I've just finished reading "Mile 81", the new ebook by Stephen King, and while I do love almost all of his other work, this short story is very unwieldy and not fantastic in anyway.
I like to think of Stephen King as the Short Story King, because after reading "Just After Sunset" I was extremely impressed with his skill. I also enjoy his phenomenal ability to take the stupidest ideas and make a scary story out of them. (Remember Christine? I rest my case.) This ebook fails to impress me or strike fear into my heart.
*spoilers ahead* This short story starts out with some kid I've already forgotten the name of, and I put the Kindle down not 5 minutes ago. Blame my short attention span if you like, but I can still remember all of my favorite characters from Under the Dome (Barbie and Ollie) and it's been at least a year since I've last read it. For my nonexistent reader's sake, I will call the forgettable child Alvin. Alvin, after being left by his older brother, decides to go mess around in an abandoned rest area on the highway. He finds a bottle of vodka and gets pleasantly buzzed before playing darts with Justin Bieber's face. This right here is what annoys me about this short story. Either Stephen King is trying too hard to get my generation to read his work by throwing in a bunch of cheap gimmicks (Hey, kids don't like J-Beebs, right? Let's put the dickhead in a novel.), which annoys the piss out of me, or he is writing a gruesome parody of today's pop culture (Hey, kids don't like J-Beebs, right? Let's put the dickhead in a novel.), which also annoys the piss out of me. I hate my generation. They're a bunch of idiots who think raccoon eye makeup and fake wolf tails are cool. That's all that is needed to sum up the group of dumbasses I was unfortunate enough to be born around. And the pop culture references are not limited to Justin Bieber! Oh boy, we also get the pleasure of a rambling trip to nowhere paragraph about some kid remembering a Doctor Who episode he once saw! Fantastic.
Carrying on. After a few games of Dart-Face, Alvin decides to take a nap on some jizz-stained mattresses. A short time afterward, while Alvin is in a vodka-induced coma, a station wagon driven by no one (THE HORROR! WILL MR. KING EVER TOP THIS FRIGHTENING MASTERPIECE?!) pulls into the parking lot outside, knocking over some orange cones and generally not doing shit else. It's got mud smeared over windows on the inside, blocking your view into it, which is spooky, I guess. A bit later, while Alvin is still sleeping and lying in blessed ignorance of the story he is in, some religious fucknut drives by. Seeing the muddy station wagon, he incorrectly assumes there was a car accident, so being a nice guy, pulls over. When he grabs the door handle to pull it open, it sucks him in and eats him. I'm not kidding. It's like Christine written by a retarded kid. Leaving naught but his cellphone, wedding band, and a few drops of blood, Mr. Good Samaritan has the good fortune to die before anything more stupid can happen.
Not long after, while Alvin is still asleep, a fat lesbian horse owner pulls up and meets the same fate. The writing in this part is repetitive, and King uses foreshadowing that's about as subtle as a microphone and a bullhorn fucking in a dressing room. I'm not sure if he expects me to feel anything for the characters or if I'm supposed to be the silent observer, but at this point I was rooting for the demon car to eat everyone for the fun of it.
After that, a couple and their two kids pull up after recognizing the horse trailer that the fat lesbian owned and went to check the car out. The man gets pulled in first, and the woman follows right after because she's a stupid bitch. The kids are left whining in the back seat of their father's car. Here's another thing that annoys me: at this point, the only characters we are seeing are a six year old and another child of a younger age. King does write dialogue for each, and it's really awkward and strange-sounding, and more than a little grating. The clarity of their speech jumps from Stephen Fry to Stephen Hawking in a matter of moments, and I hate kids so I might be a bit biased on this part, but fuck it I'm going to finish this if it kills me. The kids call 911 and Jimmy Fuckstick, State Trooper, pulls up to save the day. He also meets his demise at the hands of the snacking automobile. Finally Alvin wakes his sorry ass up and goes outside. Using a magnifying glass that he bought somewhere for some reason, he burns the car. Really. The car, being extremely angered by this, flies into space. You think I'm fucking joking? Read it.
I don't know if anything more interesting happened after this, but I probably would've remembered if it had because this short story is so fucking boring. In sum, it sounds like something I would write, which is probably the worst thing I could have said about it.
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