`Your children will die. Your community will die. To give me back my life.' The small rural community of Shettle has fallen into a decline. It is rife with crime and its inhabitants plagued by ill-fortune. When the Circus of Nights arrives the people are drawn to it like moths to a flame: it's as though they are bewitched. Only four men realise that there is something terribly wrong. And as the town is enclosed in a barrier of `sickness' through which no one can enter or leave, they must do their utmost to protect their loved ones, before it's too late...