The Mist (novella)

MIST MANASORABOR INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

मानसोरबोर ईन्स्टिच्युट अफ साईन्स एन्ड टेक्नोलोजी दमक झापा

Welcome to Manasorabor College CONTACT: MANASAROWAR INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DAMAK JHAPA PHONE NO: 9722157466 (OFF) MOBILE NO: 9842631962 (MOBILE) General Medicine (H.A) 3 years & Diploma in Pharmacy. 3 years website http://www.mistcollege.blogspot.com

For the 2007 film based on King's novella, see The Mist (film).

The Mist

Author	Stephen King
Language	English
Genre	Horror novella
Publisher	Viking Press, Signet
Publication date	1980, 1985, 2007 (Signet)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)

MIST MANASORABOR INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

मानसोरबोर ईन्स्टिच्युट अफ साईन्स एन्ड टेक्नोलोजी दमक झापा

Welcome to Manasorabor College CONTACT: MANASAROWAR INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DAMAK JHAPA PHONE NO: 9722157466 (OFF) MOBILE NO: 9842631962 (MOBILE) General Medicine (H.A) 3 years & Diploma in Pharmacy. 3 years website http://www.mistcollege.blogspot.com

"The Mist" is a horror novella 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. It was first published as the first and longest story of the 1980 horror anthology Dark Forces. A lightly re-edited version was included in King's 1985 short-story collection Skeleton Crew. The story is the longest entry in Skeleton Crew and occupies the first 155 pages. To coincide with the theatrical release of the film based on the novella, The Mist was republished as a stand-alone novella by Signet.

Plot 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 any creature that ventures out 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 a commercial artist named David Drayton, (the protagonist and narrator) David's young son Billy, and their estranged neighbor Brenton Norton, who accompanied them into town after his car was smashed by a tree. Amongst others trapped in the market are a young woman named Amanda Dumfries and two soldiers from a nearby military installation, home to what is apocryphally referred to as "The Arrowhead Project"; the soldiers' eventual joint suicide lends some credence to the theory of this Project being the source of the disaster.

Soon after the mist comes, 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 (dubbed "The Flat Earth Society" by David) refuse to believe, and accuse 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, lead 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 the majority of the remaining survivors that these events fulfill the biblical prophecy of the end times, and that a human sacrifice must be made to save them from the wrath of God. 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 seize her chosen victims: Billy and Amanda. Ollie shoots Mrs. Carmody in the stomach with a revolver found in Amanda's purse, killing her, causing her congregation to break up. En route to David's car, Ollie, in turn is cut in two by a clawed monstrosity. David, Billy, Amanda, and an 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 that the inspiration for The Mist came from a real life experience. While there were no strange creatures, a massive thunderstorm much like the one which 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.

In the second issue of the Marvel Comics series The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (a project overseen by King), the short prose story at the end of the book details events similar to those that occur in The Mist. In the story, a beam quake (caused by an attempt to tear down the Dark Tower) splits the Earth, and from within the split rises a thick mist inhabited by dark creatures that have escaped into the real world. This phenomenon, known in the Dark Tower universe as a thinny resembles the mist from The Mist.

Influence in other media

• The 1996 tokusatsu series Ultraman Tiga features an episode entitled "The Mist", which uses a plot heavily based on the story, with one character even alluding to its similarities to a "story she once heard".

• 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. The first game in the series was originally going to be called Quiver, as a reference to the Arrowhead base from The Mist.

• The video game Michigan: Report from Hell developed by Grasshopper Manufacture is partly inspired by The Mist.

• An episode in the kids show Fanboy and ChumChum, is about four people trapped in a convenience store surrounded by a thick fog, fearing that a monster is outside. Several references are made to the film, including sending someone out with a rope attached to their waist.

• The film adaptation was referenced in King's 2009 novel Under the Dome.

• The video game Silent Hill shares a lot of similarities, the most obvious being the town engulfed in fog and overwhelmed by monsters. In the first Silent Hill, the protagonist wakes up in a cafe and is attacked by a Pterosaur-like creature.

• In the 2009 Torchwood mini-series Children of Earth, the alien race called The 456 are tentacled creatures shrouded in thick mist. Incidentally, the film adaptation's ending is very similar to the fate of a character and his family in the final episode.

Characters and creatures

This is a list of brief contextual descriptions of characters from the novel.

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.

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, where a large, unseen creature kills them.

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

A middle-aged 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 and the head after attempting to have Billy and Amanda killed.

Amanda Dumfries

A young woman trapped in the supermarket. She has a husband who is out of town and encouraged her to carry a pistol while he was away. Ollie Weeks uses the weapon to kill Mrs. Carmody. She is one of the last main characters seen.

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 gray widower 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. It is unknown whether she became a follower of Mrs. Carmody or remained neutral.

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 gray widower 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 grey widower 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 is part of the pharmacy expedition and is one of the last main characters seen.

Norm

An 18-year-old bag boy, goes to check the generator in the loading dock.He is killed by a 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 cowardly runs off. His fate is uncertain.

Ambrose Cornell

An elderly man, Cornell decides to try and leave with the group. However, after he sees Ollie get killed, he flees back into the market during the climactic escape sequence, and is left behind.

Buddy Eagleton

One of the stock boys. He is killed during the expedition to the pharmacy when a grey widower 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 take Billy as a human sacrifice, but is unsuccessful.

Tom Smalley

A survivor inside the store who is unlucky enough to be under the window where the pterobuzzard comes in, which proceeds to kill him.

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 which swarm over the store windows at night. These creatures have pink, burnt-flesh colored skin, and their eyes are on stalks protruding from their heads.

• Albino, nocturnal reptile-like creatures which pluck the aforementioned creatures off of the store windows. One enters through a hole in the store's display window and kills a man named Tom Smalley. The creature is then killed by David Drayton

• Black spider-like predators each about the size of a dog, which hunt by scent. These have the ability to project acidic "spider-webs" which 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 very large 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 six-foot-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.