The Mist recap

After a violent storm, artist David Drayton drives his young son Billy and neighbor Brent Norton to a Maine supermarket. A dense mist swallows the town, concealing enormous and predatory creatures. The people inside barricade the store, but attacks by tentacles, flying animals, and giant insects steadily reduce their safety. Norton rejects the evidence and disappears into the mist with other skeptics. Religious zealot Mrs. Carmody gains followers by presenting the disaster as judgment and demanding sacrifice. A trip to the neighboring pharmacy reveals further deaths and suggests that a nearby military project may have opened a passage to another world. When Carmody's group turns on Billy, Ollie Weeks kills her, allowing David's party to flee. Ollie and others die in the parking lot, but David escapes by car with Billy, Amanda Dumfries, and Mrs. Reppler. Unable to reach his wife, he drives south through widespread destruction. At a motel he catches what may be the word “Hartford” on the radio, and the survivors continue with uncertain hope.

A violent thunderstorm tears through the lakeside home of artist David Drayton, his wife Steff, and their five-year-old son Billy. The storm damages the house and brings down trees, while strange lights from the direction of a nearby military facility suggest something more than ordinary weather. The next morning David drives Billy and his neighbor Brent Norton into Bridgton for supplies. The supermarket is crowded with other residents responding to the damage. Sirens sound, a frightened man runs in warning that something in a fast-moving white mist has taken another person, and the unnatural fog engulfs the parking lot. Visibility outside drops to almost nothing. Shoppers and employees remain inside while trying to decide whether the mist itself is dangerous or merely conceals whatever caused the panic.

At the market's loading area, David and several others hear movement outside. When employee Norm tries to clear a blocked vent, huge tentacles reach from the mist and pull him away. The men struggle to save him but cannot, and the creature withdraws with Norm into the fog. David, Dan Miller, Ollie Weeks, and the other witnesses now understand that the store is surrounded by living threats. Persuading people who did not see the attack is difficult, especially because the account sounds impossible and panic could make the crowded building still more dangerous. They cover the loading opening and begin deciding whom they can trust with what happened. David remains focused on returning to Billy while recognizing that stepping outside without visibility would be deadly.

David and the loading-area witnesses tell others what happened to Norm, but Brent Norton believes David is participating in a local attempt to frighten or embarrass him. Norton leads a small group outside to seek help. A rope tied to one man soon returns without him, confirming that something attacked the party in the mist. The remaining people block the plate-glass windows, organize watches, and improvise weapons. David stays near Billy and forms a practical alliance with Ollie, Dan, Amanda Dumfries, and Mrs. Reppler. Mrs. Carmody declares that the mist is divine judgment. Most shoppers initially reject her claims, but fear gives her a growing audience. No rescue arrives, and the supermarket's supplies cannot solve the danger of a building designed with broad panes of glass.

Night makes the supermarket more vulnerable. Flying creatures gather around its lights, followed by larger predators that hunt them. Broken glass allows insects with poisonous stings to enter, and several trapped people are killed or injured while others fight with improvised weapons, insect spray, and fire. The attack confirms for everyone that ordinary rescue may not be coming. Mrs. Carmody survives danger that kills people around her, strengthening her authority among frightened shoppers. She describes the creatures as instruments of punishment and begins speaking of sacrifice. David's group concentrates on extinguishing fires, protecting Billy, and preserving supplies, but the market can no longer be treated as secure. By morning, they consider an expedition to the pharmacy next door for medicine and information despite the risk of crossing even a short stretch of mist.

David and a small party enter the neighboring pharmacy. They find bodies webbed by spiderlike creatures and are attacked by offspring emerging from the dead and by larger hunters in the building. The expedition suffers casualties and returns with little useful medicine. Evidence and rumors point toward the Arrowhead military project as a possible source of the disaster, perhaps through an experiment that opened access to another environment. Back at the supermarket, Mrs. Carmody uses the failed mission and mounting deaths to expand her following. Her demand for a blood sacrifice becomes increasingly literal. David, Amanda, Ollie, Mrs. Reppler, and several others decide they must leave before either the creatures or the growing fanaticism inside the store kills them. Their plan depends on reaching David's parked vehicle and driving beyond the mist, if an edge exists.

Mrs. Carmody's followers discover the escape attempt and turn on David's group, identifying Billy as a possible sacrifice. Ollie shoots Carmody, breaking her control long enough for the group to run. Creatures kill Ollie and others in the parking lot, but David gets Billy, Amanda, and Mrs. Reppler into his car. Roads and predators prevent him from reaching Steff, so the four continue south without knowing her fate. They pass abandoned vehicles, devastated towns, and creatures of different sizes, including one so vast that the car travels beneath its body. Nothing suggests that the mist has a nearby boundary. At a motel, David records their experience while the others sleep. Searching the radio, he thinks he hears a broadcast containing the word “Hartford.” The signal may be real or imagined, but he preserves it as a direction. The account ends with the four still together and preparing to continue, sustained by only a faint possibility of organized refuge.

David escapes the supermarket with Billy, Amanda Dumfries, and Mrs. Reppler after Ollie is killed in the parking lot. They drive first toward David's home, but fallen trees and the creatures in the mist make it impossible to reach Steff or learn whether she survived. Continuing south, they pass devastated towns and encounter a creature so immense that the car travels beneath it. Fuel and certainty are both running out, yet David refuses to treat death as inevitable. The four shelter in a motel while he writes the account of what happened. Searching the radio, he believes he hears the word “Hartford” through the interference. He cannot know whether it was a real broadcast or whether Hartford represents safety, but he treats it as a direction and a reason to continue. Unlike a resolved rescue, the novella ends with the survivors still inside the mist, preserving only a narrow, uncertain hope.