A quiet provincial town is shaken by a string of sadistic killings with Nick Edgeway, writer of the bizarre "Future Tales," the chief and seemingly sole suspect. Who is Nick Edgeway? An ordinary loner or a serial killer? Even he begins to wonder, but in trying to discover the answer he is horrified to find himself trapped between madness and death. With each brutal murder the cops' suspicions are exacerbated by the fact that Nick is somehow connected to each of the victims. Even with his arrest imminent and the threat of the death penalty looming, Nick is more afraid of his mad passion for a ghostly visitor who has made herself at home in his house. "...She raised her hands, and the flowery curtain on the window began to fade behind the figure that was taking shape. God! Something almost human, as though her own fingers were molding it with graceful movements, tracing its cobweb-fine contours: a chin, lips, nose, and eyebrows. Only the eyes evaded him, remaining two dark holes peeped from the fluttering face. Not hollow eye sockets in a skull, though: the darkness was filled with immense tension and charged with her gaze! "Kaya." Nick timidly stepped toward her. The unfinished form seemed to grow soft and then melt, like a candle exposed to a flame. "No, no, please don't go!" As her arms, two fleshless, semitransparent outlines, fluttered rapidly, the outline of her pallid features appeared again..."