CELL - a novel by Stephen King

[Kunac]

King napis'o zombi roman. Bar tako kažu. CELL se zove, publikovaće ga kraje januara 2006.

Evo uvodne strane...




The Pulse



1.

The event which came to be known as The Pulse occurred in the Eastern time zone of the United States at 3:03 p.m. on the afternoon of October 1st. The term was a misnomer, of course, but within ten hours of the event, most of the scientists capable of pointing this out were either dead or insane. The name hardly mattered, in any case. What mattered was the effect.

At three o'clock on that day, a young man of no particular importance to history came walking--almost bouncing--east along Boylston Street in Boston. His name was Clayton Riddell. There was an expression of undoubted contentment on his face to go along with the spring in his step.


2.

Clay's attention was attracted by the tinkle of an ice cream truck. The words MR. SOFTEE were printed in rainbow colors over a pair of dancing ice cream cones. Three kids were clustered around the window, book bags at their feet, waiting to receive goodies. Behind them stood a woman in a pantsuit with a poodle on a leash and a couple of teenage girls in lowrider jeans, each with iPods and earphones that were currently slung around their necks so they could murmur together--earnestly, no giggles.

The guy in the truck served the three kids at the window, two Dilly Bars and a monster chocolate-and-vanilla swirl sof'-serve cone for the big spender in the middle, who was apparently paying for all of them. While he fumbled a rat's nest of dollar bills from the pocket of his fashionably baggy jeans, the woman with the poodle and the power suit dipped into her shoulder bag, came out with her cell phone--of course, women in power suits would no more leave home without their cell phones than without their silver Amex cards--and flipped it open. Behind them, in the park, a dog barked and someone shouted. It did not sound to Clay like a happy shout, but when he looked over his shoulder, all he could see was strollers, a dog trotting with a Frisbee in its mouth (weren't they supposed to be on leashes in there, he wondered), acres of sunny green and inviting shade. It looked like a good place for a man who had just sold his first graphic novel--and its sequel, both for an amazing, totally unexpected amount of money--to sit and eat a chocolate ice cream cone.

When he looked back, the woman in the power suit was ordering a sundae. One of the two girls behind her had a peppermint-colored phone clipped to her hip, and the woman in the power suit had hers screwed into her ear. Clay thought, as he almost always did on one level of his mind or another when he saw a variation of this behavior, that he was watching an act which would once have been considered almost insufferably rude--yes, even while engaging in a small bit of commerce with a total stranger--becoming a part of accepted everyday behavior.

"Maddy?" said the woman in the power suit.

"Maddy, you're breaking up! I just wanted to tell you I got my hair done at that new... my hair?... MY..."

The guy in the Mr. Softee truck bent down and held out a sundae cup. From it rose a white Alp with chocolate and strawberry sauce coursing down its sides. His beard-stubbly face was impassive. It said he'd seen it all before. Clay was sure he had, most of it twice. In the park, someone screamed. Clay looked over his shoulder again, telling himself that had to be a scream of joy. At three o'clock in the afternoon, a sunny afternoon on the Boston Common, it pretty much had to be a scream of joy. Didn't it?

"Maddy, I'll call you back." The woman pushed a button on her phone's tiny control panel and closed it with a practiced flip of the wrist.

"That's three-fifty," said the Mr. Softee guy, still patiently holding out the ice cream sundae. Clay had time to think how fucking expensive everything was in the city. Perhaps the woman in the power suit thought so, too--that, at least, was his first surmise--because for a moment more she still did nothing, merely looked at the cup with its mound of ice cream and sliding sauce as if she had never seen such a thing before.

Then there was another cry from the Common, not a human one this time but something between a surprised yelp and a hurt yowl. Clay turned to look and saw the dog that had been trotting with the Frisbee in its mouth. It was a good-sized brown dog, maybe a Labrador, he didn't really know dogs, when he needed to draw one he got a book and copied a picture. A man in a business suit was down on his knees beside this one and had it in a neck-lock and appeared to be--surely I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing, Clay thought, not man bites dog--chewing on its ear. Then the dog howled again and tried to spurt away. The man in the business suit held it firm, and yes, that was the dog's ear in the man's mouth, and as Clay continued to watch, the man tore it off the side of the dog's head.

He turned back toward the ice cream truck in time to see Power Suit Woman lunge through the serving window in an effort to grab Mr. Softee Guy.  

 

[Jake Chambers]

Ovaj... da, ovaj roman je napisao jer mrzi mobilne pa mu je dosla ideja da ljudi pod uticajem mobilnih postaju zombeji... i cak je na onoj dobrotvornoj aukciji na amazonu prodao jedan lik, odnosno bio je fazon ko najvise plati, njegovo ime ce biti iskorisceno za jednog lika. Ukoliko se medjutim radilo o zeni, morala je da bude spremna da umre (u knjizi naravno). Pobedio je neki Rumun koliko se secam...

[Milosh]

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22249

[Kunac]

Veoma obecavajuci rivju. Vec dugo sam se nadao da ce se King vratiti hard core hororu i izgleda da mi se zelja ispunila.



Na ovoj adresi http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1150884_5_0_,00.html
mozete pronaci prva dva poglavlja i prigodne ilustracije.

[Jake Chambers]

Hm... jedva čekam da čitam to. Kula me je više smorila (što ne znači da je ne volim više   ), a ovo mi deluje baš kao osveženje