When the darkness thickens over the forest, fear comes with it. Fear that paralyzes will and tightens the throat. In the dark, everything you’re afraid to even think about comes alive. From the darkness come nightmares—and suddenly they become real. Through the darkness, through the hellish forest night, a lost girl stumbles forward—and terror breathes down on her from behind. There’s nowhere to wait for help…
The plot, as in many other King works, begins in his home state of Maine and then moves to New Hampshire. This novel has almost no fantasy elements; and those details that might seem mystical are fully explained by the fact that the heroine has a mild nervous disorder caused by shock and malnourishment. A significant place in the book is given to baseball. The chapters are named “innings” (parts of a baseball match, from the first to the ninth), the prologue is “Warm-up,” and the epilogue is “After the game.” The baseball player Tom Gordon exists in real life. Nowhere in the novel is it mentioned that he is Black.