Every year, in a small town overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, fourteen children are invited to the Skullpocket Fair, a carnival run by ghouls. But only the strongest will survive and be indoctrinated into the ghouls’ theocratic cult.

When his son is born with a fatal disease, a man struggles to bond with his dying child. After the son's death, the man and his wife enter a year of hardship and, eventually, separation. Now alone, the man spends his days on the Chesapeake Bay trying to distract himself, unsure whether his marriage can be saved.