Secret panels, hallucinations, arcane history, and a tribute to science fiction and horror fandom. A boy named Whit grows up in the 1960s obsessed with paranormal research, B-movies, and strange noises in his parents' basement. By the mid-1970s, he is experimenting with drugs and seeing a psychiatrist, trying to solve the mystery of his fixation on the number 4. Whit and three friends meet a reclusive mystery writer who hints that the answer might be found in the ancient burial chambers under the island of Malta, where, according to an actual 1940 National Geographic article, a field trip of kids and their teacher once vanished without a trace!