Charlie Reade looks like an ordinary high school student, athletic and a good student. But he carries a heavy burden: his mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his father to drink. Charlie has learned to care for her. At seventeen, Charlie meets a dog, Radar, and his aging owner, Howard Bowditch, a recluse who lives in a large house on top of a hill. Strange sounds sometimes come from the locked shed in his backyard. Charlie begins doing jobs for him and grows attached to Radar. When he dies, Mr. Bowditch leaves Charlie his inheritance and a tape telling his extraordinary story, the secret of his entire life: inside the shed is a portal to another world... into which Charlie will venture. The heroic boy and his dog will then have to fight the battle between good and evil.
