It may not be October yet, but fall is finally here. And Halloween has been in stores, at least, for weeks already. I’m still waiting for the brisk autumn air to settle in and the leaves to start changing color, but my heart is already firmly beating for all things spooky.

So it was with more than a bit of anticipation that I was looking forward to the first issue of The Plot from Vault Comics. Written by Tim Daniel and Michael Moreci, The Plot is the third horror series the two have done together, and it’s the latest project to come out of Moreci’s exclusive, multiproject, multimedia deal with Vault.

(Listen to my conversation with Michael Moreci here.)

When Chase Blaine’s estranged brother and sister-in-law are murdered, he becomes guardian to McKenzie and Zach, the niece and nephew he hardly knows. Seeking stability for the children, Chase moves his newly formed family to his ancestral home in Cape Augusta—which overlooks a deep, black bogland teeming with family secrets.

For Moreci, The Plot is a deeply personal book… and one he hopes will find an audience beyond typical horror fans. “This is the most emotional book I’ve ever written,” he says. “It’s everything I love dearly about horror, where the scares come from the characters and their intense personal journeys. This is horror you feel chilling your bones. It’s horror that lingers when you try to sleep at night.”

The first issue of this 8-issue series sets up the, er… plot (sorry) and introduces us to our main characters. At least I think it does. The characters we first assume to be our protagonists are actually dispatched 1/3 of the way through the issue, AND THEN we meet our leads.

And their… dispatching… is done like a classic Hollywood jump scare that is so hard to pull off in comics. So kudos to the creative team for doing that multiple times in just this first issue.

The Plot – at least so far – will likely draw inevitable comparisons to Locke & Key (with a touch of The Spiderwick Chronicles), but we’re also less than 30 pages into the story, so it’s entirely too early to say where it will all go.

However, it’s NOT too early to say that the book is a modern story – with modern sensibilities – but still firmly rooted in the classic EC Comics horror titles I adore so much. And that’s not a bad thing.

The Plot is out now from Vault Comics, and issue 1 can be picked up at your local comic shop. I’m on board for the ride.