By
Young newlywed Dar Beaumont is trapped in a box of her own making that keeps growing
tighter, smaller and scarier. On the surface, her life in the mid-1970s is blossoming. She adores
her handsome husband Roc, who has just won his dream job of assistant district attorney in San
Marcos, a town that resembles Santa Cruz on the beautiful California central coast. Amid
beaches, redwood groves and a lively hippie counterculture, Dar sets out to become the perfect
wife to Roc. After a troubled adolescence, Dar had been admitted to Berkeley and earned a
degree. She desperately wants Roc to be proud of her despite his father’s accusations that she has
a “past.”
When she takes a part-time job writing for the local newspaper, Dar learns more of a recent rash
of serial killings that haunt the lovely town. Roc, caught up in his new job, reads files to her
about weird cults and bodies buried in the forests. Dar begins to fear a strange-looking young
man named Chester, who looks prehistoric to her. Under growing pressure and to hide her
anxiety, she begins to sneak drinks in the long afternoons awaiting Roc’s return from the office,
hiding the bottles in desperate fear of being found out. Since childhood, Dar has believed that
traces and memories of a person who died many years ago have somehow found their way into
her own brain. She even named it “The Remnant” and tried to get along with it. But now, The
Remnant is becoming more demanding, powerful and persistent: it has a life and a story, and it
will not be denied.