A young boy, who is still unaware of his future in which his mother dies and he becomes a miserable, unaccomplished middle-aged man, lives through an ever-so-slightly unusual day which would later become the one and only core memory he has of his mother.

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.