4 Past Midnight & The Langoliers

This book is a collection of 4 short stories. His previous collection, Different Seasons, included short stories that were not horror novels and King says that this is his return to horror. 

The only thing that I remember about this book is the first story, The Langoliers. It is not unreasonable to think that this story sticks in my head because I am reminded of it every time that I get on a plane. It just kind of floats around in the back of my head. There was a TV movie made out of this story. All I remember about the movie is that it sucked. There are many things that creep you out at a very deep level when you read it in a book and see it in your imagination. Then someone makes a movie out of it and you wonder why you were so afraid of the dopey monster. 

My other example of this is Twilight. I devoured the books [I am a girl, what can I say? The fact that I am admitting that I read the series more than once and enjoyed it while simultaneously loathing myself for being drawn into such nonsense should demonstrate my integrity]. Then I went to see the movie with my girlfriend. I was so embarrassed at the dialogue and when the movie finally ended I leaned over and said, "Did that sound as STUPID out loud to you as it did to me?" Her answer was yes. All of this is to say, that somethings make sense in your imagination, but are terrible when they take life outside of the imagination.

So, the movie of The Langoliers was terrible. Don't watch it. But the story was interesting. A plane flies through a rip in time to yesterday where everything is dead except what is on the plane. Then come the things that eat up yesterday and threaten to eat you along with it. 

Also in this collection:

• Secret Window, Secret Garden (also made into a movie, starring Johnny Depp, who does a great job)
• The Library Policeman (of which I have no memory, but I am strangely reminded of the Library Cop from "Seinfeld")
• The Sun Dog (I also have no memory of this story)

Inspiration for The Langoliers from www.stephenking.com

"Stories come at different times and places for me--in the car, in the shower, while walking, even while standing around at parties. On a couple of occasions, stories have come to me in dreams. But it's very rare for me to write one as soon as the idea comes, and I don't keep an "idea notebook." Not writing ideas down is an exercise in self-preservation. I get a lot of them, but only a small percentage are any good, so I tuck them all into a kind of mental file. The bad ones eventually self-destruct in there, like the tape from Control at the beginning of every Mission Impossible episode. The good ones don't do that. Every now and then, when I open the file drawer to peek at what's left inside, this small handful of ideas looks up at me, each with its own bright central image.

With "The Langoliers," that image was of a woman pressing her hand over a crack in the wall of a commercial jetliner.

It did no good to tell myself I knew very little about commercial aircraft; I did exactly that, but the image was there every time I opened the file cabinet to dump in another idea, nevertheless. It got so I could even smell that woman's perfume (it was L'Envoi), see her green eyes, and hear her rapid, frightened breathing.

One night, while I was lying in bed, on the edge of sleep, I realized this woman was a ghost.

I remember sitting up, swinging my feet out onto the floor, and turning on the light. I sat that way for a little while, not thinking about much of anything . . . at least on top. Underneath, however, the guy who really runs this job for me was busy clearing his workspace and getting ready to start up all his machines again. The next day, I--or he--began writing this story."