Tommy Payne is a too-small-for-his-age kid who lives in a broken down New York apartment building. He and his friends have banded together as The Loyal and Adventurous Knights of the Air Shaft (their joke about a peculiar feature of The Row.)  They are the LAKOTAS.  Just 'kotas for short.

     One Halloween night, the 'kotas fall asleep in their cockroach-infested bedrooms and wake up in a strange place where werewolves are the norm and humans the monsters.  Hunted by Zooters and smoke-like Skincrawlers, the 'kotas are recruited for a deadly mission.  Only they can rescue hundreds of kids whose spirits are being sucked dry by a diabolical machine concocted by a clown-like maniac.