11-year-old Jake Chambers experiences visions involving a Man in Black who seeks to destroy a Tower and bring ruin to the Universe while a Gunslinger opposes him. However, Jake's mother, stepfather and psychiatrists dismiss these as dreams resulting from the trauma of his father's death the previous year. At his apartment home in New York City, a group of workers from an alleged psychiatric facility offer to rehabilitate Jake; recognizing them from his visions as monsters wearing human skin, he flees from the workers who give chase. Jake tracks down an abandoned house from one of his visions where he discovers a high-tech portal that leads to a post-apocalyptic world called Mid-World..

In 1992 Alabama, Will and Breeze Rutledge are evacuating from the destructive Category 5 Hurricane Andrew with their dad. However, their truck gets stuck after avoiding a toppling tree in front of them and they are forced to take refuge in a nearby house. While trying to save the truck from blowing away, strong winds blow a water tank loose and it crushes their dad, killing him. In present day, another destructive hurricane named Tammy approaches the town in Alabama. Treasury agent Casey Corbyn is ordered by fellow employee Randy Moreno to summon Breeze, who now works as a handyman, and whose brother Will is a meteorologist, to fix the generator at a cash storage facility. While she is out of the facility, rogue Treasury agents, led by Connor Perkins, infiltrate the facility and hold employee Moreno hostage..