Book Review: Mile 81

Mile 81, by Stephen King

Source: Amazon.com

From StephenKing.com:

At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded up rest stop, a place where high school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have always gotten into. It’s the place where Pete Simmons goes when his older brother, who’s supposed to be looking out for him, heads off to the gravel pit to play “paratroopers over the side.”
Pete, armed only with the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks enough to pass out.
Not much later, a mud-covered station wagon (which is strange because there hadn’t been any rain in New England for over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that says “closed, no services.” The driver’s door opens but nobody gets out.
Doug Clayton, an insurance man from Bangor, is driving his Prius to a conference in Portland. On the backseat are his briefcase and suitcase and in the passenger bucket is a King James Bible, what Doug calls “the ultimate insurance manual,” but it isn’t going to save Doug when he decides to be the Good Samaritan and help the guy in the broken down wagon. He pulls up behind it, puts on his four-ways, and then notices that the wagon has no plates.
Ten minutes later, Julianne Vernon, pulling a horse trailer, spots the Prius and the wagon, and pulls over. Julianne finds Doug Clayton’s cracked cell phone near the wagon door – and gets too close herself. By the time Pete Simmons wakes up from his vodka nap, there are a half a dozen cars at the Mile 81 rest stop. Two kids – Rachel and Blake Lussier –and one horse named Deedee are the only living left. Unless you maybe count the wagon.
With the heart of Stand By Me and the genius horror of Christine, Mile 81 is Stephen unleashing his imagination as he drives past one of those road signs...

The review:

I'll try to avoid doing a review that is actually longer than King's brief tale is.  No promises though.
By way of summary, Mile 81 is a short story having to do with a closed turnpike rest stop that ends up attracting a monster.  Of course, it is a Stephen King story, so you wouldn't think it'd end up attracting a Salvation Army band needing a place to practice.  What sort of monster, you ask?  Well I'm going to leave that to you to find out.

The author, Stephen King. / Source: huffingtonpost.com

Of course, there is the usual King trope of heroic children.  My own experience with kids would tend to lean away from them being any more intelligent, observant or brave than adults, on the average.  It may be a father's tinted vision, but I think my own kid is all of those in greater abundance than the curve.  But she is the exception that proves the rule, I think.

There is also the trope of the adults who do dumb things, but they are dumb things that, sad to say, most of us would do in similar circumstances.  There are several good Samaritan-types in this story who end up running afoul of the story's monster, and each of them would probably have been easily able to wear my own face, had the circumstances been reversed.  And mores the pity, as I'd always liked to have hoped that I'd be one of the survivors in a horror movie or spooky tale.

When I put "Abandoned Rest Stop" into Google Images, this is one of the first things that came up.  King has an uncanny eye for locales that would be really good settings for spooky goings on.  Closed rest stops are not a common thing in my part of the country, but having passed some fairly lonely looking ones on the highway going out to California, the chord of tingly nerves is still struck. / Source: panoramio.com

There is also the coming-of-age trope that King always tosses in, but I don't mind that so much.  King seems fixated on that period of life in many ways, based on what I have read.  However this isn't such a bad thing, in my opinion.  It is a period where people often become much of what they will be as adults, and it is also a time practically bulging at the seams with what I tongue-in-cheek call "adolescent magic."  So many things are changing; so much is possible, even when it really isn't in reality.  It feels that way though, from what I jadedly remember.

So I would recommend Mile 81.  It is a good little horror-esque romp.  King to the core, and no doubt of it.  Of course, there is the usual King violence, a touch of gore to go with it, and adult language and some crudity.  It is what it is.  If you like King's stuff, and like me you recognize he is at his best when in the short distance effort, then you'll like Mile 81, I'd bet.  Recommended.

If you saw a vehicle sitting off the road like this, what would be your inclination?  Granted, the one in the story is off the highway, an older vehicle of undetermined make/model and covered in mud.  But still... / Source: dreamstime.com

Learn more about Mile 81, by Stephen King, on Amazon.com


The parting comment:

Source: cartoonstock.com

Speaking of good Samaritans.  Hey, that'd make a good idea for a short story!  Family on their way down a lonely stretch of highway meets extraterrestrial in need of a bit of spaceship repair.  Eh, it's probably already been done.