Where is Ricky Brunt? On a spring day in 1979, the 10-year-old rode his bicycle to the corner store to buy a candy bar and disappeared, leaving his family, his friends and the bewildered residents of the sleepy town of Poppyfield to grapple with grief, mistrust and fear. No one knows where the boy is... no one but an eccentric, spindly man with a dark secret, watching the world from behind a curtain of warped and wounded unreality. As the search and investigation turns up nothing after nothing, Poppyfield's friendly streets empty of children as parents lock them inside and speak to each other in hushed whispers and bickering. The monster grows larger and larger in the minds of frightened people, and as one secret unravels the next, soon they will all be faced with the uncomfortable truth... the monster looks like one of us. The monster IS one of us.