Five campers in a popular Great Smoky Mountains campground are hacked to death while sleeping in their tents. Grief stricken FBI Special Agent Cal Bocock is pounding double scotches when his office tracks him down in a bar with the terrible news from the national park. An intense investigation leads to an unlikely suspect, but Bocock isn't convinced he has solved the Smoky Mountain Massacre. He soon learns another mass slaying took place in a rustic hotel within walking distance of the campground 36 years earlier and the similarities between the two cases haunt him. With the help of his young sidekick, "Sassy" Smith, and a mystical Cherokee Indian park ranger, who serves as his guide, Bocock unearths an ancient evil that has possessed the scenic Elkmont area for more than a century. A classic battle between good and evil ensues, and in Elkmont, evil attacks from within, summoning the hate and prejudice that lurks inside the soul.