Description

In 1865 as the Civil War continued to rage, a cult of religious wanderers arrived in a small town and set up a tent revival. An eleven-year old boy was awakened by the strange sound of drumming. After three consecutive nights of revivals, several men in the town became very upset. They had never seen a revival like this one. They went together, killed all the revivalists, and buried them in a mass grave. Shortly thereafter, the young boy’s mother died. A young girl that had arrived with the group planted a sycamore tree over the grave, and cautioned that those buried could not escape as long as the tree was in place.

The story about the tree was handed down, but Beverly’s own father had discounted the story, and she forgot over time what Grandpapa had said. When ground was being leveled to build a new mall, Beverly instructed that the sycamore tree be removed. The task fell to Tom, driving the bulldozer, and Carl and his son Brent, owners of the contracting company. The tree was downed right before dark, and immediately the three saw several bodies lying under and around the roots of the tree. Tom left to pick up his children, while Brent went to call the police, leaving Carl at the site. Carl was the only witness as the bodies amongst the roots transformed to beautiful people that crawled out of the hole and simply walked away. Was evil rising after so many years? Carl, Brent and Tom were laughed at when the police found absolutely nothing in the hole. Carl was so traumatized that he would not speak about what he saw, but he finally told one person when Beverly shared her story about the history of the tree. Only the two of them understood that something terrible had been unleashed.

They quietly began investigating, and found that several strange occurrences began after that night. There were a theft and murder at a used clothing store, bank robberies and grave robbings, followed by several new homes and a church site being purchased for cash. The rapidly-built new church was called Aeternita. The congregation invited their neighbors to attend nightly ceremonies. Those that attended seemed to quickly yield all will to the church, and moved rapidly to join. But, there were many strange things about the church members. They were all young and beautiful, and seemed to be acquiring new family members until they had “perfect families”. Man and wife, one son and one daughter. Every one of them strikingly beautiful. The church promised eternal life, but at what cost?