Indiana, 1818 Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside She's been stricken with something the old-timers call 'Milk Sickness' 'My baby boy' she whispers before dying Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, 'henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion I shall become a master of mind and body And this mastery shall have but one purpose'