Marcus Webb, a desperate unemployed man who takes a night shift job at Gideon Thorne's Victorian funeral home for an impossibly generous salary of $2,000 a week. What begins as routine custodial work quickly turns nightmarish when Marcus discovers the dead are not at rest-voices emanate from the morgue drawers, speaking in ancient languages, and the recently deceased seem to be coordinating some urgent purpose. The enigmatic funeral director Thorne warns Marcus never to enter the basement after midnight, but as supernatural phenomena escalate throughout the building, Marcus realizes he's been drawn into something far more sinister than a simple job.
As Marcus becomes increasingly entangled with the spirits of the dead, he undergoes a gradual transformation that strips away his humanity. His skin becomes translucent and phosphorescent, his reflection fades from mirrors, and he develops an insatiable hunger for the life force of the recently deceased. Despite discovering the horrifying truth about the funeral home and what lies in the basement, Marcus finds himself unable to resist his transformation into a "shepherd of the dead," ultimately becoming complicit in luring souls to their eternal torment.