Willow Creek is a town that clings to "predictable routines," but fifteen-year-old Quincy has always lived in the periphery . His solitary world is shattered at the Elm Street bus stop when he encounters a "hunched, rigid silhouette" that seems to absorb the very light around it. Beside the figure sits a child's lunchbox oozing a "dark, viscous liquid" with a sickening metallic scent. What starts as a hunt for a restless spirit leads Quincy to the "tragic testament" of a missing scientist and a secret that the town's "understated charm" has worked for decades to bury.