Everything's Eventual

Everything's Eventual is a collection of 14 short stories by Stephen King. In his introduction, King reflects on the declining market for short stories, his experiment with electronic publishing through "Riding the Bullet" (which generated massive media attention and hundreds of thousands of downloads), and his belief that the short story form, while endangered, remains vital.

In "Autopsy Room Four," Howard Cottrell, a stockbroker, regains consciousness inside a body bag, completely paralyzed after being bitten by a rare snake while golfing. Unable to move or speak, he is wheeled into an autopsy room where Dr. Katie Arlen and her assistant prepare to cut him open. Just before the first incision, an orderly reports that the same snake has bitten a colleague, and Dr. Arlen simultaneously triggers a physiological response confirming Howard is alive. He recovers fully over the following month.

"The Man in the Black Suit" is narrated by Gary, a very old man writing about an encounter at age nine in 1914, one year after his brother died from a bee sting. While fishing alone at Castle Stream in rural Maine, Gary meets a tall stranger with burning orange-red eyes and clawed fingers whom he recognizes as the Devil. The Devil claims Gary's mother has just died and announces he intends to eat the boy. Gary offers his brook trout as a desperate substitute, and while the Devil devours it, Gary flees home to find his mother alive and well. In the present, Gary fears the Devil may return now that he is old and defenseless, with no trout to offer.

"All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" follows Alfie Zimmer, a 44-year-old travelling salesman who checks into a Nebraska motel intending to kill himself. His one private passion is a battered notebook filled with bathroom graffiti collected from rest stops over seven years. He fears the notebook will make him look insane if found beside his body. Standing outside in the snow, he bargains with himself: If distant farmhouse lights reappear before he counts to 60, he will try to write a book instead. The outcome is left deliberately unresolved.

"The Death of Jack Hamilton" is narrated by Homer Van Meter, a member of John Dillinger's gang, recounting the slow death of Jack "Red" Hamilton after he is shot during a chase following the gang's escape from an FBI ambush at Little Bohemia, Wisconsin, in 1934. Over several days in hiding, Jack deteriorates from gangrene. Rabbits, the girlfriend of an associate at a hideout in Aurora, Illinois, extracts the bullet with her bare fingers, but Jack is beyond saving. Homer and Dillinger dispose of the body, and Dillinger predicts his own luck has run out; he is shot dead by FBI agents three months later.

In "In the Deathroom," Fletcher, an American journalist for The New York Times, is brought into a basement interrogation room in an unnamed Central American country and questioned about his ties to a rebel leader. His motivation is personal: Government soldiers decapitated three nuns in 1994, and one was his sister. Fletcher fakes a seizure, jams a lit cigarette into the guard's eye, seizes his gun, and kills his captors before escaping into the hallway and up the stairs. An epilogue shows him at a New York newsstand a month later, buying and discarding a pack of cigarettes.

"The Little Sisters of Eluria" follows Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, who arrives at a deserted town, is ambushed by green-skinned mutants, and wakes suspended in a silk-walled infirmary. The Little Sisters who tend him are ancient women in white habits who turn out to be vampires feeding on their patients at night. A young sister named Jenna secretly helps Roland counteract their paralytic drugs and escape. During their flight, the lead Sister is killed by a dog bearing a cross-shaped mark on its chest. When Roland wakes the next morning, Jenna has vanished; her clothes lie empty, and the healing insects called doctor-bugs form the shape of her wayward curl of hair on the earth before dispersing.

The title story, "Everything's Eventual," is narrated by Dinky Earnshaw, a 19-year-old who works for the Trans Corporation, a secret organization that employs him to send lethal emails composed with specific symbols. Dinky believes he is eliminating dangerous criminals, but after researching his targets, he discovers they were progressive, humanitarian figures. He realizes he has been manipulated into silencing dissidents and resolves to write one final lethal message, addressed to his handler, Mr. Sharpton.

In "L.T.'s Theory of Pets," the narrator recounts his friend L.T. DeWitt's humorous story about how each spouse bonded with the pet the other had given them. Beneath the comedy lies tragedy: After L.T.'s wife Lulubelle left, her car was found abandoned near a region where a serial killer called the Axe Man operated. Her dog's remains were found nearby, but Lulubelle was never found.

"The Road Virus Heads North" follows horror writer Richard Kinnell, who buys a watercolor depicting a grinning, fang-toothed young man driving a muscle car. The painting changes each time Kinnell looks at it, its subject progressing north along his route, leaving murder in its wake. Despite burning the painting, Kinnell finds it has reappeared in his house, now showing the car parked in his driveway. The driver is inside, coming up the stairs.

In "Lunch at the Gotham Café," Steven Davis meets his estranged wife Diane and her lawyer at a restaurant to discuss their divorce. The maître d', Guy, suddenly attacks with a butcher knife, killing the lawyer. Steven fights him off with an umbrella, scalds him with boiling water, and smashes a skillet into his face before escaping with Diane through the kitchen. Outside, Diane turns on Steven with fury, denying he saved her life.

"That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" depicts Carol Shelton experiencing intense déjà vu during a flight and drive to a second honeymoon in Florida with her husband Bill. She accurately predicts details of the route, then sees the drive dissolve into a fiery crash. She wakes on the plane, still descending, and the drive begins again with the same escalating visions, implying Carol is trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle of personal damnation.

In "1408," Mike Enslin, a skeptical author who writes about supposedly haunted locations, insists on spending a night in room 1408 of the Hotel Dolphin, despite the manager's warnings that dozens of people have died there. Inside, reality distorts: Pictures change, walls melt out of right angles, and a voice screams from the telephone. Mike saves himself by setting his own shirt on fire, forcing the room to release him. He survives but never writes again.

"Riding the Bullet" follows Alan Parker, a college student who hitchhikes home after his mother's stroke. He is picked up by George Staub, a dead young man whose reattached head and formaldehyde scent reveal his nature. Staub forces Alan to choose: his own life or his mother's. Alan chooses to sacrifice his mother but arrives at the hospital to find her alive. She recovers and lives seven more good years. When she finally dies, the I RODE THE BULLET pin that Staub pressed into Alan's shirt reappears under her bed.

The collection closes with "Luckey Quarter," in which Darlene Pullen, a chambermaid and single mother of two, finds a quarter left as a tip with a note calling it lucky. She fantasizes about parlaying it into a casino fortune, then snaps back to reality. When her young son drops the quarter into a slot machine and hits the jackpot, Darlene stands listening to the falling coins, certain the fantasy is about to come true, yet the sound reminds her of "metal slag falling on top of a coffin."