A twelve-year-old boy lives with his parents and his little brother, Nicholas. When his uncle Jamison moves in, Nicholas moves into his brother’s room. Jamison is a former hippie in his mid-twenties who plans to stay for the summer until he can save up some money. He covers his room with posters. To the boy, the ghoulish heavy metal designs are horrifying. Screaming skeletons stare out of the room across the hall, and he is often unable to sleep for fear of them attacking him. One day, Jamison tells the family about a case he recently handled as an EMT. He and his crew were called to a psychedelic hippie bus that had crashed in a ravine. As they approached the site, they heard someone singing. Upon inspection, they realized that the driver, a father, had been dead for hours. His two children were alive and smiling in their car seats. When asked about the singing, they placidly responded that it was their father. This story haunts the boy throughout the summer. He is so distressed that he wets the bed almost nightly. Noticing his worry, Jamison tries to explain that the music was probably a tape in the van’s radio. However, the damage is done. His nephew is terrified—and not just because of the posters. One night, Nicholas disappears. The boys’ father beats Jamison to a pulp, sure that he had something to do with it. His mother calls the police, and they take her husband into custody for assault, where he stays for the weekend. When he gets out, the family visits Jamison in the hospital. That night, the boy senses that Jamison has returned to the house with Nicholas. He bravely crosses the hallway to rescue his brother from Jamison’s room. Their father takes the boys back their room and cradles them protectively. Although Jamison eventually moves out, both boys are plagued by this experience throughout their lives.