From the introduction: In 1851 in Ocean Shore, Iowa, where there is no Ocean, an old man, Callum McKaniky watched his wife die in child birth. Distressed and unable to accept his new born daughter as a sacrifice he took her into the corn fields and sacrificed her. But it wasn't the spirit of his wife that came back. Instead a dark force rose up, a force that wanted more and more. Callum became the First Murderer of Ocean Shore. He lured children into his old house and they never came out. He was caught one stormy day as a tornado touched down by the angry parents of Ocean Shore and he was burned alive. In 1914 Mrs. Allen Apple began poisoning the children of Ocean Shore. She gave out sweets to any child she saw and soon they grew sick and began vomiting blood. When the police came for her she screamed that it was all for the house! She was dragged away to an old sanatorium in Ohio and died soon after her lobotomy.