When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 70-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it.
Friends find a locket dangling from the ruins of a fire tower. Troy, one of them, keeps it in his pocket. A few moments later, Johnny's body emerges from the earth. Furious, he sets out to find the locket and makes his way through the forest. He pauses when he spots a decaying fox corpse and hears two men nearby quarreling; one of them set the traps that killed the fox. Johnny approaches a house and sneaks inside. He briefly remembers his father when he spots a necklace that he believes to be his locket. Soon after, the homeowner comes back, but he flees after being appalled by Johnny. Johnny kills him in the woods after he gets his leg caught in his own bear trap. Johnny later chases after a car he hears in the distance.
Johnny walks over to where his friends are gathered around a campfire. The death of Johnny is described by Ehren, one of them: A local merchant's developmentally delayed son, Johnny, had been tricked into climbing the fire tower in search of a "bag of toys" decades earlier, only to be frightened by someone waiting at the top. He died after falling from the tower, but those responsible made it appear as though he died by accident. After discovering the truth, Johnny's father confronts the offender and is killed in a fight that was declared to be self-defense. The vengeful spirit of Johnny is said to be responsible for two murders that occurred decades apart. Following the story, the group enters their cabin. When Ehren goes outside, Johnny kills him with a draw knife. After that, Johnny drags his body to a park ranger office nearby. Johnny puts on an old firefighter mask and gains an axed and a pair of dragging hooks inside.
On a lake dock the following day, Johnny spots Aurora and Brodie. Aurora leaves to do yoga, but Brodie wants to go swimming. Johnny drowns Brodie while she is swimming in the lake by herself. He then goes after Aurora, who is doing yoga close to a cliff. After using his dragging hooks to kill her, Johnny tosses her disfigured body off the cliff.
Subsequently, Troy, Colt, and Evan quarrel about their missing friends and car keys. One of them throws his keys into the woods, where Johnny retrieves them. As Colt and Kris ride off on an ATV, he plays with a toy car key chain that is attached. After that, Johnny murders Troy and Evan. After finding Ehren's body at the park ranger station, Colt and Kris quickly return, but they run away when they see Johnny. It is getting dark when Johnny gets to the station, and the ranger is telling Colt and Kris that the locket that Kris is wearing is what keeps Johnny's soul at peace. As Colt and Kris run away, Johnny paralyzes the ranger after he briefly subdues him with a shotgun. Using a log splinter, Johnny mutilates the ranger to kill him.
Colt later tries to divert Johnny's attention in order to trap him, but Johnny uses an axed to murder him. After leaving Johnny's locket dangling on a gas canister, a shell-shocked Kris runs away into the woods. Despite injuring her leg by accident, she limps to a nearby road by dawn. When she stops, a woman in a pickup truck offers to take her to the hospital. The woman tries to comfort Kris by telling him about her brother, a game warden, who lived through a bear mauling in the same forest decades earlier. After realizing that Kris' bleeding has gotten worse, the woman stops the truck and demands that she apply a tourniquet to the injured leg. Fearful, Kris pleads with her to continue driving and looks into the forest, hoping to spot something. Johnny's locket is missing from the gas canister on the left.
