The Regulators

On a sweltering July afternoon in 1996, Poplar Street in Wentworth, Ohio, is the picture of suburban normalcy: children play, lawn sprinklers hiss, and neighbors exchange friendly waves. The block holds eleven houses and a convenience store called the E-Z Stop 24. Among the residents are Brad and Belinda Josephson; Johnny Marinville, a former National Book Award winner who now writes children's books; Gary and Marielle Soderson; Peter and Mary Jackson; David and Kirsten "Pie" Carver and their young children, Ellie and Ralph; Cammie Reed and her teenage twin sons, Jim and Dave; retired veterinarian Tom Billingsley, known as Old Doc; and Collie Entragian, an ex-police officer dismissed on drug charges he insists were fabricated. At 247 Poplar lives Audrey Wyler, a quiet widow raising her six-year-old nephew, Seth Garin, a boy with autism who never speaks and whose family was killed two years earlier in a drive-by shooting in California.

As fourteen-year-old paperboy Cary Ripton delivers the weekly circular, a bright red van creeps down the street. A shotgun barrel slides from a side window and fires, killing Cary instantly. Steve Ames, a guitar technician stranded at the E-Z Stop with an overheating rental truck, witnesses the shooting. Cynthia Smith, the store's new clerk, sees the gun swivel toward Ellie and Ralph, who stand exposed near their red wagon. Before the gunman fires, Hannibal, the Reeds' German Shepherd, runs into the line of fire and is killed instead. Cynthia and Steve shove the children to safety. Collie charges out with a pistol but holds fire as the van disappears. He takes command of the scene, directing survivors toward shelter. Johnny tries to call 911 but hears only a child's eerie voice ending with the word "Tak," which proves to be the name of the parasitic entity behind the attacks. All phones go dead.

A violent thunderstorm moves in as more vans appear from both ends of the street. Their designs match the Power Wagons from MotoKops 2200, a Saturday-morning cartoon about futuristic police who drive weaponized vans. The figures inside are ghostly and luminous: one wears a Confederate uniform over an alien body, another is a bearded trapper carrying a double-barreled shotgun. Mary Jackson is shot dead by the trapper figure. David Carver is killed through his own picture window. More vans arrive, pouring fire into the street. Ralph recognizes the pink van as a MotoKops toy called the Dream Floater and screams in terror.

The survivors split into two groups. Old Doc performs desperate surgery on Marielle, whose arm has been nearly torn off. In the Carver house, the group discovers a strange conical slug, solid black and bearing no manufacturer's marks, that resembles no real ammunition.

The narrative reveals Audrey's secret. For two years she has been a prisoner in her own home, controlled by Tak, a parasitic entity that inhabits Seth. Tak entered the boy during the Garins' cross-country trip through Nevada, when Seth was drawn to a crumbling mine shaft near the town of Desperation. Tak feeds on human pain and death, channeling Seth's extraordinary latent psychic abilities, including telekinesis and telepathy, to manifest its desires. Because Tak operates through Seth's mind, its attacks take the forms of the boy's favorite entertainment: the weaponized Power Wagons from MotoKops 2200 and characters from a Western film called The Regulators. Tak killed Audrey's brother Bill and his family in California, then consumed her husband, Herb, who shot himself after Tak drained his life force. Tak controls Audrey through physical punishment, forcing her to harm herself. Her only refuge is a vivid mental re-creation of a perfect spring day she spent with her college friend Janice Conroy at Mohonk Mountain House, a resort in upstate New York. Seth, still present inside his own mind, communicates with Audrey in brief moments, telling her that Tak is building and remaking its environment using the energy harvested from their neighbors' suffering.

The Power Wagons return for a second assault. Six vans form a fire corridor, hammering both sides of the street. Peter Jackson, now under Tak's complete mental control, walks into the Wyler house, where Tak drains his remaining life energy. Pie Carver dies when flying shrapnel strikes her face. Marielle Soderson also succumbs to her wounds. The street physically warps as Tak reshapes reality: houses become log cabins and adobe haciendas, and hitching rails replace bike racks. The neighborhood is transforming into a grotesque hybrid of the Old West and a futuristic battleground, drawn from Seth's entertainment. Misshapen creatures appear, resembling a child's crude drawings brought to life.

Two groups attempt to escape through a greenbelt behind the houses, but the path is becoming desert, complete with cartoon-like mountains and cacti. A monstrous mountain lion attacks. Jim Reed, panicking at approaching figures in the gloom, accidentally shoots Collie in the head. Johnny kills the mountain lion, but Jim, overwhelmed by guilt, puts a pistol to his own temple. Tak, sensing the boy's devastation, telepathically amplifies Jim's despair past the breaking point, and Jim pulls the trigger.

Audrey escapes the Wyler house while Tak is distracted and joins the survivors. She reveals that Tak is not a demon but a parasitic entity that cannot survive outside a host like Seth, whose unique mind can contain it. She insists Seth is still alive inside, a hostage as much as any of them. The regulators launch a final assault on the Carver house, the only structure still standing. Kim Geller, Susi's mother, walks outside to confront the vans and is obliterated. The barrage is catastrophic but suddenly stops. Before escaping the Wyler house, Audrey dissolved Ex-Lax into Seth's chocolate milk on his instructions, because Tak involuntarily vacates Seth's body during bowel movements.

Seth calls Audrey on the dead telephone through sheer telepathic will. She and Johnny cross the street and find Seth helpless. Audrey sweeps him into her arms, but Tak, existing outside the boy as a swarm of glowing red motes, rushes back and forces its way into Seth through his eyes. Deep inside his mind, Seth plays his final card: He telepathically summons Cammie Reed, who has followed with the rifle, consumed by grief over Jim's death. Cammie fires twice, killing both Seth and Audrey. Seth orchestrated his own death, calling Cammie the way a soldier calls an artillery strike on his own position, sacrificing himself and his aunt to destroy Tak's only viable host. Tak, expelled from the dying boy, attempts to enter Cammie, but her body cannot contain the entity. Her head explodes. Before dying, Tak speaks through Cammie's distorted mouth, vowing to hunt them all down.

Reality snaps back. Daylight floods in, sirens fill the air, and emergency services converge on Poplar Street. The survivors emerge: Steve, Cynthia, Brad, Belinda, Old Doc, Dave Reed, Susi Geller, and the Carver children. Johnny finds Audrey and Seth dead in each other's arms. He tells Cynthia that it was Seth, not Tak, who summoned Cammie, recognizing the boy's voice in the telepathic command.

A sealed statement by Allen Symes, a mining engineer, provides Tak's origin. In July 1994, the Garin family visited the China Pit mine near Desperation, Nevada, and Seth ran into a crumbling shaft called Rattlesnake Number One, sealed since 1858 when it collapsed on dozens of Chinese miners. At the shaft's deepest point, Seth stood before a crack in the rock, singing. Hot air reeking of decay poured from the fissure, and Symes glimpsed red specks like embers dancing inside. When Bill picked Seth up, a terrible, inhuman grin stretched the boy's face.

A final letter from a honeymooner at Mohonk Mountain House describes the ghosts of a meadow gazebo: a woman in her thirties and a small boy in cowboy boots, seen by dozens of guests. Toys and half-eaten food have been found at the site. The implication is that Seth and Audrey have found peace together in the meadow that was Audrey's mental refuge, existing as gentle presences outside of normal time.