The Mist (Stephen King)

The morning after a violent thunderstorm, a thick unnatural mist quickly spreads across the small town of Bridgton, Maine, reducing visibility to near-zero and concealing numerous species of bizarre creatures which viciously attack anyone and anything that ventures out into the open.

The bulk of the story details the plight of a large group of people who become trapped while shopping in the town supermarket, among them a commercial artist named David Drayton (the protagonist and narrator), David's young son Billy, and their estranged neighbor Brenton Norton, who accompanied them into town after his car was smashed by a tree. Amongst others trapped in the market are a young woman named Amanda Dumfries and two soldiers from a nearby military installation, home to what is apocryphally referred to as "The Arrowhead Project"; the soldiers' eventual joint suicide lends some credence to the theory of this Project being the source of the disaster.

Soon after the mist comes, something plugs the store generator's exhaust vent. When a young bag boy named Norm steps outside to fix the problem, he is pulled into the mist by a swarm of tentacles. David and Ollie Weeks, the store's assistant manager, witness Norm's death and try to convince the remaining survivors of the danger lurking outside. Norton and a small group of others (dubbed "The Flat Earth Society" by David) refuse to believe, and accusing David of lying, they venture out into the mist to seek help, where they are killed by a huge, unseen creature. This, along with a deadly incursion into the store by a pterosaur-like creature and a disastrous expedition to the pharmacy next door, lead to paranoia and panic consuming the remaining survivors. This spiraling breakdown leads to the rise to power of a religious zealot named Mrs. Carmody, whose first name is unknown, who convinces the majority of the remaining survivors that these events fulfill the biblical prophecy of the end times, and that a human sacrifice must be made to save them from the wrath of God.

David and Ollie attempt to lead their remaining allies in a covert exit from the market, but are stopped by Mrs. Carmody, who orders her followers to seize her chosen victims: Billy and Amanda. Ollie shoots Mrs. Carmody in the stomach with a revolver found in Amanda's purse, killing her, causing her congregation to break up. En route to David's car, Ollie in turn is bisected by the claw of a very large creature looking similar to a giant lobster or crab. David, Billy, Amanda, and an elderly, yet tough, school teacher Hilda Reppler reach the car and leave Bridgton, driving south for hours through a mist-shrouded, monster-filled New England. After finding refuge for the night, David listens to a radio, and through the overwhelming static possibly hears a single word broadcast, "Hartford". With that one shred of hope, he prepares to drive on into an uncertain future.

Laura Hentschel (Spawn Girl) maps and overrides

Overrides: xteacher, teacher, xsgmist
In the teacher override the atmosphere of The Mist is transported to an abandoned school).
Maps: sgmist.bsp by Spawn Girl, Panjoo and X7
In sgmist.bsp and overrides the atmosphere of The Mist is transported to an abandoned subway (2 subway stations and a coffee shop). You can see the fog enveloping the city and hear the sounds of monsters beyond the windows.


Additional Data

Stephen King's movie, "The Mist", is based on a short story that was made specifically for stereo headphone listening. A characterization of the audio play as a 'book on tape' would be a misnomer for the half hour long cassette tape because it is not a simple narration. "The Mist : In 3-D Sound" is a 1984 cassette tape performed by a full dramatic cast with surround sound special effects which engulf your imagination. With stereo headphones on, the woman running and screaming from your right ear to you left ear, embeds the listener within the midst of horror and dread of the story itself.

It's hard to decide which element of the story is scarier, the psychological horror of people's reactions to a crisis, or the thought of every day invisible no-see-um bugs that have grown to gigantic size and feed on humans. It is the reverse of the comedy movie "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" because it's a lot more creepier to imagine the creepy crawlies getting bigger, rather than shrinking down to size to make ordinary bugs seem immense.

People have bugs all inside and throughout the entire body, Demodex mites have adapted to live within the hair follicle shafts. Humans beings would be unable to live without the help of the intestinal flora within our guts but bacteria is not classified as a plant, animal, or fungi.

The largest insect today is the Goliath beetle which can grow up to lengths of four and a half inches, but the Goliath would be of trivial size compared to the biggest bug ever know to have existed in the world. A colossal fossil from a giant sea scorpion's claw has been recently discovered in Germany and is estimated have had a body length of eight feet. Other fossils record behemoth bugs of enormous sizes. Imagine the dread of facing a prehistoric colossal cockroach or a Spiny Assassin Bug towering over you and this scenario would fit right in with King's horror movie, "The Mist".