The Summer of 1972 The Vietnam War rages on, and Daddy signed up to fight. Now he's gone missing. Mama dumped me and my brother, Willie, at my grandmother's farm in Haley, Alabama, while she takes my little sister, Sunny, all over the state to compete in Little Miss beauty pageants. Me and Willie ain't the only ones staying here, either. Ida Mae takes care of a bushel of reject kids the state can't find a home for. Idiots. All of 'em. There's a serial killer on the loose targeting pretty little girls... ones that win Little Miss beauty pageants. Oh. And there's a monster in the cellar. If I'd been in Vietnam instead of stuck on my grandmother's rundown crap of a farm in the summer of '72, I would've known what to do with the monster in her cellar. I would've nuked it.