A young man recalls his childhood as the son of a minister and how he used to believe in the invisible world. His father would tell him and his church friends the same story about kids going into a haunted house and being butchered one by one. However, one of the kids of the church actually kills four other kids in an abandoned house and the young man begins to rationalize the world and the ghost stories he has heard. In college the young man meets Greta, a graduate psychology student, and the two of them become close — talking about the young man’s history as a faithful individual. One day Greta invites the young man to accompany her to listen to the tapes that a professor, Doctor Mandel, has recorded of a man telling a ghost story. They listen to the man on the tapes talk about how he and his two kids escaped a thunderstorm by running to an abandoned house and standing on the porch. However, his daughter dared his son to go into the house and then the daughter followed under the father’s instruction. Next the father hears screams from the house and he escapes. Greta and the young man ask Doctor Mandel if the man went to the police, and Doctor Mandel informs them that the man doesn’t have any kids. The two psychology students decide they want to know more and track down the man from the tape, whose name is Bill Carson. They ask Carson about his kids and he seems pleasant at first, but then he gets angry with them and kicks them out of his house. The young man says he believes that Carson is telling the truth about his kids. The two decide they will go investigate the house to corroborate Carson’s story. They find it and enter the front door together, though it seems eerie and rotting. Inside they find a room with a lot of tiny nooses and decide to leave, but they can’t find the door that they came in from. Greta tries to keep a level head and decides that she will try to go upstairs so that she can escape through an open window. They hear noises from upstairs and see an impenetrable darkness lingering at the top of the staircase. Greta goes up and the young man is left in silence. He tries to get out and he hears screams from all around him. Then he hears Greta’s voice individually and he runs around with his eyes closed until he finds an open window and jumps out. He survives and escapes, but knows that eventually the house will get him.