In the small logging town of Lumberton, Jeffrey Beaumont returns home from college after his father suffers a near fatal stroke. He stays with his mother and Aunt Barbara while he takes over working at the local hardware store that his father owns. While walking home from the hospital, he cuts through a vacant lot and discovers a severed ear burried under overgrown grass and puts it in a paper bag. Jeffrey takes the ear to the police station and speaks to Detective John Williams whom he knows as a neighbor.