Killer on the Road/The Babysitter Lives

In a prologue, a serial killer picks up a hitchhiker. He shoots off the man's finger, eats it, and then kills him.

As the main story begins, eighteen-year-old Harper lives with her mother and sister in Laramie, Wyoming. Her father, a long-haul trucker, disappeared three years prior. Harper runs away from home after a dispute with her mother. A pair of missionaries gives Harper water and sandwiches. Harper is later picked up by her friends, Kissy and Jam, her ex-boyfriend Dillon, and her little sister Meg.

Along the side of the road, they find the missionaries’ vehicle. A crow drops the man's skinned face onto their windshield; his body remains missing. They retrieve a bag from the trunk, which Harper assumes to be full of sandwiches. One missionary is paralyzed and missing an eyeball, but still breathing. The injured missionary's car rolls away before the group can stop it. They plan to call for help at the next available stop.

At a truck stop, they open the bag to find glass jars of severed body parts. Harper fears that they will be blamed if they're found with the evidence. The group tries to burn the bag, accidentally setting a trash can aflame. The fire spreads to a tanker truck, which explodes. Harper and her friends flee the scene, resolving that they can no longer report anything to the police.

Jam recounts the urban legend of Bucketmouth, a serial killer who can turn into a copy of his victims after eating a piece of their body. Kissy realizes that Jam is behaving oddly and accuses him of being an imposter. Jam stops the car and tosses Kissy in front of a semi truck, killing her. A series of confrontations ensues. Bucketmouth eventually destroys a rest stop, kidnaps Dillon, and drives away. Harper leaves Meg at the rest stop and pursues. She follows Bucketmouth to an abandoned gas station. Bucketmouth tells Harper about his past while holding Dillon hostage. Bucketmouth eats Dillon's finger. Harper begs him to let the original Dillon go free, but Bucketmouth states that there cannot be two identical Dillons in the world. He takes Dillon and flees.

Harper catches up to Bucketmouth, now driving a tow truck. Bucketmouth kills Dillon by dragging him from the tow truck arm, then drives off. Meg and Harper's mother arrive; Harper rejoins her family. Harper contacts Bucketmouth by CB radio. Harper leaves her mother and sister, meeting Bucketmouth in a tunnel under Highway 80. Bucketmouth appears, wearing the body of Harper's father, whom he killed three years prior. Bucketmouth uses this body to kill Harper's mother and kidnap Meg.

Harper offers to test and see if she is a shapeshifter as well. She and Bucketmouth each consume a human eyeball. She secretly feeds him the eyeball of the female missionary, who had been paralyzed after Bucketmouth attacked her. Bucketmouth also becomes paralyzed as he shifts into this new body. Harper thanks Bucketmouth for the closure of knowing what happened to her father. She snaps Bucketmouth's neck and runs to rescue Meg.

On the night before Halloween, sixteen-year-old Charlotte agrees to babysit the Wilbanks twins, Desi and Ronald. Mr. and Mrs. Wilbanks leave Charlotte with the children, promising to be back by midnight.

Ronald plays with a mysterious jack-in-the-box, which makes Charlotte uneasy. Desi and Ronald show Charlotte their “secret stairway”. They all enter a utility closet. Suddenly, Charlotte is transported to Desi's bedroom, inside a beanbag chair. Ronald tells Charlotte about an invisible woman who gave him the jack-in-the-box and who shows him the “funny places” that can be used for teleportation. The twins tell Charlotte to return through the beanbag portal; if she stays too long, she will “get stuck”. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Charlotte walks downstairs and opens the door to find her girlfriend Murphy, dressed in an elaborate Halloween costume.

Murphy tells Charlotte that the house was the site of a famous crime. Eleven years ago, on the night before Halloween, Tad and Tia Spinell were drowned by their mother Nora. Nora then hanged herself in the home. The hanging decapitated Nora, whose skull was never found. Charlotte returns to the beanbag chair, but finds that the portal has closed. She attempts to leave through the front door, but finds that all the house's exits are blocked.

Murphy disappears into a secret passage. Charlotte sees a vision of Tia Spinel in the bathtub with her brother Tad. Tia murdered her brother by gouging out his eyes. Nora hanged herself out of grief. Charlotte also sees a different version of herself speaking to the twins. Charlotte realizes that, in failing to use the beanbag portal, she has become trapped on the “other side” of the house. The ghost of Tia Spinell now inhabits Charlotte's body. Charlotte learns that the version of Murphy who visited the house was not real; it was a vision created by Tia. Additionally, Tia created Ronald's jack-in-the-box using Nora's missing skull.

Charlotte begins to slip forwards and backwards in time, sometimes seeing events years in the past or weeks in the future. Her ghostly body begins to fall apart. She realizes that she can heal her ghostly wounds by touching brass, but she cannot interact with other real-world objects.

Mr. Spinell knocks on the door, still searching for Tia. Tia, in Charlotte's body, answers the door and invites him inside. Tia gouges out her father's eyes, killing him the same way she murdered her brother. Mr. Spinell's body falls through a portal and disappears. Charlotte's mother arrives at the Wilbanks home. Tia opens the door, still in Charlotte's body. While trying to protect her mother, Charlotte realizes that she can touch the jack-in-the-box. Charlotte's hand reaches through the box and pulls Tia to the “other side”.

Charlotte and Tia fight. Eventually, Charlotte gains the upper hand and throws Tia into a metaphysical bathtub; she disappears under the surface. Charlotte climbs into the beanbag chair and re-enters the real world. She finds the twins locked in the garage freezer. She brings them to the upstairs bathroom, warming them both in the tub. Both twins recover, and Charlotte puts them to bed.

The Wilbanks parents return home. Charlotte walks outside just as her mother arrives to pick her up. Charlotte's mother is killed when her car's seat turns into a jack-in-the-box spring. Charlotte realizes that she is still trapped by the house. Charlotte is sent back in time to begin the night again. As she knocks on the door to meet the Wilbanks family, she realizes that the door latch is made of brass, which could prove useful in the future. Charlotte's memories begin to fade, but she promises herself that this time the night will go differently and that she will escape.