Venturing inside, Steve discovers that the Lodge is composed of a series of rooms called "Temples" which serve as mordant burlesques of real civic locations (including a living room with a dead family and a kitchen where a chef prepares human meat) and whose inhabitants challenge him with a series of puzzles ostensibly meant to teach lessons integral to understanding the precepts of the lodge.
On the final day of his initiation, Steve discovers a mutilated skull and spinal cord in Stephanie's bed, which the Sergeant at Arms tells him is his invitation to the Lodge. Meanwhile, driven by their mutual fear and reliance on one another, Steve and Stephanie become lovers. Over the course of the next week, Steve is given a new "task" each day, beginning with petty acts of vandalism that quickly escalate to theft and arson, with each task having unforeseen, tragic circumstances that usually result in someone's accidental death, murder, or suicide. Steve visits the Sergeant at Arms at the Lodge, who tells him that all of his questions will be answered inside the building, and sets about giving him a series of tasks that serve as initiation rites. The two form an alliance to figure out their past and escape the town. Meeting Stephanie, Steve finds that she, too, has amnesia, and woke up the same morning as him with no idea of how she got to Harvest. Pottsdam, an unemployed man who hopes to get a job alongside Steve's father working in Harvest's meat packing plant and who openly expresses his lust for his own daughter. Learning that he's set to be married in two weeks, Steve goes to meet his supposed fiancée, Stephanie Pottsdam, the daughter of Mr.
Steve further learns that no one believes him to genuinely be amnesiac, with every citizen he meets responding to his pleas for help with the canned response "You always were a kidder, Steve." Everyone in town further encourages Steve to join the Lodge, a large building (reminiscent of the Hagia Sophia) located at the center of town that serves as the headquarters of the Order of the Harvest Moon, which seems to be the sociopolitical center of life in Harvest. Exploring his home, he discovers that he doesn't recognize his mother or younger brother, both of whom act strangely-his mother seemingly can't stop baking dozens of cookies for a charity event a week away, causing her to throw out each subsequent batch and his brother obsessively watches an ultra-violent cowboy show that seems to be the only program broadcast on Harvest televisions.Įxploring the town, Steve discovers Harvest is populated by hostile, strange individuals whom he likens to facsimiles or parodies of real people. Teenager Steve Mason awakens in the small American farming town of Harvest in the year 1953, with no memories of his past or who he is.