On the first day of summer vacation, eleven-year-old Artie falls into a lake and begins to drown. While underwater, Artie has a vision of Elaine, a little girl who died there decades ago in battle with an ancient evil being, a being that is awakening once more. Unless Artie and his friends can stop the creature called the Winter King from entering our world, it will turn everything in its path to its dark purposes. As the kids struggle with the universal issues of friendship, acceptance, love, and impending adulthood, they learn that they are not the first to fight this evil. Armed with two unusual magical items-a pocketknife and a baseball trophy-and with their bonds of affinity, they will brave the forbidding woods to face their foe, full in the knowledge that some of them will not return.