After Los Angeles housewife Lori Brandon suffers a stillbirth, her husband Frank obtains a job working in the advertising division of a toy company in the northern California community of Lillith. En route, they witness a violent car accident in which an oncoming vehicle swerves off an embankment, killing the female driver. When their car runs out of gasoline after, Frank walks toward town, and Lori waits at the car. She wanders into a field and finds a gravestone beneath a tree; there, she has a bizarre Vision (spirituality) of a young boy's funeral.