"That Bus Is Another World" | |
---|---|
Short story by Stephen King | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publication | |
Published in | Esquire |
Publisher | Hearst Communications |
Media type | |
Publication date | 2014 |
"That Bus Is Another World" is a horror short story written by Stephen King and first published in the August 2014 edition of Esquire . It was subsequently collected in his 2015 short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams . Stephen King's experience in traffic in Paris inspired the story. [1]
The main story follows a man named Wilson from Birmingham, Alabama who recently travelled by plane up to New York for an important business meeting with what is described as one of the top advertising firms of the Internet age, Market Forward. On arrival, Wilson quickly runs into some bad luck when his luggage gets misplaced at the airport terminal, and he is also anxious about getting to the meeting on time, despite it being three hours away. He decides to take a taxi, driven by a lethargic looking Sikh man, to the meeting, as it is raining.
As the taxi is caught in traffic, a Peter Pan Bus rolls up in the lane next to the taxi and Wilson is transfixed by the sight of a beautiful woman reading a magazine sitting next to an odd looking man dressed in a black raincoat rummaging through a black briefcase. The man takes a black scarf out and sniffs it before proceeding to cut the woman's throat, placing the scarf around her neck to catch the blood, then sticking his finger in her mouth, while smiling at Wilson through the rainy window, as if knowing they share a terrible secret. Wilson debates about whether or not he should call the police, but eventually reasons that perhaps it was just a gag, like a flash mob, or that the other passengers on the bus had already attacked and subdued the man, allowing him the peace of mind to get out of the taxi and walk the rest of the way to his meeting in the rain.
Stephen Edwin King is an American author. Called the "King of Horror", he has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.
Four Past Midnight is a collection of novellas written by Stephen King in 1988 and 1989 and published in August 1990. It is his second book of this type, the first one being Different Seasons. The collection won the Bram Stoker Award in 1990 for Best Collection and was nominated for a Locus Award in 1991. In the introduction, King says that, while a collection of four novellas like Different Seasons, this book is more strictly horror with elements of the supernatural.
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo, is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly either appearances in a work in which they hold some special significance or renowned people making uncredited appearances. Short appearances by celebrities, film directors, politicians, athletes or musicians are common. A crew member of the movie or show playing a minor role can be referred to as a cameo role as well, such as director Alfred Hitchcock who made frequent cameo appearances in his films.
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway first published in August 1936, in Esquire magazine. It was republished in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories in 1938, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories in 1961, and is included in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigía Edition (1987).
Cell is a 2006 apocalyptic horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows a New England artist struggling to reunite with his young son after a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell phone network turns the majority of his fellow humans into mindless vicious animals.
The Dollar Baby was an arrangement in which American author Stephen King would grant permission to students and aspiring filmmakers or theater producers to adapt one of his short stories for $1. King retains the rights to his work, but as he began to experience commercial success, he decided to use the Dollar Baby to help the next generation of creatives. The term may be used to refer to both the adaptation itself and the person adapting it; for example, "The Sun Dog" was made as a Dollar Baby and filmmaker Matt Flesher became a Dollar Baby upon adapting it.
The following is a complete list of books published by Stephen King, an American author of contemporary horror, thriller, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 400 million copies, and many of them have been adapted into feature films, television movies, and comic books. King has published 65 novels/novellas, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five nonfiction books. He has written over 200 short stories, most of which have been compiled in book collections. Many of his works are set in his home state of Maine.
Blaze is a novel by American writer Stephen King, published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. King announced on his website that he "found it" in an attic. As stated in the afterword of Different Seasons, it was written before Carrie. King offered the original draft of the novel to his Doubleday publishers at the same time as 'Salem's Lot; the latter was chosen to be his second novel and Blaze became a "trunk novel." King rewrote the manuscript, editing out much of what he perceived as over-sentimentality in the original text, and offered the book for publication in 2007. The book also contains "Memory", a short story that was first published in 2006 and which King has since worked into Duma Key.
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"Rest Stop" is a short story by the American writer Stephen King, originally published in the December 2003 issue of Esquire and collected in King's 2008 collection Just After Sunset. In 2004, "Rest Stop" won the National Magazine Award for Fiction.
According to books by Tyson Blue, Stephen J. Spignesi, and Rocky Wood et al., there are numerous unpublished works by Stephen King that have come to light throughout King's career. These allegedly include novels and short stories, most of which remain unfinished. Most are stored among Stephen King's papers in the special collections of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, some of which are freely accessible to the library's visitors. However, others require King's permission to read. Additionally, there are a number of uncollected short stories, published throughout King's long career in various anthologies and periodicals, that have never been published in a King collection.
Blockade Billy is a 2010 novella by Stephen King. It tells the story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely, a fictional baseball catcher who briefly played for the New Jersey Titans during the 1957 season.
The Ways of White Folks is a collection of fourteen short stories by Langston Hughes, published in 1934. Hughes wrote the book during a year he spent living in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The collection addresses multiple dimensions of racial issues, focusing specifically on the unbalanced yet interdependent power dynamics between Black and White people. According to Hughes, the short stories are inspired either by his own lived experiences or those of others he encountered.
Joyland is a novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 2013 by Hard Case Crime. It is King's second book for the imprint, following The Colorado Kid (2005). The first edition was released only in paperback, with the cover art created by Robert McGinnis and Glen Orbik. A limited hardcover edition followed a week later. The novel was nominated for the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.
"Under the Weather" is a short story by Stephen King, originally published in the 2011 paperback edition of Full Dark, No Stars.
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a short fiction collection by Stephen King, published on November 3, 2015. This is King's sixth collection of short stories and his tenth collection overall. One of the stories, "Obits", won the 2016 Edgar Award for best short story, and the collection itself won the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for best collection. The paperback edition, released on October 18, 2016, includes a bonus short story, "Cookie Jar", which was published in 2016 in VQR.
"Mister Yummy" is a horror short story by Stephen King, first published in his 2015 story collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams.
Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the World of The Dark Tower is a children's book by Stephen King, published under the pseudonym Beryl Evans. The story was written by Stephen King and published in King's previous novel The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands: the book is found by Jake in chapter 22. The story is intended to be creepy and give children nightmares. It was published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on November 11, 2016. The book appears in the first episode of the Apple TV+ miniseries Lisey's Story (2021).
"The Adventure of the German Student" is a short story by Washington Irving, which was published in 1824 in his collection of essays Tales of a Traveller. The story was inspired by a French tale of unknown origin, and several variations of the story have since appeared in print.