chunk: Barbara and Adam Maitland decide to spend their vacation decorating their idyllic Connecticut country home. As the two are driving home from a trip to town, Barbara swerves to avoid a dog and the car plunges into a river. After they return home, she and Adam notice that they now lack reflections and they discover a Handbook for the Recently Deceased. They then begin to suspect that they did not survive the car accident; Adam attempts to leave the house but finds himself in a strange, otherworldly landscape covered in sand and populated by enormous sandworms.