Four Past Midnight
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| Four Past Midnight | |
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| Author | Stephen King |
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| Cover artist | Rob Wood-Stansbury |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publisher | Viking Penguin; Open Market Ed edition |
| Publication date | September 1990 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 804 (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-83538-2 |
Four Past Midnight is a collection of four novellas by Stephen King, published in 1990. The four stories are The Langoliers; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Library Policeman; and The Sun Dog.
Contents |
[edit] Contents
[edit] The Langoliers
The story takes place mostly on an airplane. Passengers that have been sleeping wake up and notice that they are more or less alone aboard. Everyone aboard that had been awake has disappeared, pilots and all. It's only the persons that have vanished: they left their watches, wallets, dental fillings and pace makers behind. Even more shocking, the group of remaining people discover that everyone on Earth has disappeared as well. The fortunate inclusion of a sleeping passenger who is a pilot allows the survivors to land, but their troubles are only starting.
The Langoliers was adapted into a two part TV mini-series in 1995.
On a cross-country red-eye flight aboard American Pride Flight 29 from Los Angeles, California to Boston, Massachusetts off-duty airline pilot Brian Engle, heading east to his ex-wife's funeral, awakens to find that all of the other passengers and crew have disappeared, and all that remains of them are their clothes, and items such as watches, headphones, playing cards, pacemakers, and surgical pins. Only the people that were sleeping when the mysterious event occurred were not missing. Brain found himself unable to make contact with anyone, even the Air Force. All cities they flew over were pitch black and there were no signs of life. They decided to land in Bangor, Maine instead of Boston, Massachusetts because it would be safer with the airport’s long runways and less runway traffic. When they landed, they discovered that every other person in the world had disappeared, as well. Also, daylight and night only lasted a few hours each. There was no electricity and there was no cloud movement. Sounds did not echo. Characters began to develop; Dinah, a small blind child, began to think she could see through others’ eyes. Craig Toomey, desperate to get to his meeting in Boston, began his decent into madness. He thought that all this was caused by the Langoliers, small creatures with fast legs that chase and eat the lazy. Trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle, the travelers settled at a snack bar. They discovered much to their horror that the sandwiches had no taste, the drinks were flat, and none of the matches would light. Dinah heard sounds in the distance resembling radio static and informed the rest of the survivors that whatever made the sound was coming for them. The sound was slowly and steadily getting closer. Bob Jenkins, a writer, theorized that they flew through a rip in the fabric of time. The reason they didn’t disappear was because they were asleep when they traveled through the rift. Albert, Brian, Bob, and Nick took food, drinks, and matches from the snack bar back to the plane. The matches lit and the food and drink regained flavor. This was because although the airplane had traveled into the past, it still contained the present inside. They started loading the currently useless fuel into the plane, because it would burn once entering the airliner’s engines. The characters further developed; the couples of Nick and Laurel and Bethany and Albert emerged. Craig Toomey, driven mad by the approaching sound, stabbed Dinah in the chest with a butcher knife, believing that she was the “chief Langolier” and punctured her lung. Nick pulled out the knife, attempting to save her. When Albert and Don went to look for a stretcher for Dinah, they were attacked by Toomey. He killed Don with a letter opener and attempted to shoot Albert. Much as the matches wouldn’t strike, the gun would not fire. Albert smashed Toomey to the ground with a toaster wrapped in a tablecloth. He thought he had killed Toomey. Just as the plane was ready to take off, they glimpsed the source of the sound. There were strange, round creatures emerging from the forest. They had large, spinning mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth (resembling chainsaws.) They traveled with great speed and everything in their path was devoured. Dinah mentally communicated with Toomey, convincing him that the meeting he had been so anxious to attend was being held on the tarmac, steering the creatures’ attention away from the plane. He was quickly devoured. The plane lifted off, watching the whole of the world being devoured beneath them leaving only a dark void. They retraced their original course, which would take them back through the time rip. Dinah died of the puncture in her lungs. Bob realized that they could not re-travel through the time rip unless they were all unconscious. Brian decided to lower the air pressure in the cabin to make everyone go unconscious, but someone had to stay awake to restore it to normal pressure afterwards (killing themselves in the process.) Nick volunteered. He watched the approaching rift from the cockpit, paralyzed by its beauty. He flipped the switch to restore air pressure just before he disappeared. They awoke with the plane approaching Los Angeles, finding a similarly deserted city. When they landed, it felt much different. Sounds echoed and there was no Langolier buzz, but a peaceful hum, gradually growing louder. The rift had taken them into the future. They shortly rejoined the present and people materialize around them. The story ends as the survivors decide to get some fresh air before talking to the authorities.
[edit] Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden is similar to King's earlier novel The Dark Half. Both are about authors, in this case Mort Rainey, who is a thinly-veiled analogue of King himself. Mort is visited by a man who takes the name of John Shooter, with a manuscript which proves to be an almost exact copy of a story that Mort himself wrote and published some years earlier. The man claims that Mort stole it from him and demands that Mort write a story in his name as compensation or prove that he is innocent, or bad things will happen. As it turns out, the man is Mort's alter ego who manifests himself and makes Mort's life a living hell until Mort realizes it is himself performing the destructive tasks while he is asleep.
It is worth noting that King has been accused of plagiarism himself. A woman has claimed that he broke into her home and stole her manuscript for Misery. In another incident a deranged man broke into King's home, and when discovered by King's wife, claimed that King has stolen several of his novels and that he had a bomb in the shoebox he was holding. The dud bomb was made of erasers and straightened paperclips.
This story has been adapted into a movie Secret Window (2004), starring Johnny Depp. The novel and the movie end very differently.
Rock band Brand New got the title for their song "Sowing Season (Yeah)" from the name of Mort Rainey's story.
[edit] The Library Policeman
The Library Policeman was written after King's son didn't want to go to the library as he was afraid of the library police. King felt this was a nice idea and used it. What if there were serious men in long coats that came to your house and fetched the books if you didn't return them in time? And most importantly: what happens if you lose the book you borrowed? Eventually, the main character is forced to confront a suppressed childhood memory and realizes the horrors occurring in his world have been unleashed by a shape-shifting figure who lives off of others' fears.
[edit] The Sun Dog
The Sun Dog is about a boy that gets just what he wants for his fifteenth birthday—a Polaroid camera. Soon though, he notices that there is something strange with the camera. It prints similar pictures all the time and never of what the camera is pointed at. As the novella continues, the boy finds that the pictures are of a terrifying dog preparing to leap at the camera. The Sun Dog is set in King's fictional city of Castle Rock, Maine, and is a prelude of sorts to King's 1991 novel Needful Things.
