Chapter 1 Summary

NB when the phrase (*photo) appears in a chapter summary, it means that a description of a photograph follows in that chapter's analysis.

In the middle of a shift at his much hated job as a clerk in one of a chain of family owned drugstores, Jacob is called to the phone. On the other end is his grandfather, desperately asking where his key is. Jacob comments in narration that as his grandfather got older, his dementia became worse and worse, making him talk more and more as though the old stories about the monsters and about the island were real. Jacob also comments that the key is for the collection of guns and weapons (*photo) his grandfather had kept in the garage, and that Jacob's father had hidden it - Grandpa Portman was becoming too unpredictable. Jacob promises to go and help...