A girl’s parents divorced after her older sister, Danielle, died when she was six, and she has spent a good amount of time commuting between her parents’ homes through western Kansas, a rough area. She stays with her mom during the school year and her dad during the summer. She and her dad explore the west of the state, getting slushies and going to the dinosaur museum in Fort Hays.  

Western Kansas is very conservative and the site of many extremist right-wing cults and terrorist attacks. The girl’s sister was one of seven high school students killed outside of an RV at a rest stop in 1987 by a cult called Spiritus Aetum Sperarum. Every time the girl drives between her parents’ houses, she passes the rest stop. 

The death of the kids was gory and contained acts of cannibalism, which caused the rest station to be closed down forever. Some of the children’s remains were never found and for a period of time the police thought some kids, including Danielle, had escaped. The cult leaders were also found dead at the scene. Troublingly, their estimated time of death was before any of the children’s. The girl’s parents never spoke to her or anyone about the tragedy of that day. Because of this, the girl has become obsessed with the murders, choosing to go to Kentucky University so she can stay close to the crime site and go through old newspaper archives. 

The girl even reads the book Wizard’s Ashes, which was written by Damien Hesher, the cult’s leader. The book gives an explanation about why they chose the rest stop. On the Oregon trail, Hesher claims that a family with the same last name he was originally born with, Millers, were forced onto the very ground the rest stop stands on when their wagon wheel broke. There, they ate each other — but not because they had no other option. Hesher believes that acts of cannibalism could free humans from their mortal bodies. 

Now out of college and working as a file clerk at a law firm, the girl finally works up the courage to visit the crime scene. She hopes that it will help her feel closer to Danielle. At the rest stop, she goes into the women’s bathroom and finds it covered in spiderwebs and she uses her flashlight to navigate to the stalls. In the back of the room, she sees a writhing shape that is too big for a bug and too malformed to be human. When she exits, she finds herself in an RV park that wasn’t there before. 

The trees begin to feel like they’re closing in on her and she hears the sound of a thousand blades sawing flesh. Inside the RV, she finds a dying Damien Hesher who says the words “Eternity is a cruel thing.” She watches as he is then attacked by spiders. As the arthropods carry him away, Danielle hugs her. When she opens her eyes, she is back in the abandoned parking lot and  she sees Danielle watching her as she drives away.