It’s the nature of time that the old ways must give way to the new. But what happens when the old ways are not superstitions? What happens when they’re immortal and very very real?

Szepassony is the “beautiful lady” of Hungarian folklore. She was a spirit of romance, fertility, birth, death, and also storms and rain. Midwives and expectant mothers would pray to her for a safe childbirth, and she was also prayed to in matters of love.

With the dawn of Christianity, Szepassony was reviled as a demon. A temptress who led men astray and caused the deaths of babies that nursed at her breast. If you were out in a rainstorm, caught cold, and died, you had incurred the wrath of the demon Szepassony.

1892. Exeter Rhode Island. Folks are dying all around. George Brown’s family has been hit especially hard. First his wife Mary, and then his daughter Mary Olive passed on. His son Edwin had been sent away to Colorado in the hopes that the air would help him, but he returned because the sickness progressed. Then his daughter Mercy took sick and died.

How much can one man take? As Edwin’s illness grows worse, folks begin to talk. Three people dead in one family? Surely it wasn’t the “bacteria” these fancy doctors talk about. No, something was stalking the family. A curse….

George is a desperate man, ready to try anything to stop the hell he’s going through. Edwin is growing pale now and coughing up blood. The older folk in town are saying the dead of the Brown family are preying on the living to stay alive.

One day, George and some friends head to the cemetery. He’s had enough and he simply has to know. First they exhume Mary. She’s decomposed. Next they exhume Mary Olive. She’s decomposed. They turn their shovels to Mercy’s grave last. The men share a nervous glance when their shovels hit wood. Whispering a prayer to Almighty God, George opens the casket. Mercy lies in repose, looking as if she were merely sleeping. And then her eyes open….