This Scene Is The Scariest Of Any Stephen King Book I’ve Ever Read

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Stephen King’s short story “The Jaunt”.I’ve been reading Stephen King since I was a kid, and one scene is the scariest and most haunting in any book of his I’ve ever read. It still haunts me today, in fact. The scene is in “The Jaunt”, which actually isn’t a book, but a short story from King’s 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. That collection has a handful of classic Stephen King stories, including “The Mist,” “The Monkey,” and “Survivor Type,” among others. Skeleton Crew, in my opinion, is tied with 1978’s Night Shift for the best Stephen King short story collection. Like a great album in which there are no bad tracks, Skeleton Crew and Night Shift have no weak entries; every story is a banger.

Maybe it’s for that reason that Stephen King’s scariest short stories have always hit me harder than his novels. There’s something about the horror being doled out in short form that turns them into such clear snapshots, like that one burning image of a nightmare that sticks with you after you wake up. “The Jaunt” is just such a story. Decades after I read it for the first time as a kid, it still offers up the most horrific scene he’s ever penned (which, by the way, is why it’s so disappointing that David Lowery’s adaptation of “The Jaunt” never happened). It’s not that it’s gory or revolves around a monster, but it’s the horror of the existential that is such a mindtrip.

The Jaunt’s Ending Scene Is Haunting

It’s Longer Than You Think!

The narrative framework of “The Jaunt” tells two parallel stories, one in the past and one in the present of the story. In the distant future, protagonist Mark and his wife are preparing to “jaunt” with their two kids, including their son, Ricky, for the first time. “Jaunting” is the term given to instant teleportation, which is an established but tricky method of transportation. To keep his kids’ minds off their nerves, Mark tells the story of scientist Victor Carune and how he accidentally discovered the process of jaunting in 1987.

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It’s eventually determined that anything with a complex brain can’t handle jaunting, so you have to be knocked out under general anesthesia for the trip. Mark keeps the gory details of how the mice that went through before this realization came back dead or insane, and it leads to the horrible twist.

Mark and his family go on their Jaunt to Mars and come through just fine – or so Mark initially thinks. As it turns out, Ricky had held his breath while being administered the knock-out gas as he wanted to see what happens during a jaunt. When Ricky emerges, his hair has gone stark white, and he’s rocking back and forth, gibbering and drooling, his mind completely gone. As Mark watches in shock, Ricky shrieks, “Longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think! Held my breath when they gave me the gas! Wanted to see! I saw! I saw! Longer than you think!” before suddenly clawing out his own eyes in a gout of blood, still cackling, as the horrified attendants wheel him away.

The Jaunt’s Unconventional Structure Sets Up The Horror To Hit Unexpectedly

You Don’t See The Reveal Coming

“The Jaunt” is so effective because its narrative structure lulls you into a false sense of security before walloping you with the reveal that leaves you reeling – at least, it certainly left me reeling when I read it for the first time. As Mark tells the story, you know that he’s censoring it for his kids and giving them the PG-rated version of the story, but it’s innocuous – it’s the kind of censorship any parent would do when telling their kids a story above their maturity level. At no point does it seem like omitting that information will backfire or that Ricky’s interest in the story is anything other than a kid’s natural curiosity. It makes the reveal of the little boy going completely mad that much worse.

I’ve reread it a few times since, and I still have to admire King’s craft at building tension in a way that you suspect something bad is coming – and yet, you’re still surprised when it does. It’s the way King writes of Ricky’s mind having snapped after witnessing the eternity of time, the thing that had been Mark’s son still in the body of a 12-year-old boy but with a consciousness that is ancient beyond the ability to comprehend itself and gone insane. Even as a kid, I knew the human mind was not built to withstand that sort of knowing. The existential horror of contemplating that was way too much for my 12-year-old brain to handle at the time, and it still scares me on a primal level today.

King’s “Constant Readers” Agree The Jaunt’s Ending Is One Of The Most Haunting He’s Ever Written

The Existential Horror Stays With You

For that reason, most Constant Readers agree that “The Jaunt” is one of the best and most horrific stories that Stephen King has ever written and they’ve ever read. As it does me, the phrase “Longer than you think” still has the power to make plenty of King’s fans wince as they contemplate the existential madness of human consciousness being trapped in a neverending forever with nothing left to do but to eat itself alive. In a few paragraphs, Stephen King does a better job of capturing what happens to the mind after an eternity of isolation than most novels ever could. It’s a horror – and it’s a horror that lingers.

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Stephen King

Discover the latest news and filmography for Stephen King, known for The Dark Tower series, The Stand, IT, The Shining, Carrie, Cujo, Misery, the Bill Hodges trilogy, and more.

Birthdate

September 21, 1947

Birthplace

Portland, Maine, USA

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