Ghosts are real... When Valerie Cross was thirteen, her brother's friends dared her to go up to the neighborhood's "haunted house," popularly known as the Death House. Valerie did, and the unspeakable evil she saw inside was enough to scar her for over two decades. Now, at the age of thirty-five, Valerie questions not only the reality of her past experience, but her own sanity, too. Until she is visited by the same evil entity she had come face-to-face with all those years ago. His name is the Butler, a long tenured resident of the Death House, and the only thing he serves is murder. But this time, the Butler brings Valerie a warning: Death House's new occupant will be sacrificed. The occupant? Valerie's older brother, Phil. In order to save him, Valerie will have to return to the place where it all started. She'll find out there's more to the house than ghosts and ghouls. A great evil lurks there beneath the floorboards, and it's ready to come out and feed.