One Halloween night, at a party held at an East Texas ranch house, a local seamstress named Chintana finds herself thrown into the role of chaperone for five rambunctious orphans. Not surprisingly, the children’s energies prove barely containable, even with promises of cake and a storyteller. The storyteller, however, is not what anyone expects. Looming and cloaked in dark, he entertains the orphans with a tale twisted out of vengeance and violence. He does not come empty-handed, either. At their feet he sets a long, narrow box sealed with five latches. “I am a bad man with a very black heart,” he warns them. “And it was only that badness and blackness which forced me to seek out what I have carried now for many years and brought this night for you.” An unsettling thing to say to anyone, especially to children. But as Chintana soon discovers, this is just the beginning. Her concerns only mount as the storyteller offers more and more menacing details about what consequences lie hidden within that long, narrow box. To make matters worse, the orphans, one by one, lean forward and lift the latches...