Salem's Lot, Stephen King

Salem's Lot is a small New England town with white clapboard houses, tree-lined streets and solid church steeples.

Of course there are tales of strange happenings - but no more than in any other such town. Ben Mears has returned to the Lot to write a novel and exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood - since the event he witnessed at the Marsten House. He finds the house has been rented by a newcomer, a man who causes Ben some unease.

And then things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed - nothing unusual, except the list keeps growing...