When mysterious ads for the Ghost Show appear around town, nobody can tell what it is. A band? A movie? A game? But that magic word—ghost—excites Hazel Gold, or Zel to her friends. As founder of her school’s Creepy Club (three members strong!), she’s always looking for paranormal activity (and the team is 0 for 20 when it comes to actual paranormal activity). Turns out the Ghost Show is a black, five-story human skull that appears on the edge of town as a sort of supernatural attraction. Stepping inside, the Creepy Club is greeted by the eccentric Amadeus Everest Mancer, a self-proclaimed ghost catcher who guides them through an aquarium full of vaporous floaty things—sheets that cover amorphous gobs of dripping red goo. Then Mancer offers Zel what she’s always wanted: the chance to see a real ghost. But it turns out to be more than she bargained for and is accompanied by chilling revelations about the town’s past and Mancer’s sinister motives. To stop him, the Creepy Club must fight a