During the Prohibition era in the Southern United States, the devout 13-year-old Lila Lee is summoned by letter to visit her injured father, a gangster, before he dies. She runs away from the Reverend, who has raised her and in whose church she has become well known as a singer, though her extraordinary beauty is beginning to attract attention as well. Lila boards a bus to her father's purported location, the strange town of Astaroth. At the bus station, the ticket salesman informs Lila that the people there are strange, and that visitors rarely return from the town. That night, the bus Lila is riding, in which she is the only passenger, is attacked by a band of mindless vampires as it approaches the woods surrounding Astaroth. The vampires kill the bus driver, and Lila crashes the bus while attempting to flee. She is attacked by the creatures, but rescued by a mysterious woman named Lemora.