A collection of 14 short stories. Includes "Riding the Bullet," the first thing Stephen King wrote after his accident in 1999. The roller coaster is named after the Rottweiler that was distracting the driver of the car that hit King.
The man who saves Mike in 1408 is named Dearborn. In Mejis, Roland was known as Will Dearborn.
Rufus Dearborn, who was staying that night in room 1414, up near the elevators, was a salesman for the Singer Sewing Machine Company, in town from Texas to talk about moving up to an executive position.
He snapped the cylinder back in with a flick of his wrist, then slipped the short barrel into his mouth. It tasted of oil and metal. He thought, Here I SIT, about to COOL it, my plan to EAT a fuckin’ BOOL-it.
Howard Cottrell, the narrator, is from Derry.
Nowadays I am Howard the Conqueror, stock broker extraordinaire, terror of Derry Municipal Country Club.
Skipper is the main antagonist against Dinky in the titular story.
I’ve got a good job now, and no reason to feel glum. No more hanging out with the gumbyheads at the Supr Savr, policing up the Kart Korral and getting bothered by assholes like Skipper. Skipper’s munching the old dirt sandwich these days, but one thing I have learned in my nineteen years on this Planet Earth is don’t relax, there are Skippers everywhere.
I wished again I could take my own wish back; as the dark drew down and I stood there at the crossroads, it was too easy to think of that story about the monkey’s paw.
The narrator references a story from nearby Castle Rock (and also mentions having written for the Castle Rock Call for 20 years, so maybe he ended up moving there later in life.) Pretty sure this reference inspired the novella "1922" in the later collection Full Dark No Stars.
We hunkered and listened to the wind in the chimney and hoped no one would get sick or break a leg or get a headful of bad ideas, like the farmer over in Castle Rock who had chopped up his wife and kids three winters before and then said in court that the ghosts made him do it.
References will be here!