by Stephen King
First published 2018
A freak summer storm leaves David Drayton, his young son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton stuck in a small-town grocery store with dozens of strangers. The mist rolls in fast and thick, and whatever is moving through it is not friendly. Inside, the group tries to hold together. They fail. A woman named Mrs. Carmody starts preaching doom, telling the frightened crowd that God has sent this as punishment for their sins. She wants a sacrifice. People start listening. The store splits into two camps, and the walls feel closer every hour. David knows that waiting it out is not a safe option. He gathers a small group, including store employee Ollie Weeks and a handful of others, and they decide to make a run for it. Getting to the car means stepping into the mist. What is waiting out there has already killed people. But what Mrs. Carmody is building inside the store is its own kind of monster. Stephen King's novella, originally published in the collection Skeleton Crew and later adapted as both a feature film and a TV series, puts ordinary people under pressure and watches what breaks first.
Genres: fiction, science-fiction, suspense, horror, thriller, dark-fantasy
Vibes: atmospheric, claustrophobic, dark, gritty, suspenseful, tension-filled
Tropes: forced-proximity, found-family, moral-breakdown, survival-against-odds
Setting: grocery store, small town
Period: summer
176 pages · Paperback · Scribner
Content warnings: death, gore, violence