Stephen King

by Rocky Wood

  These horrors are brought to you by TRIAD, INC. They are guaranteed to shock, or your money back! So get on the hearse, and read these terrors on the way to the crypt! / YES!! I wanto (sic) be scared outta ten year’s growth! Send me the Triad Horrors I’ve checked. / THE UNDEAD 35¢ / THE PIT & THE PENDULUM 20¢ / TRIGGER-FINGER 20¢ / SEND TO: TRIAD PUBLISHING CO., C/O STEVE KING, R.F.D. #1, POWNAL, MAINE / (Enclose payment with money-order, please!)

  When queried about Trigger-Finger and The Undead King said, ‘I don’t remember either one, which isn’t surprising. Around the time I discovered Famous Monsters, Spacemen, Creepy and Eerie, those stories just poured out!’[xiv]

  Untitled Play

  In a phone interview prior to King’s appearance at UMass Lowell in December 2012 he said, “The only play I’d written before Ghost Brothers of Darkland County was a play for my boy scout troupe when I was twelve and my relatives just absolutely adored it.” This dates the play to between September 1959 and September 1960.

  Queried for more information King responded[xv]: “It was a one-acter. Guy lost in the woods finds this one house where the owner--an eccentric, for sure--takes him in. There’s this steady pounding noise. The traveler finally asks, and the hermit tells him he’s got the devil locked up in the cellar. “Boy,” the traveler says (joking but nervous), “there’s still a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, even though he IS locked up, right?” The hermit laughs. “Yes, but it would be so much worse if he was free, as he was until shortly after WWII--all those dead soldiers! All those dead Jews!” Anyway, I can’t remember if the hermit guy left to do something or if he died, but the traveler was left alone, and he opened the door to let out the poor soul the hermit had taken prisoner. Only--surprise, except of course no one who ever watched THE TWILIGHT ZONE would be--it really WAS the devil. The only nice touch was that you never saw him. You just saw the traveler jerked into the dark…then screams…then fiendish laughter. “I'm FREE!” the devil cries as the stage goes dark. “Free to do my work in the world again!” More fiendish laughter…the door starts to swing open…curtain. Remember, Rocky, I was only twelve, so cut me a break.”

  Updates to The Lost and Hidden Works

  The following are updates to works previously surveyed in the The Lost and Hidden Works chapter. That 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.

  I have been able to clarify some of the stories that have been mooted as by King with the master himself.

  After the Play

  After the Play was an epilogue to The Shining but was merged into the novel. King has stated the full version is lost. However, in 2013 an auction item was discovered, indicating the piece may actually be in the hands of an unknown collector. On September 23, 1993 Pacific Book Auction Galleries (Sale 29) auctioned “The Collection Formed by John McLaughlin of the Book Sail.” One item offered, “Before The Play, 44 page typescript, plus the unpublished After (epilogue), a 4 page excerpt apparently from the manuscript of The Shining (numbered 517-520), all hand-corrected by King. Accompanied by a 2 page T.L.s/formal agreement from King’s then-agent, Kirby McCauley, to Stuart David Schiff[xvi], signed by King, McCauley and Schiff. Binghampton, NY: Whispers Press, 1982 / This previously unpublished “prologue” to The Shining was cut from the published book by agreement between Doubleday & King, evidently because it would have added sufficient page count to add $1.00 to the retail cost of the book. This “prologue” was published by Stuart Schiff in the “Special Stephen King” issue of Whispers in 1982. The “After” segment is also signed by King, dated 10-13-84. Near Fine. (6000/8000)[xvii]” A separate chapter in Stephen King: Unpublished, Uncollected describes Before the Play.

  Batman

  This next piece had previously been reported as Untitled in the Lost and Hidden Works chapter but we now know its title to be Batman. The Lisbon Monthly for November 1986 carried an article titled Stephen King: “Lisbon High’s Most Celebrated Alumnus”.

  In the piece Ambra Watkins reports King ‘also wrote a successful script for Class Day about Batman and Robin.’ More detail appears in the 1967 Lisbon High School Yearbook which reports, ‘Two members of the Drum staff decided to write their own little skit for class night based on the television program, “Batman” … Danny Emond and Steve King began writing their comic tale … After finishing the script, the (senior class) committee approved the writing, made minor changes and began to put it together for the stage. Steve and Danny took the leading roles of Batman and Robin. The plot concerned a possible attack on Lisbon High which was to be prevented by the daring duo … When Batman and Robin were needed, the two appeared on a tricycle down the middle of the gymnasium.’ A photo from the yearbook shows King played Robin in the skit, performed on the evening of 7 June 1966. The class graduated the following day.

  The full article in the High School Yearbook is headlined Class Night Show Depicts “Batman” and reads: ‘Several weeks before the evening of June 7, 1966, members of the senior class of 1966 gathered with Mr. Aspinall to plan the class night ceremonies. Earlier in the year, the class night committee had planned to take movies of students during the winter and early spring and refer to them on the big evening. / Two members of the Drum[xviii] staff decided to write their own little skit for class night based on the television program, “Batman”. After preliminary planning with Mr. Aspinall, Danny Emond and Steve King began writing their comic tale of Batman and Robin. After finishing the script, the committee approved the writing, made minor changes and began to put it together for the stage. Steve and Danny took the leading roles of Batman and Robin. / Pete Higgins and Tony Doyton portrayed Lisbon High’s principal and his assistant. The plot concerned a possible attack on Lisbon High which was to be prevented by the daring duo, Batman and Robin. To introduce the program, out came Gloria Moore and Linda Bernier to do a bit of frugging, while Sandra Poulin gave a little speech to tell the audience just what was going on. / Members of the senior class portrayed students of Lisbon High. One of the funniest characters was played by Lewis Purinton. He was a problem student who was sent before the principal in his bermuda (sic) shorts, leather jacket, dark glasses, and carrying a beer bottle. / The plot thickened as the story of the class of 1966 poured forth. Memories of past years were made alive again amidst the thunder and lightning of a storm which raged outside. A few gifts were handed out to various seniors; several other seniors bequeathed various items to underclassmen. / When Batman and Robin were needed, the two appeared on a tricycle down the middle aisle of the gymnasium. After a few jumbled calls to one another, the two proceeded to the stage to assist the muddled administration. / At this point, the skit became an hilarious mixture of whodunit and antics of the two masked men. A bomb scare, a fight scene, and the entangling of Batman and Robin soon got everyone wondering what was going to happen next. / Finally, after all the annual business of class night had been taken care of – the awarding of gifts, the reading of the will, the class history reading, and the prediction of the future – and the little digs concerning school affairs had been made public – annual remarks on Strunkian English, class arguments and difficulties, and memories from the Washington trip – the class was ready to say a comic farewell to Lisbon High School. All the fun and games were held on this happy occasion before graduation. As far as the senior class of 1966 was concerned, their last contribution to the school had been made. Only the final legalities were left, that of graduation on June 8th. After removing the last of the grease paint, seniors left for parties and get-togethers and their last night as seniors.’

  In April 201
3 I enlisted the help of the Lisbon (Maine) Historical Society in searching for this piece. They discovered a partial typewritten script in their records – their long-serving Secretary, Dotty Smith deserves the credit for both preserving and rediscovering this amazing find. The play is titled Batman and the copy appears to have been donated by someone related to Peter Higgins (see above, Higgins played school principal ‘Wiggins’ in the play). In addition to the picture in the yearbook it is clear from the text that Stephen King played Robin and Danny Emond (who joined the US Navy shortly after graduation, served in Vietnam, and died in 1978[xix]) took the role as Batman: “…Batman and Robin enter on the Batmobile, which is a decked-out tricycle. Batman is rather small, and Robin is on the back pushing.” Emond is known to have been a small man and, of course, King is quite the opposite (particularly so for his age at the time).

  I provided a copy of the script to King, who responded: “I can confirm that I wrote that damned high school skit. I recognize the type of my old Royal, which I eventually beat to death (the "n" went first, which I used in Misery). It's sort of embarrassing …”[xx] Of course, this piece is juvenilia and was intended as satire focused on their schoolmates as an audience. Most of us would find the same material from our school days equally embarrassing.

  The partial script we have begins with Principal Wiggins (played by Pete Higgins, the son of the actual LHS Principal) learning from Mr Song (Tony Doyton) that the school duplicating machine and ten gallons of duplicating fluid had been stolen. A can of night crawlers (worms) was left in their place. Wiggins and Song immediately suspect the Creepy Crawler, who’d been digging huge holes all over the neighborhood and was extorting money from the rich, threatening to poison them with the night crawlers if they didn’t pay up.

  Wiggins calls Batman on the batphone and, while they wait for him to arrive, four students dance across the stage in a chorus-line routine. Three other students then attempt to explain the proceedings, including Batman’s role in keeping Lisbon High free of crooks. First Speaker: “Why he single-handed cleaned up the Washington trip.” The chorus-line reappears: “That’s what you think!”

  Batman (Danny Emond) and Robin (Stephen King) arrive in the Batmobile – ‘a decked-out tricycle’. No sooner are they in conversation about the Creepy Crawler than there is a knock on the door. It’s Lewis Corruptington (played by Lewis Purinton), a ‘particularly odious student’, accused of stealing bag lunches. He dressed in Bermuda shorts, a US drinking team sweatshirt, leather jacket and 'beatle boots'; and appeared to be drinking alcohol from a brown bottle (although he claims it is milk). Corruptington shows total disrespect for authority, Wiggins and the daring duo included. But, threatened with a large number of detentions, the miscreant offers a deal – information about the Creepy Crawler. Corruptington had found a desk filled with mud and night crawlers in a classroom, indicating the villain operated from the school premises.

  Batman decides to send Robin undercover, as ‘Ribbon Batsky’. Batman would observe Robin, masquerading as Leo Richer. Unfortunately that’s where the partial script ends, without some of the action described in the Yearbook, such as the bomb scare, and fight scene. We must hope that another copy of the script exists somewhere and may yet come to light.

  Ghost Brothers of Darkland County

  This musical play has now been performed and King’s libretto published. The premiere of this musical play was held at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia on 4 April 2012. King’s libretto appears in a book (which also includes printed song lyrics, a cast CD recording and some material on DVD) – Ghost Brothers of Darkland County by Stephen King, John Mellencamp and T-Bone Burnett (Concord Music Group, 2013).

  In addition to the libretto King wrote the lyrics for the song So Goddam Good. The credit in the book reads, “So Goddam Good” by John Mellencamp, T Bone Burnett and Stephen King[xxi] and the lyrics appear on pages 82 and 83.

  The Pit and the Pendulum

  King wrote The Pit and the Pendulum, which he and Chris Chesley sold copies of at Durham’s elementary school. It ‘novelized’ the 1961 movie of the same name. All trace of the story has been lost. King tells its story (‘…turned out to be my first best-seller’) in section 18 of the C.V. part of On Writing. King’s entertaining re-telling of the whole incident, in which he also reveals selling copies of another story, The Invasion of the Star-Creatures that summer, is highly recommended. Concluding his retelling of the incident King says, ‘Miss Hisler told me I would have to give everyone’s money back. I did so with no argument, even to those kids (and there were quite a few, I’m happy to say) who insisted on keeping their copies of V.I.B. #1. I ended up losing money on the deal after all, but when summer vacation came I printed four dozen copies of a new story, an original called The Invasion of the Star-Creatures[xxii], and sold all but four or five.’ Note that some kids ‘insisted on keeping their copies’ of this story. Unlikely though it may seem, is it possible a copy will turn up one day when one of King’s ex-schoolmates cleans out an old box of keepsakes?

  King had previously related the history The Pit and the Pendulum in Douglas Winter’s The Art of Darkness:[xxiii] ‘One day I went to Brunswick to see the American International Film of The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price, and I was very impressed by it – very, very scared. And when I went home, I got a bunch of stencils, and I wrote a novelization of the movie, with chapters and everything – although it was only twelve pages long. I bought a ream of typewriter paper, and I bought a stapler and some staples, and I printed, on Dave’s machine, about two hundred and fifty copies of this book. I slugged in a price of a dime on them, and when I took them to school, I was just flabbergasted. In three days, I sold something like seventy of these things. And all of a sudden, I was in the black – it was like a license to steal. That was my first experience with bestsellerdom. But they shut me down. They took me to the principal’s office and told me to stop, although there didn’t seem to be any real reason. My aunt[xxiv] taught in that school, and it was just not seemly; it wasn’t right. So I had to quit.’

  Further information about this tale came to light in late 2012 when an item offered on eBay turned to out to a be a one page flyer King had created to advertise stories from his cottage publishing venture, Triad Publishing Ltd. This was the name King used to publish People, Places and Things (1960 and 1963) and The Star Invaders (June 1964). The flyer was posted to a fellow fan in New York and is postmarked 5pm, 6 September 1963 at the Pownal, Maine Post Office. It advertises three stories for sale – The Pit and the Pendulum, Trigger-Finger and The Undead. Offered for sale for 20¢ the description for The Pit and the Pendulum read: ‘this is NOT Poe’s classic. It’s adapted from the A-I shocker, starring Vincent Price. What’s it about? Torture…premature burial…and the shambling horror that walked the darkened corridors of the storm-ravaged castle!’

  Untitled

  In an interview in Twilight Zone magazine for April 1981, King said: ‘Yes, among the stories I submitted to Cavalier was one I thought had a really nice twist. It’s about a vampire that’s a coal miner - so he can more or less be on the job all the time, since he’s underground where it’s always dark. There’s a cave-in, and this vampire drinks all his mates blood while they wait for the others to dig them out. Of course, when he goes out into the sun, he sort of evaporates.’ However, when I queried this with King he replied, ‘I remember that one well. It was never written, but maybe someday it will be. Thus, the less said, the better.’[xxv]

  Untitled

  In an interview with Gallery magazine for January 1986 King had this to say: ‘I worry about airplanes. I can remember being on a transcontinental flight and getting to the halfway point - which the stewardesses always announce with great cheer - although what they are actually saying is that you are now too far to turn back. You either have to go ahead or die. And I thought, what if somebody said, “I need a pillow,” and the stewardess opened the overhead rack and all these rats came out into her face and she started
to scream, and the rats were biting off her nose and everything else, and one of the people in first class opened up a pouch to get an air-sick bag because this was so gross, and rats came out of there, rats came out of everywhere. And the name of this story was going to be “The Rats Are Loose on Flight 74.” I just haven’t got around to writing it yet, but I probably will.’ King confirmed to me he never actually wrote the story.[xxvi]

  Untitled

  Update to this entry: According to Chris Chesley, there was another such story, although he does provide the title. Chesley told Beahm[xxvii], ‘In another story, King playfully wove fact and fiction, using the real names of fellow students in a fictional hostage situation. “It was all of twenty pages,” recalled Chesley, “and it was a story where he used real kids who had taken over the grammar school. Of course, the people that were in the story read the story; because of things like that, King was lionized. He could take real people and set them into this setting where we were heroes. In this story, we died fighting the National Guard. The kids he liked best ‘died’ last; so naturally, we were all wondering when we were going to ‘die’.”

  When I asked King about this tale he responded: ‘Sure, I remember that story; I must have been in the fifth grade at the time. Today I probably would have been arrested as a potential terrorist, but it was just for fun, a way to pass the time when we were all bored. If it had a title, I don't remember it.’[xxviii] This dates it to circa 1957/58.

  Update to Further Notes

  It has also been speculated that King wrote New Blood by Richard Salem (McDonald Futura 1981 and Signet, 1982). King confirmed he did not write this novel[xxix].