A girl with braces and overlarge glasses, skipping rope, now jumping hopscotch on the asphalt outside her suburban home. She's got pigtails, and her name is Peggy Sue. Her brother Dillon is in his room reading comic books, trying to escape to another world, away from his screaming parents in the next room. "Luka" is playing on the radio. "Just don't ask me how I am / Just don't ask me how I am..."

Down the road, there's Marshall, called Marshmallow by his friends. He's waiting for his two best buds, Craig and Stuart. They should be approaching soon on their BMX bikes. Marsh sits on his, all chrome and shiny steel. They're gonna go zipping through the small downtown and then head out into the weedy area behind Hemingway High, where they'll tear it up along the lake there.

One time, not long ago, their good friend Erik was riding around with them, and when they got to the lake, he went down a steep hill and jumped right into the water. And he never came up. The authorities dragged the lake, but nothing was found, not even the bike. What had happened to Erik, no one knows. But there are plenty of stories to explain it. His disappearance has become something of a myth in the small town.

And still, they go there, despite the warning signs that were put up after the "accident." Well, it was no accident, for one thing. He meant to jump into the lake, and you could even say that he meant to go lost. His home life wasn't any better than any other kid's on the block.

What is it with that block, that neighborhood, that town, to have such fractured families? You could think any number of things--and one of them is that there are no families without these ruptures. Each has its own chaos that it's trying to gloss over and disguise.

Peggy Sue and Dillon can't escape theirs, can't keep it out of their minds. They try to do whatever they can to hide the fact, jumping rope, blasting the stereo, reading comic books, but nothing does the trick.

Later in life, Peggy Sue will turn to porn. She'll move miles and miles away from that dreaded black house. She'll run to L.A., to be an actress, and stumble into an audition that isn't what she expects... And that will be the end for her.

Younger brother Dillon, on the other hand, will turn to God. It seems that that's the way it goes: you go for one or the other to work through the pain. Pleasure of the flesh, or salvation through the Lord. Sex and God.

Back home, one day, while all is dark and quiet, there arises something from the lake. A mud-covered hand, reaching out, grasping at a fistful of earth. And then a form crawling, inching onto dry sand. It arises, taller than before, and makes its way back home.