James Feckidee's recent divorce, and now the death of his beloved Uncle Phil, have left him with little will to live. But an ancient photograph of Uncle Phil and a stranger who hasn't aged in forty years hints at a startling undercurrent running through all James's trauma.

James can join his new friends in their suicidal plan to "leave Earth," or he can return home—where a monster waits to destroy the alarming powers of his young son, Austin. Between death and death, James chooses death; but waiting on those train tracks for the coming thunder might just be the best decision he will ever make. Death, it turns out, is not annihilation, but the first step in an unstoppable spiritual ascent.