In a secluded estate hidden deep in a foreboding forest, Peter Null, Norman Moses the wealthy heir to a prosperous family, longs for a child. A chance arises when Katrina Tina Ona Paukstelis, a young, unmarried woman facing an unwanted pregnancy, is approached by him with a lucrative offer: she will bear his child for a hefty payment, and in return she agrees to sign over the rights, effectively acting as his surrogate. To seal the arrangement, Katrina must pose as his wife so that Olive Null, Olive Null Flora Coker the family matriarch, believes they are truly in love and that the forthcoming child is part of a plan to secure the estate.
Inside the secluded estate, Katrina is introduced to its odd residents and the ominous atmosphere that surrounds them. Olive is crippled and commands a wary vigilance, while Claire Null, Claire Null Jamie Jacobs Anderson, the mentally-ill sister, keeps to her own world, and Cupid, the devoted Filipino maid, Cupid Mildred Nierras offers a practiced calm that borders on eerie. Peter explains that Cupid was once a midwife, a detail that hints at a sinister practicality behind the estate’s routines. Unbeknownst to Katrina, these residents are not merely peculiar—they are secret Aswangs, vampires with a terrifyingly long, flexible tongue that feeds on living fetuses and can even possess others.
An innocent yet eccentric mushroom forager, Dr. Roger Harper John Kishline, trespasses onto the property and quickly senses that something is gravely wrong. He begins to uncover a gruesome pattern on the grounds: fetal corpses wrapped like cocoons. His investigations press against the careful veil the Nulls maintain, and it soon becomes clear that the family’s “love story” is a cover for something far more dangerous. Harper tries to keep his findings from being discovered, but Peter Null is ready to silence him—his secret defense a slimy, controlling tongue that disables Harper and seals him away.
Katrina soon realizes the true danger to her child: the estate’s inhabitants intend to devour the unborn baby. When she resists, she is imprisoned within the house, chained and drugged to prevent any chance of escape. In a brutal struggle, Peter Null, who now refers to the baby as his “property,” strikes Katrina with an axe and feeds on her blood while she is temporarily incapacitated. In a desperate act of resistance, Katrina uses an axe to sever her own hand and escape the house, only to be briefly recaptured by Peter before Cupid intervenes with the weapon again.
Five years pass, and the story closes in on a new scene: Cupid is seen with a young girl, a quiet implication that the child was born and grew up to become the heir to the Null estate. The estate’s dark legacy continues, hidden beneath a veneer of wealth and supposed domestic normalcy, with the future tied to the fate of the child Katrina carried and the brutal lineage of the Aswangs.
