Vic is a 72-year-old widower retreating to Florida during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is grieving the recent death of his wife, Donna, as well as the long-past death of his young son, Tad. Seeking solitude to process his heavy emotional burdens, he instead finds himself drawn to the unusual behavior of his only neighbor.

Phil is a young, ambitious lawyer caught between taking a safe job at a large Boston firm and opening his own practice in the small town of Curry. He is highly indecisive, fearing that the wrong choice will ruin his relationship with his childhood sweetheart. This anxiety leads him to seek guidance from a strange roadside attraction promising answers to life's questions.

Lloyd is a widower living on Rattlesnake Key whose grief over losing his wife has led to a noticeable decline in his self-care. His overgrown lawn and unkempt house worry his remaining family. Initially resistant to forming a new attachment, he slowly begins to heal through the daily routine of caring for a young animal.

William is a war veteran whose harrowing experiences on the battlefield have left him emotionally dulled. Seeking quiet, unchallenging work, he utilizes the stenography skills he learned alongside his late sister. His desire for a simple life is challenged when his curiosity leads him to take a job transcribing strange experiments for an eccentric wealthy man.

Mark is the son of a prominent novelist and works as his father's assistant. Deep down, he harbors his own ambitions to become a successful writer, but he feels entirely eclipsed by his father's literary shadow. He shares a journalist's curiosity regarding the strange, sudden onset of his father's talent during middle age.

Danny is a high school custodian living in a Kansas trailer park. He is a recovering alcoholic who maintains an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and enjoys his quiet summer work hours. When his terrifying dream turns out to be real, his strong moral compass forces him to report the body, inadvertently making him the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

Laird is a highly successful novelist who lives in a small town in Maine. He broke into the literary scene in his forties after a mysterious hunting trip in the woods. He is protective of his privacy and speaks of his writing talent as if it were a mystical gift rather than a natural skill.

Harold is a retired engineer and widower who has carefully constructed a peaceful, predictable routine for his final years. He spends his days reading, watching streaming services, and enjoying quiet mornings in the park. His tranquil bubble is interrupted when a stranger asks him for a favor.

Jack is a former salesman in recovery for severe alcohol addiction. He is working through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and needs a stranger to hear his confession of past wrongdoings. He describes a lifelong history of deception, substance misuse, and violent impulses that ruined his marriage and career.

Willie is a young boy with a learning disability who attends remedial classes at school. He is deeply fascinated by historical events, natural disasters, and the concept of death. Frequently bullied by his peers and alienated from his parents and sister, he finds his only true companionship with his silent, elderly grandfather.

James is Willie's elderly grandfather, a widower who lives with his adoptive son's family. He rarely speaks to anyone in the house except Willie. Diagnosed with terminal cancer during the pandemic, he welcomes the prospect of death and entertains his grandson with fabricated anecdotes about historical events.

Franklin Jalbert is an investigator for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. He is rigid, cynical, and suffers from stress-induced arithmomania, constantly counting objects in his environment to soothe his anxiety. He becomes obsessed with proving that Danny Coughlin is a murderer, refusing to entertain any alternative explanations.

Ella Davis is an investigator working with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Initially supportive of her partner's methods, she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with his obsessive focus on a single suspect. She is observant and pragmatic, carefully weighing the physical evidence against the suspect's bizarre alibi.

Finn is an Irish teenager who has experienced bizarrely bad luck since birth. Shortly after leaving his girlfriend's house, he is abducted by a group of strangers who mistake him for someone else due to a clothing coincidence. He relies on his grandmother's philosophy about luck to endure his terrifying captivity.

Donald is an elderly grandfather traveling with his family to visit his dying sister. He carries a bag of valuable vintage baseball memorabilia. He is irreverent, speaks his mind regardless of who is listening, and refuses to act passively when his family is threatened on a deserted road.

Wilson is a police detective managing stress at work and tension at home. His wife frequently scolds him, creating a domestic environment he prefers to escape by taking on interrogations. He is assigned to interview a man making bizarre claims about alien replacements, which causes Wilson to reflect uncomfortably on his own marriage.

Craig is a professional "turbulence expert" who suffers from severe flight anxiety. His employers force him onto specific commercial flights because they believe his intense telepathic fear of crashing actually keeps the planes in the air. Exhausted by the emotional toll of his work, he desperately seeks a replacement so he can retire.

Allie is an elderly widow living on Rattlesnake Key. She lost her twin sons to a rattlesnake attack decades ago but continues to push a pram containing their clothing, openly acknowledging them as if they are present. Despite her erratic public behavior, she is a kind neighbor who bonds with Vic Trenton over their mutual grief.

Elgin is an affluent "gentleman scientist" conducting independent research into the nature of dreams. He believes dreams act as a barrier between humanity and a parallel universe, and he pays test subjects to undergo drug-induced sleep while he observes them. He hires a stenographer to document these increasingly dangerous experiments.

The Answer Man is a mysterious, seemingly ageless figure who sets up temporary stalls along highways. He charges varying rates for a few minutes of his time, providing incredibly accurate predictions and truths about his clients' lives. He views many human inquiries as "impotent" questions that fail to address the deeper realities of destiny.