A young Black man, Mr. Bisset travels to Durham as a part of the Federal Writer’s Project in 1937. He has been asked to write about the folklore of former slaves in the South. When he arrives, he is immediately greeted by hate, people refusing to talk to him and denying him a place to stay. He sets out to speak to some local families who lead him to groups of people suspected of killing white locals who had committed hate crimes called the Night Doctors. Supposedly people who would capture freed slaves and bring them back. But a local Miss Shaw says otherwise, she says they can drive people mad with whispers and just make them disappear. So Mr. Bisset sets off to find them, and eventually he ends up in a dark woods, where the night doctors take him and remove his organs as a payment for his writing. And make him a Night Doctor in return.