by Rocky Wood
XV
I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart,
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier’s art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.
XVI
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert’s reddening face
Beneath its garniture of curly gold,
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
An arm to mine to fix me to the place,
The way he used. Alas, one night’s disgrace!
Out went my heart’s new fire and left it cold.
XVII
Giles then, the soul of honour – there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first,
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.
Good – but the scene shifts – faugh! what hangman hands
Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!
XVIII
Better this present than a past like that:
Back therefore to my darkening path again!
No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet or a bat?
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.
XIX
A sudden little river crossed my path
As unexpected as a serpent comes.
No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
For the fiend’s glowing hoof – to see the wrath
Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
XX
So petty yet so spiteful! All along,
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:
The river which had done them all the wrong,
Whate’er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.
XXI
Which, while I forded – good saints, how I feared
To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek,
Each step, of feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
– It may have been a water-rat I speared,
But, ugh! it sounded like a baby’s shriek.
XXII
Glad was I when I reached the other bank.
Now for a better country. Vain presage!
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank
Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage –
XXIII
The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque,
What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?
No footprint leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.
XXIV
And more than that – a furlong on – why, there!
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
Or brake, not wheel – that harrow fit to reel
Men’s bodies out like silk? With all the air
Of Tophet,s tool, on earth left unaware
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
XXV
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood –
Bog, clay and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth.
XXVI
Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil’s
Broke into moss, or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
XXVII
And just as far as ever from the end!
Naught in the distance but the evening, naught
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon’s bosom friend,
Sailed past, not best his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap – perchance the guide I sought.
XXVIII
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
‘Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains – with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me – solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
XXIX
Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick
Of mischief happened to me, God knows when –
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts – you’re inside the den.
XXX
Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
XXXI
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool’s heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest’s mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
XXXII
Not see? because of night perhaps? – why day
Came back again for that! before it left
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, –
“Now stab and end the creature – to the heft!”
XXXIII
Not hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers, my peers –
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
XXXIV
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.”
8 The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King, Rocky Wood, David Rawsthorne and Norma Blackburn (1st Edition May 2003, Revised Edition November 2004)
9 The five parts were: The Gunslinger (October 1978); The Way Station (April 1980); The Oracle and the Mountains (February 1981); The Slow Mutants (July 1981); and The Gunslinger and the Dark Man (November 1981)
10 In The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1990
11 Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: A Concordance (Volume One), Robin Furth, p.177-178
12 Foreword to The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (Revised Edition), Stephen King, page xx
The Lost and Hidden Works
King is prolific but has largely been carefu
l to only release works he was comfortable with at a particular stage of his career. As a result, there are now more than two dozen known works of fiction that have never seen the light of day.
Who knows what lies in the filing cabinets of publishers, the attics of Maine and New England or other nooks and crannies? What we do know is that King himself has a treasure-trove of material. The questions of whether any will be published or whether some or all will ever be deposited with the Stephen Edwin King papers at the Special Collections Unit of the Raymond H. Fogler Library of the University of Maine at Orono are for him to answer. It is to be hoped, for the sake of future researchers, that these items will one day find themselves in a protected place, even if access is heavily restricted.
This chapter reviews the works of fiction that have never been seen by researchers and King experts, let alone fans. They have either been lost or King has held them so closely that they have not been read by anyone outside his inner circle. The search for “lost” King work will continue unabated for decades. King himself still seeks the lost manuscript of The Float. The works covered here have either been completely lost; or it is known King holds them. Stories only “rumored” to have been written or to exist are not surveyed.
An excellent Chapter on the subject of the unwritten tales, The Almost Stories, appears in Spignesi’s The Lost Work of Stephen King13. King tells of one story too scary for him to even write in his Introduction to Michel Houellebecq’s H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life14. The story, which was to have been titled Lovecraft’s Pillow, would have dealt with that fantastical writer’s dreams and possibly his death.
The Accident was a one-act play written by King in 1969 but not seen since15.
After the Play was an epilogue to The Shining but was merged into the novel. King has stated the full version is lost. There is a separate chapter in this volume describing Before the Play, the prologue to The Shining.
Asylum. The 6 February 2001 edition of Variety magazine reported King had written an adaptation of Patrick McGrath’s novel Asylum for Paramount Pictures, only the second known time he has tackled a work other than his own for the screen. King’s screenplay was not used and it has not come to light, although one purported review of it has been seen on the Internet. The movie was released in the US in September 2005, using a screenplay by Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis.
The Blob. A fanzine, Comics Review issue #3 carried the third part in a serialization of King’s I Was a Teenage Grave Robber in 1965. The Table of Contents page included this, “COMING ATTRACTIONS / In future issues, we hope to have more work by STEVE KING, possibly THE BLOB, based on the movie.” There is no separate evidence that King ever novelized this movie but it would have been in keeping with his behavior in practicing writing around this time. The magazine’s editor, Mike Garrett, had this recollection when queried in 2008, “I don’t recall ever reading King’s version of THE BLOB. I did read at least two or three other King manuscripts, but I have no recollection of them specifically.”16 More detail appears in the separate Chapter, I Was a Teenage Grave Robber.
Carrion Comfort is said to be a screenplay but to date no trace of it has surfaced. A letter from Dan Simmons (author of the 1989 award winning novel, Carrion Comfort) to King dated 19 October 1990 is in Box 2702 at the Special Collections Unit of the Raymond H. Fogler Library of the University of Maine at Orono. This letter implies King would write a screenplay of the novel. Simmons reports he and Ed Bryant had written a script and one page (clearly headed “Simmons and Bryant” and “Carrion Comfort” on page 2) is also in the Box. This may have given rise to the rumor that one page, at least, of a King screenplay exists.
Douglas Winter quotes King as saying,17 “I had a bad year in 1976 – it was a very depressing time … for a time, I worked on something called The Corner; it didn’t turn out.”
People, Places and Things was a collection of eighteen short stories self-published by King and his friend Chris Chesley under the name “Triad Publishing Company.” First published in 1960, it was reprinted in 1963. Chesley was one of King’s close childhood friends growing up in Durham, Maine. Unfortunately, two of the King stories listed in the Table of Contents have been lost – no known copies of The Dimension Warp and I’m Falling exist.
The Doors is an unpublished novel. A notebook containing a portion of the novel was auctioned at the 1986 World Fantasy Convention at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta Georgia. The auction, from 1pm to 3pm on Sunday 31 August, was arranged by Harlan Ellison to benefit the widow of author Manly Wade Wellman. Ellison acted as the auctioneer. The entry for the King item reads:
48. KING, STEPHEN holographic notebook containting (sic) portions of three manuscripts. (1) The Drawing of the Three A portion of the unpublished 2nd Dark Tower novel. (2) “The End of the Whole Mess” A portion of the story, to be published in “Omni” (10/86 issue). (3) The Doors A portion of an unpublished novel. The notebook is 9 ¾” x 7 ½” and has approximately 1/3 of the pages filled. It is King’s custom to carry a notebook when away from a typewriter. Accompanied by a letter from King. An item of major interest from this most collectable author (Stephen King) (500-1000)
The information in brackets denoted the donor and the estimated sale price. One dictionary definition of “holographic” is, “Of or being a document written wholly in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears.” The notebook sold for $5200.18
King has this to say about The Float in the “Notes” to Skeleton Crew, “I wrote this story (The Raft) in 1968 as ‘The Float.’ In late 1969 I sold it to Adam which paid not on acceptance only on publication...” (while King received the check, for $250, he never saw the magazine and never has). “Somewhere along the way I lost the original manuscript too.”
Ghosts is a 1997 short musical horror film starring Michael Jackson in various roles. King is credited for the idea and “story.” The screenplay is credited as by Mick Garris, Michael Jackson and Stan Winston.
The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County is the latest title for the collaboration between John Mellencamp and Stephen King. This is the latest official information at time of writing: “John Mellencamp has virtually completed recording and “assembling” the Ghost Brothers of Darkland County musical theater collaboration with Stephen King. John and King have edited the initial three-hour program down to two hours and 10 minutes – with a bit more editing still to come before producer T-Bone Burnett completes the tracks. When finished, the recording will be available in a novel book package containing the full text, two discs featuring the entire production of the spoken word script and songs performed by the cast, and a third CD of the songs only. The story involves domestic turmoil, and is played by a stellar cast led by Kris Kristofferson, in the role of Joe, the father, and Elvis Costello, as the satanic character The Shape. Rosanne Cash plays Monique, the mother, with the sons enacted by Will Daily (Frank), Dave Alvin (Jack), Alvin’s real-life brother Phil Alvin (Andy) and John (Drake). Sheryl Crow stars as Jenna and Neko Case is Anna, with boxing legend Joe Frazier playing caretaker Dan Coker and Stephen King himself in the role of Uncle Steve. The narrator is “24” star Glenn Morshower. John stressed that the three-disc package is not a traditional audio book, but offers an experience more akin to listening to an old radio show with music; he further emphasized the challenge inherent in making such a project work.” Publication of the “book” appears likely in 2011.
King relates the history of Happy Stamps (“My first really original story idea …”) in sections 14 – 16 of the “C.V.” section of On Writing.
The hero of my story was your classic Poor Schmuck, a guy named Roger who had done jail time twice for counterfeiting money – one more bust would make him a three-time loser. Instead of money, he began to counterfeit Happy Stamps… except, he discovered, the design of Happy Stamps was so moronically simple that he wasn’t really counterfeiting at all; he was creating reams of the actual article.
Roger and his mother decide to sen
d in enough stamps to buy an entire house, “Roger discovers, however, that although the stamps are perfect, the glue is defective. If you lap the stamps and stick them in the book they’re fine, but if you send them through a mechanical licker, the pink Happy Stamps turn blue.” As a result, Roger is left with the task of licking millions of stamps. King concludes:
There were things wrong with this story (the biggest hole was probably Roger’s failure simply to start over with a different glue), but it was cute, it was fairly original, and I knew I had done some pretty good writing. After a long time spent studying the markets in my beat-up Writer’s Digest, I sent “Happy Stamps” off to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. It came back three weeks later with a form rejection slip attached. This slip bore Alfred Hitchcock’s unmistakable profile in red ink and wished me good luck with my story. At the bottom was an unsigned jotted message, the only personal response I got from AHMM over eight years of periodic submissions. “Don’t staple manuscripts,” the postscript read. “Loose pages plus paperclip equal correct way to submit copy.” This was pretty cold advice, I thought, but useful in its way. I have never stapled a manuscript since.
In a non-fiction piece on Low Men in Yellow Coats published in 2009’s Stephen King Goes to the Movies, King has this to say: “… the fact is that ‘Low Men’ is only part of a loosely constructed novel, which still isn’t really done (‘The House on Benefit Street,’ the story of what happened to Bobby’s childhood girlfriend, Carol, remains to be written).” Further information appeared on King’s official message board where the following question was raised:
I read the intro of “Low Men in Yellow Coats” present in “Stephen King Goes to the Movies” and it mentions one chapter King didn’t write yet for “Hearts in Atlantis.” It’s called “The House on Benefit Street” and it’s the story of what happened to Carol (Bobby childhood’s girlfriend). Any news about this? Does King plan to write it?
