Whitman Bowers has come to survey what was once the Langford estate, but is quickly drawn into the web of fear that surrounds the mountain. His old Army buddy Arn seems insane; claiming that the gloomy, thickly forested slopes of Wildwood conceal twisted creatures more beast than man — until he displays the trophies that prove it. Arn's beautiful Indian wife Faren worships a snake god from before the coming of the white man, a god she sees returning to cleanse Wildwood of the white man's evil.

Whit feels the mountain summoning him, drawing him toward horror and death. He is the focus for the evil that has been gathering strength since Mad Edgar Langford destroyed time and space and turned Wildwood into a mountain of terror from which there is no escape.