This week I read Mile 81 by Stephen King.
This was a fun short story in classic King fashion. Here is the description from Amazon:
With the heart of Stand By Me and the genius horror of Christine, Mile
81 is Stephen King unleashing his imagination as he drives past one of
those road signs...
At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a
boarded up rest stop on a highway in Maine. It's a place where high
school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have
always gotten into. It's the place where Pete Simmons goes when his
older brother, who's supposed to be looking out for him, heads off to
the gravel pit to play "paratroopers over the side." Pete, armed only
with the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a
discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks
enough to pass out.
Not much later, a mud-covered station wagon
(which is strange because there hadn't been any rain in New England for
over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that
says "closed, no services." The driver's door opens but nobody gets out.
Doug Clayton, an insurance man from Bangor, is driving his
Prius to a conference in Portland. On the backseat are his briefcase and
suitcase and in the passenger bucket is a King James Bible, what Doug
calls "the ultimate insurance manual," but it isn't going to save Doug
when he decides to be the Good Samaritan and help the guy in the broken
down wagon. He pulls up behind it, puts on his four-ways, and then
notices that the wagon has no plates.
Ten minutes later,
Julianne Vernon, pulling a horse trailer, spots the Prius and the wagon,
and pulls over. Julianne finds Doug Clayton's cracked cell phone near
the wagon door — and gets too close herself. By the time Pete Simmons
wakes up from his vodka nap, there are a half a dozen cars at the Mile
81 rest stop. Two kids — Rachel and Blake Lussier — and one horse named
Deedee are the only living left. Unless you maybe count the wagon.
--I really enjoyed this. Plus the bonus short DUNE was great as well.
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