Burt is a former army medic currently struggling through a highly contentious relationship. He is driving from Boston to California in an attempt to salvage his marriage to Vicky, though he privately harbors intense resentment toward her. He maintains an outward coolness in crises, a trait stemming from his military background, but struggles with repressed anger and a creeping sense of paranoia when their trip goes horribly wrong.

Vicky is a former prom queen who married Burt immediately after high school. Due to a traumatic upbringing involving strict, manipulative religious revivals, she harbors a deep aversion to Christianity and evangelism. When the couple's road trip is interrupted by a shocking accident, Vicky's panic heavily contrasts with Burt's cold problem-solving, making her desperate to flee the rural landscape.

Isaac is a nine-year-old boy who acts as the self-proclaimed prophet for the isolated town of Gatlin. Despite his young age, he possesses a charismatic, unsettling maturity and absolute authority over his peers. With wispy red hair and an unnerving gaze, he uses religious fervor and fanatical language to maintain control over the community.

The youths of Gatlin are a collective group who have taken over the isolated farming community. Stripped of individual identity, they dress in drab, old-fashioned clothing: long brown wool dresses and sun-bonnets for girls, black Quaker-style suits for boys. They exhibit a chillingly unified cult mentality entirely devoted to a bizarre agricultural religion that strictly excludes adults.

He Who Walks Behind the Rows is the enigmatic, supposedly supernatural entity residing in the vast cornfields surrounding Gatlin. Described as smelling of dried cornhusks and possessing a massive, looming presence, it is the sole focus of the town's warped religious worship. Its true nature remains clouded in intense dread and mystery.

A young, unnamed child whose sudden, desperate flight onto a lonely stretch of highway initiates the story's main conflict. He is found carrying a tied suitcase containing a strange religious artifact made of corn. Evidence on his body quickly reveals he was running from a profound threat long before he reached the road.

Ruth is a young, pregnant member of the Gatlin community. Unlike her fiercely devoted peers, she secretly harbors intense doubt and a profound hatred for the surrounding cornfields. Despite her internal rebellion and fantasies of burning the corn, she remains trapped by fearful compliance to the town's harsh religious order.

Malachi is an eighteen-year-old boy living within the strict confines of the Gatlin cult. As he nears the boundary age set by the town's religious doctrine, his presence emphasizes the unyielding nature of the community's beliefs regarding the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Joseph is an eighteen-year-old boy who, like Malachi, has grown up under the bizarre and extreme doctrines of Gatlin. He represents the older generation of youths within a society that operates entirely without adult supervision.

An aggressive, oddly young-sounding preacher whose radio broadcast Burt and Vicky listen to on the road. His scathing denunciations of sin and bizarre additions about defilers of the corn blur the line between a normal religious broadcast and the sinister reality of Gatlin.