Milo is looking forward to the holidays—long days of playing video games in the rundown seaside arcade, eating donuts on Stourmouth’s underwhelming beach, and causing mischief with his three best friends, Danny, Grace and Nur. Milo’s latest obsession is the 1980’s arcade game, Worm Blaster. Despite being a pro at video games, he can’t make it past the final boss—a giant death worm that always eats Milo, no matter what he does. The owner of the arcade tells Milo a story: Worm Blaster is based on real life events. Back in the 1970s, a group of eleven-year-olds supposedly saved the town from a giant, person-eating worm that terrorised the beach for an entire summer. One of the boys, James, went on to become a video game designer. He created Worm Blaster based on his childhood adventures. Then strange things begin to happen in Stourmouth. It starts with the disappearance of one of the ten colourful beach huts lining the beach. Later, they happen upon the owner of the seafront helter skelter taking refuge on the roof of her ride, terrified that something is trying to eat her. As they watch her being taken away in an ambulance, they start to wonder if maybe the story about the giant death worm is real ...