A professor, Mike Lawford (Nicolas Cage) frantically searches for his son who was abducted during a Halloween parade. As nearly a year goes by, the parents are still looking for their son and starting to hear and see their son reaching out to them from the other world—the Professor sees his son on a passing bus, but upon chasing the bus down and gaining access, his son is not there. He disembarks and notices spray painted on a building, "pay the ghost," the phrase his son uttered before vanishing. He enters the building and finds homeless people living there. Unearthly screams of a woman are heard, and a blind homeless man calls for the others to mask their fires, explaining to Mike that the screams are heard every year before Halloween. Mike asks about the phrase, and is taken to a wall with more of the same phrases written on it. Engrossed by the wall and the homeless man, he does not notice the wall behind him shift into another world, and a demonic figure briefly appears behind him, then vanishes. The homeless man explains nothing, but quickly tells Mike to leave.