The book is about a boy called David, he lives with his father. His parents are divorced. Most of the time, David is alone in their apartment. On one night he crawls into a ventilation shaft, he wanted to see were it leads to... When he comes out of an abandoned department, he gets scared and frightened. Then he sees a ghost, he tries to crawl away, as fast as he can. Then he ends-up bungling out of the vent. He sees an old man, but the problem is that the old man sees him too. And again, he tries to crawl as fast as he can back to his apartment.
The next day he goes back to the place where he saw the old man. He finds out that his name is Mr. Alverston. When he wanted to go back, he was attacked by a ghost. He crawls back to his apartment and goes to sleep.
Two weeks later he goes back to Mr. Alverston, but then he finds out that Mr. Alverston has got visitors in house, two younger ladies. Suddenly David hears a loud scream from his own kitchen, but when he tries to go back, he lost his mind. He hears all kinds of voices in his head; they are asking him if he wants to play a game in the vents. When he opens his eyes, he is in his bed. He is still shocked about his nightmare, or wasn’t it?
The next night, when he tries to sleep (but he can’t), he walks towards the vents. And hears a voice say: ‘Do you want to come out and play?’ He knows it’s the ghost. David wants to ask him a few questions, but he just couldn’t get it out of his mouth at that moment. Again the ghost asks if David wants to play a game, but he doesn’t want it. The ghost keeps on begging and begging. Suddenly the ghost went mad... The ghost makes all kinds of scary noises. After an hour he stopped, and David could go to bed quietly.
A female worker is visiting Mr. Alverston. He tells her a story about a kid in the ventilation vents; she doesn’t believe a word of what he says. She asks the neighbours about it, but they think that he went crazy. She tells it to Mr. Alverston, who was a bit disappointed.
The next day David wanted to go back to the pipes again, but he thinks that it would not be a very bright idea, but finally he goes it. He wants to call the ghost, but no response. Suddenly he hears a scream from Mr. Alverstons apartment. When he almost arrived at the apartment, someone grabbed him, and said: ‘Now I’ve got you!’. When Mr. Alverston sees David, he asks: ‘Why are you wondering around the vents?’. But David hasn’t got an answer on that question. When David wants to leave his apartment, Mr. Alverston says: ‘sometimes I see ghosts.
The next night a ghost comes to talk with David. After a long conversation, the ghost says: ‘I am going to kill Mr. Alverston’. Then he disappeared. As soon as possible, David wants to contact Mr. Alverston. When he arrives at his apartment it was already too late. He was badly injured. He had a big wound on the side of his head; he said that he had fallen of the staircase. But it wasn’t an accident.
A few days later Mr. Alverston saw somebody in his room. And it wasn’t David. Mr. Alverston saw him. That night he died as a cause of a stroke. But David was desperate to find out how Mr. Alverston had been killed. He checked everyone, and there was only one person left, Robert. When he checks Robert, he finds out that he has the name of Mr. Alverston. He was shocked, now he knows who the ghosts were. They were the past of Mr. Alverston. There were three ghosts, representing three faces of his life. The good, the bad and the innocent part of him. So all the time he was talking about himself!
David wanted to go back to the vents one time more, he wanted to punish the ghost for what he did. He went up there, and it went a little bit out of control. David tried to run away, but the ghost kept on following him. Eventually David was in the ghost. Or was the ghost in David?
