Travellers crossing a lonely stretch of Nevada highway find themselves pulled into the dying mining town of Desperation, where something has gone terribly wrong.
Among them are the Carver family, a married couple travelling home to New York, and writer Johnny Marinville. Their encounter with local police officer Collie Entragian quickly turns terrifying as they realize that the enormous and increasingly unstable officer is only part of the danger waiting for them.
The source of the horror lies beneath the town at the China Pit, where miners have accidentally released an ancient entity known as Tak. Able to take control of human bodies, Tak has transformed Desperation into a place where the boundaries between worlds have become dangerously thin.
Trapped together, the surviving travellers must confront the force that has taken over the town. Their unlikely resistance comes to centre on young David Carver, a boy whose faith and connection to God may offer their best chance of surviving Desperation.