Transplanted to the East Texas Piney woods, nine-year-old Nessie (humiliatingly nicknamed after that big dumb lizard in Scotland) fears that nothing interesting will happen in this nothing-burger town. Then her older sister simply vanishes, as Nessie finds so many other teenaged girls have over the years, their disappearances commonly attributed to the local specter Ol’ Punkinhead. Nessie thinks this ridiculous, at least until she sees Ol’ Punkinhead... and he sees her.