onesy, Henry, Pete and Beaver. Twenty years ago they were just kids in a small town in Maine--kids who found the courage to respond heroically to childhood cruelty. In saving a strange boy named Duddits, they unexpectedly gained a fifth friend at the center of their circle. Even more unexpected were the uncanny powers he conveyed to them, bonding them all beyond ordinary friendship. Now the four are men with separate lives and separate problems, haunted by the memory of heroism, with powers that are more of a burden than a gift. When a shocking accident almost claims one of them, they don’t at first recognize the return of the eeriness that is somehow linked to Duddits.But when they reunite for their annual visit to a hunting cabin in the north woods, anticipating only the warmth and humor that nourishes them, they are overtaken by a gathering doom. First comes a stranger, a lost hunter unaware of the terrible contagion he bears. On his heels is a blizzard, a vicious storm in which something much more ominous moves--a deadly alien force that will consume some of the foursome and force those who make it to the end of the road to once again summon their forgotten strength--and confront an unparalleled horror.