The Mist (novella)

The Mist is a horror novel by the American author Stephen King, in which the small town of Bridgton, Maine is suddenly enveloped in an unnatural mist that conceals otherworldly monsters.[1] It was first published as the first and longest story of the horror anthology Dark Forces in 1980. A slightly edited version was included in King's collection Skeleton Crew (1985). The story is the longest entry in Skeleton Crew and occupies the first 134 pages. To coincide with the theatrical release of the film based on the novella, The Mist was republished as a standalone paperback book by Signet on October 2, 2007.

The Mist
Standalone paperback edition cover
AuthorStephen King
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreHorror
PublisherViking Press (Dark Forces anthology)
Publication date
1980, 1985, 2007 (Signet)
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)

The story was originally called The Fog, but was later changed after John Carpenter's movie called The Fog was released.

Summary

The morning after a violent thunderstorm, a thick, unnatural mist quickly spreads across the small town of Bridgton, Maine, reducing visibility to near zero and concealing numerous species of bizarre creatures, which viciously attack anyone and anything that dares venture into the open.

The bulk of the story details the plight of a large group of people who become trapped while shopping in the town supermarket. Among them are commercial artist David Drayton (the protagonist and narrator), David's young son Billy, and their estranged neighbor Brent Norton, who accompanied them into town after a tree smashed Brent's car. Among the others trapped in the market are a young woman named Amanda Dumfries and two soldiers from a nearby military installation, home to what is referred to as "The Arrowhead Project." The two soldiers' eventual joint suicide lends some credence to the theory that this Project was the source of the disaster.

Soon after the mist develops, something plugs the store generator's exhaust vent. When a young bag boy named Norm steps outside to fix the problem, he is pulled into the mist by a swarm of tentacles. David and Ollie Weeks, the store's assistant manager, witness Norm's death and try to convince the remaining survivors of the danger lurking outside. Norton and a small group of others refuse to believe, accusing David of lying. They venture out into the mist to seek help, where they are killed by a huge, unseen creature. This, along with a deadly incursion into the store by a pterosaur-like creature and a disastrous expedition to the pharmacy next door, leads to paranoia and panic consuming the remaining survivors. This spiraling breakdown leads to the rise to power of a religious zealot named Mrs. Carmody, who convinces most of the remaining survivors that these events fulfill the biblical prophecy of the end time and that a human sacrifice must be made to save them from God's wrath.

David and Ollie attempt to lead their remaining allies in a covert exit from the market but are stopped by Mrs. Carmody, who orders her followers to kill her chosen victims: Billy and Amanda. However, Ollie, using a revolver found in Amanda's purse, kills Mrs. Carmody, causing her congregation to break up. En route to David's car, Ollie is bisected by the claw of a very large creature similar to a giant lobster or crab. David, Billy, Amanda, and elderly-yet-tough school teacher Hilda Reppler reach the car and leave Bridgton, driving south for hours through a mist-shrouded, monster-filled New England. After finding refuge for the night, David listens to a radio and, through the overwhelming static, possibly hears a single-word broadcast: "Hartford." With that one shred of hope, he prepares to drive on into an uncertain future.

Influences

King, in the Notes section in Skeleton Crew, says The Mist was inspired by a real-life experience, when a massive thunderstorm much like the one that opens the story occurred where King lived at the time. The day after the storm, he went to a local supermarket with his son. While looking for hot dog buns, King imagined a "big prehistoric flying reptile" flapping around in the store. By the time the two were in line to pay for their purchases, King had the basis for his story: survivors trapped in a supermarket surrounded by unknown creatures.

While experiencing the unusual spring weather which precedes the storm, some characters make reference to the real-life Great Blizzard of 1888, which devastated much of the northeastern United States.

Influence in other media

Film
  • A film adaptation of the novella, titled The Mist (2007), was directed by Frank Darabont and starred Thomas Jane. This adaptation changes the ending: The survivors agree to commit suicide after seeing the seemingly overrun New England, and David Drayton kills the others, including his son. He is unable to kill himself, however, because he is out of bullets. As he steps out of the car to await his fate, the mist begins to disperse to reveal a US Army convoy approaching, destroying the remaining creatures and assisting survivors. David falls to his knees, realizing that they were only moments from rescue.

Games
  • In 1985, Mindscape released an interactive fiction computer game based on the novella.[2]
  • The developers of the Half-Life video game series, which also deals with creatures from parallel dimensions breaking through to ours, have listed The Mist among their primary influences for the game plot.[3] The first game in the series was originally going to be called Quiver, as a reference to the Arrowhead Project from The Mist.
  • The Silent Hill series of games are heavily influenced by The Mist. The town is shrouded in fog (or, as in the first game, snow); sirens occasionally blare; and Lovecraftian creatures attack the human characters within. The first game also features a pterosaur-esque monster that breaks through an establishment's glass window, as well an apocalypse-cultist character who is revealed to be very much like Mrs. Carmody.

Television adaptation

Characters and creatures

Human characters
David Drayton
Husband of Stephanie, father of Billy. A moderately successful commercial artist, David is the narrator of the story and one of the few survivors as the story ends.
Billy Drayton
Billy is David's five-year-old son. He is cared for by his loving father, David, during their ordeal in the supermarket. Billy is traumatized by the experience, although David is fairly successful at shielding his son from any direct violence.
Amanda Dumfries
A young woman trapped in the supermarket. She is married, but her husband is away and is encouraged to carry a pistol while he was away. Ollie Weeks uses the pistol to kill Mrs. Carmody. Amanda also has a sexual encounter with David and is one of the survivors at the end of the story.
Stephanie Drayton
Stephanie is David's wife. David and Billy leave her at home when they go to the supermarket. Since she was working outside and one of their home's windows was broken during the storm, she had little chance of surviving the monsters.
Brent Norton
David Drayton's neighbor, Brent refuses to believe what is happening. Prior to the story, he had lost a property dispute with Drayton, creating a bitter relationship between the two. His wife died a few months prior to the events of the story. He eventually leads a small group of non-believers into the mist. He and his group are heard screaming after disappearing into the mist and are most likely killed by the monsters.
Ollie Weeks
The assistant manager of the supermarket. Ollie remains among the most sane of the survivors, accepting the truth about the mist and trying to keep the survivors calm. He is part of the pharmacy expedition and survives it. He kills Mrs. Carmody in order to prevent Billy and Amanda's sacrifice, but is killed minutes later during the climactic escape attempt by an arachnilobster which tears him in half with one of its claws.
Mrs. Carmody
An elderly townswoman with a borderline reputation as a witch and an extreme belief in a bloodthirsty God. She actively thrives in the situation, starting the story as a near-pariah, and eventually convincing a large fraction of the survivors that a human sacrifice must be made to clear away the mist. She is killed when Ollie shoots her in the abdomen after attempting to have Billy and Amanda killed.
Bud Brown
The manager of the store, he maintains a relative degree of sanity by, as Drayton puts it, assuming the role of "Protector Of The Store." He does not join the final escape attempt and his fate is uncertain.
Mike Hatlen
A town selectman, Mike becomes one of the leaders in the market. He is killed by the web of a spider creature during the expedition to the pharmacy, which cuts through his throat.
Sally
A clerk at the supermarket who works for Bud Brown. She is only mentioned a couple of times.
Dan Miller
An "out of towner" who owns a summer home in the area, Dan also becomes a leader in the market. He is killed by a spider creature in the mist during the expedition to the pharmacy, which completely encases him in its acidic web.
Hattie Turman
A middle-aged woman, she looks after Billy during the times that David is otherwise occupied. She is killed by a spider creature in the mist during the final escape.
Hilda Reppler
An elderly, but tough and competent school teacher. Mrs. Reppler proves to be one of the most capable of those trapped in the market, using cans of Raid as weapons against the Mist creatures. She hated Mrs. Carmody and refused to join her group. After everything that had happened, Mrs. Reppler was trusted enough by David to join in the final escape attempt. She survived and stayed with David, Billy and Amanda.
Norm
An 18-year-old bag boy who goes outside to check the generator in the loading dock. He is then killed by an unseen, octopus-like creature with several spike-covered tentacles.
Jim Grondin
One of two men who sends Norm the bag boy to his death. Consumed by guilt, he drinks heavily. He is later killed by an unseen predator during the expedition to the pharmacy.
Myron LaFleur
Jim Grondin's friend, who also contributed to Norm's death. He becomes one of Mrs. Carmody's followers. When Mrs. Carmody dies, he is horrified and runs off. His fate is uncertain.
Ambrose Cornell
An elderly man, Cornell decides to leave with the group in the final escape but makes a hasty retreat back into the supermarket after seeing Ollie and Hattie killed by the monsters. His fate thereafter is uncertain.
Buddy Eagleton
One of the stock boys. He is killed during the expedition to the pharmacy when a spider creature wraps an acidic web-strand around his leg, causing him to bleed to death.
Mr. McVey
The store's butcher, who cooks for the survivors; He later becomes a follower of Mrs. Carmody and attempts to kill Billy and Amanda, but Mrs. Carmody's death stops him from doing so.
Tom Smalley
A survivor inside the store who is unlucky enough to be under the window where a pterosaur creature comes in and eats him. He is either stunned or killed when a bag of lawn fertilizer falls on his head as the monster squeezes into the store.

Creatures
  • Numerous mollusk-like tentacles that kill Norm in the storage room. The suction cups on the tentacle serve as mouths, consuming Norm as the tentacles envelop him. The story never directly explains what the tentacles are attached to, although several characters engage in light speculation on the matter.
  • Fly creatures – Small, plump, flying creatures between two and four feet long that swarm over the store windows at night. These creatures have pink, burnt-flesh coloured skin, and their eyes are on stalks protruding from their heads.
  • Albino, nocturnal pterosaur-like creatures that pluck the aforementioned fly creatures from the store windows. One enters through a hole in the store's display window and eats a man named Tom Smalley. The creature is then killed by David Drayton.
  • Spider-like predators, described in the text as "the size of a big dog" and "black with yellow piping" with "as many as twelve or fourteen many-jointed legs", that hunt by scent. These have the ability to project acidic ropes that can burn through materials like cloth and flesh. They claim the lives of Jim Grondin, Buddy Eagleton, Dan Miller, Mike Hatlen, Hattie Turman and several patrons of the next-door pharmacy.
  • A mostly unseen creature with a scorpion-like segmented body with lobster claws that kills Ollie Weeks by ripping him in half.
  • A massive creature with six legs. Other than the legs, with hundreds of the aforementioned small flying creatures attached to them, this creature is unseen. Although the creature's exact size is never specified, David gets the impression that its size would make a blue whale resemble a trout if both were posed together, and its weight is sufficient to leave deep footprints the size of a large SUV in solid concrete.
  • A giant kite-like creature glimpsed flying through the mist.
  • A large, green insect resembling a twisted and deformed dragonfly with long, clear wings, which alights on the car.

See also

References
  1. The Mist By Stephen King. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  2. Scorpia (January–February 1986). "The Year in Review". Computer Gaming World. p. 16.
  3. Hodgson, David (2004). Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar. Prima Games. ISBN 0-7615-4364-3.
  4. Gennis, Sadie (January 13, 2017). "Spike's The Mist Series Is a "Reimagination," Not a Remake". TV Guide. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  5. Goldberg, Lesley (September 27, 2017). "'The Mist' Canceled at Spike After One Season (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
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