Dana, a young woman who used to help the police find dead bodies, is driven off a jogging path by a vision of a demonic scarecrow and caught in raging floodwaters. Lightning rips a tree out of a pond and tears a hole in the earth, and Dana is swept down into a massive cavern. When the firefighters pull her out, she tells them astounding news. There's a house down there. A big one: the House of Usher, described as fiction by Edgar Allan Poe. The house is enormous, ripped into two separate wings ("like the Titanic") and covered over by a freak layer of ash and lava. And it's structurally sound, explorable. "It's the 19th century down there."

As the only person who has been down and come out alive, Dana is recruited by government agent Bernice to join an expedition down into the insane wreck of a mansion. The house, like the Titanic, lies in two great pieces, one dry and one flooded. But soon the explorers learn that the house is haunted not just by ghosts, but by time itself, and sometimes the shape of the house alters with sudden violence. And the most dangerous spirit in the House of Usher is intent on using the expeditioners to unlock a powerful secret. Fans of LOCKE AND KEY and HOUSE OF MYSTERY can't miss this brand-new haunted exploration.