TAYLOR BOONE (18) – Tall, slender, athletic, outgoing.

For as long as he can remember, Taylor has been afraid of the old, withered apple orchard on the outskirts of town; a place that all the kids talk about in whispers and the adults don’t talk about at all.

When he decides to pay a visit to the orchard on a dare late one night, Taylor’s life changes forever. He meets a young girl known only as Bevin who gives him a book with his name on it. Within its pages is a terrifying power that threatens to destroy the town and everyone in it, a power that Taylor unwittingly unleashes on his friends and family.

PETER BOONE (45) – Stern but fair, frightened for his son.

Peter Boone’s generation feared the orchard even more than Taylor’s. Unlike his son, who had only known a dry, dead orchard, Peter remembers a day when the orchard still bore fruit, and the horrors that ripened there were beyond belief. Peter and several of his friends were the first to make a stand against the malignant force that emanated from within.

One of the few survivors of what turned out to be a bloodbath, Peter put the incident behind him and moved on with his life. The other survivors agreed never to speak of what they had seen. But upon learning that the survivors have begun turning up dead and that his son has been to the Orchard, Peter decides to tell Taylor and his friends of its dark history. But it might be too little, too late.

JOEY McKINNEY (19) - Physically fit, not very bright, confrontational.

Once a football star, Joey was forced off the team after being sidelined with an ankle injury in his senior year, an accident that cost him an athletic scholarship. With nowhere to go, Joey began bouncing around town working odd jobs during the day and spending his nights getting plastered with his friends.

Joey found an unlikely friend in Taylor, and even though they don’t always get along, the two are practically inseparable. It was Joey who dared Taylor to go into the orchard on that fateful night, but he is not the only one who will pay for his mistake.

MIKE HODGES (20) – Short, slender, intellectual, keeps to himself.

Mike recently weathered a tragedy when his father left for work and never came back. He was found dead in his car on the side of the road, parked in front of the orchard. An autopsy showed nothing physically wrong with him… it was as if he just pulled over to the side of the road and died.

Jeffrey Hodges was one of the survivors of the first attack on the Orchard. His death sets in motion a chain of events that leads Mike down a path of self-destruction unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

ROBERT DeLUCA (46) – Imposing, cutthroat, impatient, greedy.

Robert was born and raised in New York City, the son of a construction worker. Watching his father toil endlessly in a back-breaking manual labor job, Robert secretly promised himself that he would never wind up doing the same.

After graduating with a degree in business, he decided it was much better to be the man in charge than a mere worker. So he began his own construction company, DeLuca Construction. His latest project: to tear down the immense apple orchard on the outskirts of Beech Grove to make way for a land developer.

Robert has much to lose if the deal falls through… and even more to lose if it doesn’t.

SHANNON DeLUCA (17) – Petite, off-color, opinionated, gothic.

As the daughter of a man who would slit his own mother’s throat to get ahead, Robert’s influence has visibly rubbed off on his daughter. She is outspoken, hard-headed, and completely unafraid of anyone.

She takes an interest in Taylor on the very night that he enters the orchard, tying her to him and the other two boys with a knot she couldn’t unfasten even if she wanted to. Together, she and her newfound friends must race to solve the deadly secret that can only be found in the heart of the orchard itself.