1408 (King)
Short Summary
New York City, early 2000s. A writer arrived at the Hotel Dolphin to spend a night in room 1408, notorious for its supernatural occurrences.
Despite Olin's warnings about twelve suicides and thirty natural deaths in the room, Mike insisted on staying there for his next book. Upon entering room 1408, he began experiencing strange phenomena: pictures became crooked, digital devices malfunctioned, and the room itself seemed to transform. When he tried calling for help, he heard an inhuman voice through the phone.
This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six! The voice was not machine-generated, but it wasn't human either.
As the room continued to distort reality, Mike realized he was trapped in a hostile supernatural environment. The walls began to melt, and he sensed an evil presence approaching. In desperation, he set his shirt on fire to escape. A hotel guest found him in the hallway and extinguished the flames with ice.
Mike survived with burns and psychological trauma. Though his mini-recorder captured some of the experience, he could no longer write or even look at pens without feeling sick. He moved to Long Island, where he lived with constant anxiety, sleeping with the lights on and avoiding sunset's yellow-orange light that reminded him of his terrifying experience in room 1408.
Detailed Summary by Chapters
Chapter titles are editorial additions.
Chapter 1. The Hotel Manager's Warning
Mike Enslin spotted the Hotel Dolphin's manager Olin waiting in the lobby as soon as he entered through the revolving door. His heart sank at the sight, though he wondered if he should have brought his lawyer again. The hotel was small but elegant, located on Sixty-first Street near Fifth Avenue. A couple in evening clothes passed by as Mike reached to shake Olin's extended hand, the woman's perfume epitomizing New York.
Every writer of shock/suspense tales should write at least one story about the Ghostly Room At The Inn. This is my version of that story. The only unusual thing about it is that I never intended to finish it.
In Olin's office, the manager attempted to dissuade Mike from staying in room 1408. He examined Mike's published books about haunted locations, expressing surprise at their quality and intelligence. However, what troubled him most was that Mike didn't believe in any of the supernatural events he wrote about. Olin revealed that twelve people had committed suicide in room 1408 since 1910, starting with Kevin O'Malley, a sewing machine salesman who had left behind a wife and seven children.
There are no ghosts in room 1408 and never have been. There's something in there-I've felt it myself-but it's not a spirit presence... In room 1408, your unbelief will only render you more vulnerable.
Olin explained that beyond the suicides, there had been at least thirty natural deaths in the room. He warned that electronic devices malfunctioned there - digital watches ran backward or died, cell phones and calculators failed. Despite these warnings and Olin's genuine concern, Mike remained determined to stay in the room, viewing Olin's resistance as potential material for his book.
How many people have slept in that bed before you? How many were sick? How many were losing their minds? How many were perhaps thinking about reading a few final verses from the Bible... and then hanging themselves?
Chapter 2. Entering Room 1408
Upon reaching room 1408, Mike noticed something odd about the door - it appeared to be crooked, though when he looked again, it was straight. This disorienting effect continued as he entered the room. Inside, he found a typical hotel room with unremarkable furnishings, but the three pictures on the walls seemed to be hanging crookedly. When he straightened them, they appeared normal, but the act of touching them left a strange, greasy feeling on his fingers.
As Mike began recording his observations on his minicorder, the room's malevolent nature became increasingly apparent. The air felt stale and oppressive. He found an old matchbook from the 1950s in an ashtray and decided to keep it as a souvenir. When he tried to open the window, only the top half would move, letting in the sounds of Fifth Avenue below.
Things quickly deteriorated as Mike explored the bedroom. The room began to transform around him, taking on impossible angles and dimensions. The pictures changed their subjects - the woman in evening dress revealed bleeding nipples and fanged teeth, while the sailing ship showed the ghosts of those who had died in the room. The still life transformed into a severed head that resembled Mike's own.
The room was sagging out of its right angles and straight lines, not into curves but into strange Moorish arcs that hurt his eyes... From behind the glass, the pictures began to bend.
The phone began spouting nonsensical numbers and threatening messages. The walls bulged inward, developing cracks like mouths, and Mike could sense something approaching - something utterly alien and hostile. In desperation, he took the matchbook he had found, lit all the matches at once, and set his shirt on fire, knowing it was his only chance to escape the room's increasingly deadly influence.
Chapter 3. The Rescue
Mike burst out of room 1408 with his shirt ablaze, his screams seeming to grow impossibly louder as if he were approaching from a great distance. Fortunately, Rufus Dearborn, another guest, was returning from the ice machine and acted quickly to save him.
Dearborn knocked Mike down and dumped his bucket of ice over him, extinguishing the flames. As he helped Mike, Dearborn glimpsed through the open door of 1408, seeing a strange orange-yellow light like an Australian sunset. He felt drawn to enter the room, but Mike grabbed his leg and warned him never to go in, saying it was haunted. At that moment, the door slammed shut on its own.
Chapter 4. The Aftermath
Mike survived his encounter with room 1408, but not without lasting consequences. He suffered second-degree burns requiring four skin grafts, though doctors said he was lucky it wasn't worse. His minicorder survived partially melted, preserving a disturbing recording that his agent, Sam Farrell, locked away in his safe, unable to bear listening to it again.
The experience left Mike unable to write - even looking at a pen made him feel cold and nauseated. He developed various health problems: high blood pressure, vision issues, back pain, and prostate troubles. Though he couldn't remember exactly what happened in room 1408, he suffered from near-constant nightmares. He moved to Long Island, where he took long walks on the beach, and had all phones removed from his house, fearing he might hear that buzzing, inhuman voice again.
It was never human... Ghosts at least were once human. The thing in the wall, though... that thing... Time may improve it, he can and does hope for that. Time may fade it, as it will fade the scars on his neck.
Mike lived with the lights on in his bedroom to ward off the bad dreams, and every evening he meticulously closed all his blinds and curtains before sunset. He couldn't bear to look at the yellow-orange light of dusk - it reminded him too much of what he had seen in room 1408, though he could no longer remember exactly what that was. The experience had fundamentally changed him, transforming him from a skeptic who wrote about supernatural events he didn't believe in to a man who lived in constant fear of what he had encountered in that hotel room.