In 1953, a young boy named John Smith (Johnny) goes ice-skating with his friends in Durham, Maine and falls on the ice, hurting his head. Dazed, Johnny mumbles a vaguely prophetic warning to an adult. Aside from some bad dreams, Johnny forgets all about the incident. Later, the adult suffers a random accident just as Johnny predicted. Johnny does not connect the events until much later.

In 1955, a 22-year-old Bible salesman named Greg Stillson travels across the Midwest. He sells Bibles and anti-Semitic, anti-communist books. At a farmhouse in Iowa, Stillson kicks a dog to death in his rage that the family is not at home. He drives away before the owners return, assuring himself that he is destined for “bigger things” (17). 

In 1970, Johnny lives and teaches high school in Cleaves Mills, Maine. He dates a fellow teacher named Sarah Bracknell. One night, Sarah goes to Johnny’s apartment and he scares her with a “dime-store Halloween mask” (23). She quickly forgives him. As they prepare to go to the last county fair of the year, Sarah thinks about how she prefers the charming Johnny to her first boyfriend, Dan, who mistreated and abused her.