Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition

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Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition Page 60

by Rocky Wood


  The two sections of Skybar King contributed a total of 579 words. The opening section begins with, “There were twelve of us when we went in that night, but only two of us came out – my friend Kirby and me. And Kirby was insane.” The closing paragraph of the story ends with:

  I see these things in my dreams, yes, but when I visit Kirby in that place where he still lives, that place where all the windows are crosshatched with heavy mesh, I see them in his eyes. I take his hand and his hand is cold, but I sit with him and sometimes think: These things happened to me when I was young.

  As it is unclear where the Skybar Amusement Park is (other than close to the coast) this is an America Under Siege story. In it the narrator recalls how he and eleven other people went to the Skybar Amusement Park when they were young. Ten of them did not come out alive and of the two survivors, only the narrator was sane. We never discover the narrator’s name but he was eleven and in sixth grade when he and his friends went to the exciting local amusement park, which contained such great attractions as Pop Dupree’s Dead-Eye Shooting Gallery, the Whip, a Mirror Labyrinth and an Adults Only freak tent. The youngsters had to wonder what was in there, “… you especially wondered when the people came out, white-faced, some of the women crying or hysterical. Brant Callahan said it was all just fake, whatever it was, but sometimes I saw the doubt even in Brant’s tough gray eyes.”

  King abruptly changes gears in the last paragraph before the fill-in writers were due to begin, “Then, of course, the murders started, and eventually Skybar was shut down.” Of course, we do not know exactly what happened but King quickly creates a foreboding atmosphere, “…the only sound the mechanical clown’s mouth produced was lunatic hooting of the sea breeze.” We find that the “murders started” when Randy Stayner, a seventh-grader, “was thrown from the highest point of the SkyCoaster.” By writing “thrown” King leaves us in doubt as to whether Randy was thrown by a person, or a mechanical fault caused by sabotage. The narrator and Kirby “...both heard his scream as he came down.”

  The closing paragraph King provides begins with, “…I feel Kirby taking my hand and telling me it was okay; we were safe, we were home free.” But the horrors have not ended and an animated corpse begins to chase the boys and Kirby loses his mind, beginning to scream. “Behind me I can see Randy’s corpse pushing the safety bar back and he begins to stumble toward me, his dead, shredded fingers hooked into seeking claws.” The narrator awakes from his dream, in his wife’s arms (he is now 12 years older).

  The main characters appear to be the narrator and Kirby, with Randy Stayner a definite victim of the “murders” and Brant Callahan likely to have been another. The storyline takes place in the Skybar Amusement Park, five miles toward the coast from the narrator’s childhood home. Although we do not know the timeline of the story we do know that hi-test fuel sold at Dewey’s Sunoco for 31.9 cents per gallon in those days. Twelve years later it sold for $1.40 per gallon, so perhaps it is safe to assume it occurred before the Oil Crisis of the early 1970s.

  There are no links from the story to other King works. However, the story does contain King’s trademark style, quickly establishing the atmosphere and reminding the reader of the carnival segment of The Dead Zone, portions of It (this scary clown is mechanical) and even of The Body.

  Who knows what tremendous story King may have chosen to write between these enticing paragraphs? As it seems very unlikely he will do so perhaps the reader should fill in the blanks to his or her satisfaction.

  Table of Contents

  Title_Page

  Copyright_Page

  Tabel_Of_Contents

  Introduction

  Linking_Stephen_Kings_Realities

  The_Lost_and_Hidden_Works

  Variations_and_Versions_in_Kings_Fiction

  01_The_Aftermath

  02_American_Vampire

  03_An_Evening_at_Gods

  04_Before_the_Play

  05_The_Blue_Air_Compressor

  06_But_Only_Darkness_Loves_Me

  07_The_Cannibals

  08_Cats_Eye_and_General

  09_Charlie

  10_Children_of_the_Corn

  11_Chinga_and_Molly

  12_Comb_Dump

  13_The_Crate

  14_Creepshow

  15_Cujo

  16_Daves_Rag

  17_The_Dead_Zone

  18_Desperation

  19_Dolans_Cadilac

  20_The_Drum_Stories

  21_For_the_Birds

  22_The_Furnace

  23_George_DX_McArdle

  24_The_Glass_Floor

  25_Golden_Years

  26_Heros_for_Hope

  27_Teenage_Grave_Robber

  28_Jhonathan_and_the_Witchs

  29_Keyholes

  30_The_Killer

  31_The_King_Family

  32_The_Leprechaun

  33_Man_with_a_Belly

  34_Maximum_Overdrive

  35_Mobius

  36_Morality

  37_The_New_Lieutenants_Rap

  38_The_Night_of_the_Tiger

  39_Night_Shift

  40_The_Old_Dudes_Ticker

  41_People_Places_and_Things

  42_Pet_Semeteary

  43_The_Plant

  44_The_Poems

  45_Premium_Harmony

  46_The_Reploids

  47_Rose_Red

  48_The_Shinning

  49_The_Shotgunners

  50_Skybar

  51_Slade

  52_Sleepwalkers

  53_Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes

  54_Sorry_Right_Number

  55_Squad_D

  56_The_Stand

  57_The_Star_Invaders

  58_Stories_from_Journals

  59_Stories_Swallowed_by_Monsters

  60_Sword_in_the_Darkness

  61_They_Bite

  62_Throttle

  63_Untitled

  64_Untitled_Screenplay

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  About_The_Author

  Cemetery_Dance_Publications

  Table of Contents

  Title_Page

  Copyright_Page

  Tabel_Of_Contents

  Introduction

  Linking_Stephen_Kings_Realities

  The_Lost_and_Hidden_Works

  Variations_and_Versions_in_Kings_Fiction

  01_The_Aftermath

  02_American_Vampire

  03_An_Evening_at_Gods

  04_Before_the_Play

  05_The_Blue_Air_Compressor

  06_But_Only_Darkness_Loves_Me

  07_The_Cannibals

  08_Cats_Eye_and_General

  09_Charlie

  10_Children_of_the_Corn

  11_Chinga_and_Molly

  12_Comb_Dump

  13_The_Crate

  14_Creepshow

  15_Cujo

  16_Daves_Rag

  17_The_Dead_Zone

  18_Desperation

  19_Dolans_Cadilac

  20_The_Drum_Stories

  21_For_the_Birds

  22_The_Furnace

  23_George_DX_McArdle

  24_The_Glass_Floor

  25_Golden_Years

  26_Heros_for_Hope

  27_Teenage_Grave_Robber

  28_Jhonathan_and_the_Witchs

  29_Keyholes

  30_The_Killer

  31_The_King_Family

  32_The_Leprechaun

  33_Man_with_a_Belly

  34_Maximum_Overdrive

  35_Mobius

  36_Morality

  37_The_New_Lieutenants_Rap

  38_The_Night_of_the_Tiger

  39_Night_Shift

  40_The_Old_Dudes_Ticker

  41_People_Places_and_Things

  42_Pet_Semeteary

  43_The_Plant

  44_The_Poems

  45_Premium_Harmony

  46_The_Reploids

  47_Rose_Red

  48_The_Shinning

  49_The_Shotgunners

  50_Skybar

  51_
Slade

  52_Sleepwalkers

  53_Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes

  54_Sorry_Right_Number

  55_Squad_D

  56_The_Stand

  57_The_Star_Invaders

  58_Stories_from_Journals

  59_Stories_Swallowed_by_Monsters

  60_Sword_in_the_Darkness

  61_They_Bite

  62_Throttle

  63_Untitled

  64_Untitled_Screenplay

  65_UR

  66_Weeds

  67_Wimsey

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  About_The_Author

  Cemetery_Dance_Publications

 

 

 


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