Lying on the couch in Dr. Harper's office, keeping a close watch on the closet door, Lester Billings relates the bizarre tale of "The Boogeyman" who has taken his children's lives. In "I Know What You Need," a pretty college co-ed finds the perfect lover while on a campus in Maine. A young man thrills to the eerie mists of a murderous "Strawberry Spring." A winter storm hits and a group of old codgers who regularly gather around the Reliable at Henry's Nite-Owl discover the gruesome fate of an old crony in the title story, "Gray Matter." A son, horrified by the grim indignity of death, struggles with his love for "The Woman in the Room," while a hit man, back from a successful assignment, finds himself besieged by a toy army that turns his New York penthouse into a deadly "Battleground."