Wentworth, Ohio: just a small friendly town where the Carver children bicker over sweets and writer Johnny Marinville is about the only resident who minds his own business. And on Poplar Street it's just a normal summer's day with lawnmowers humming, Little League bats 'tinking', frisbees flying and barbecues being readied. But for young Cary Ripton on his paper round it won't be a normal day at all... He notices something weird about the way Audrey Wyler is standing inside the glass door - and he always thought there was something creepy about that nephew of hers, Poplar Street's best kept secret. But Cary doesn't notice the chrome red van idling up the hill. Soon it will begin to roll, the killing will begin, and the regulators wil arrive in force. And by the time night falls on the block, the surviving residents will find themselves in a wasteland of devastation and desperation.