Survivor Type

"Survivor Type"
Author	Stephen King
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror short story
Published in	Terrors (1st release), Skeleton Crew
Publication type	Anthology
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Publication date	1982 (1st release)

Survivor Type is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the 1982 horror anthology Terrors, edited by Charles L. Grant, and collected in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew.

Plot summary

"Survivor Type" is written as the diary of a disgraced surgeon, Richard Pine (real name Richard Pinzetti), who, while attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin on a cruise ship, on a round trip from the USA to Thailand and back, finds himself marooned on a tiny island in the Pacific with very limited supplies and no food. A self-proclaimed "survivor" type, his diary entries documenting his day to day activities become more and more disjointed and raving (similar to the writing technique used in Flowers for Algernon), revealing his slow mental decay and eventual insanity caused by starvation, isolation, and drug use. Determined to hold out for rescue, he goes to horrifying lengths to survive. After breaking his ankle while attempting to draw attention to himself when he sees a plane passing by, he amputates his foot, then realizes he has to eat it to survive. He continues to amputate his own limbs to use as a food source, ingesting the heroin for anesthesia during the operations. His last few diary entries, barely comprehensible, indicate he has cut off and eaten everything below his waist, as well as his ears, and drools uncontrollably as he ponders which body part to consume next. The diary entries end when he cuts off his left hand to eat. ("lady fingers they taste like lady fingers").

They made a short 2011 film based on the novel for the film Festival Buried Alive. The script and storyboard was directed by Chris Ethridge.

http://www.survivortypefilm.com/