The Mist

The Mist is a novella Stephen King wrote in 1976, first collected in the anthology Dark Forces and later the centerpiece of the 1985 English collection Skeleton Crew; the simplified Chinese edition was published by People's Literature Publishing House, translated by Xie Yaoling, Yu Guofang and Lai Ciyun. This book centers on the title novella and also includes other short stories King wrote in various periods, spanning horror, suspense and black humor, many of which have won awards or been adapted for film and television. The story of The Mist begins with a rare thunderstorm: after the rain, a thick, impenetrable mist settles over Long Lake, and the painter David Drayton takes his young son Billy to the town supermarket for supplies, only to be trapped there with many townspeople. Unseen evil creatures lurk in the mist, and anyone who ventures out vanishes in an instant; staying inside the supermarket is no safer—some neighbors refuse to see the facts before their eyes, while a religious fanatic calls the mist "God's punishment" and urges the crowd to appease divine wrath with blood sacrifice. Reason and faith, fear and courage collide fiercely inside the besieged supermarket, and David must find a way out with his son and a few clear-headed survivors, caught between the monsters outside the mist and the human heart within. The novella interrogates human nature in an extreme situation: what truly terrifies is often not the mist that cannot be seen through, but the human heart ruled by panic, suspicion and herd mentality. In 2007, director Frank Darabont adapted The Mist into a film of the same name whose ending differs from the original, sparking long discussion; in 2017 it was adapted into a television series of the same name. This edition is a hardcover and, besides the title novella, includes several other fine short stories by King, making it a good introduction to the short-form craft of this "master of modern horror."