Cowan will do anything to get revenge on the man who killed his own child and drove Cowan's lover to suicide.

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.

A female assassin is assigned a target to kill, but cannot concentrate due to the effects of Purge, a substance which allows her to stop being mentally controlled by the government.

Stinging from his recently cut-off engagement, a young man retreats to a small town in the mountains of Virginia to work as city editor of the local newspaper. Alternately entranced and disgusted with his hermit-like nocturnal life, he finds peace and pleasure listening to the St. Anthony Chorale.