First edition cover
| |
| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Mark Stutzman |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror |
| Publisher | Scribner |
Publication date | February 1, 2006 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 450 |
| ISBN | 978-0-7432-9233-7 |
Cell is a 2006 apocalyptic horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows a New England artist struggling to reunite with his young son after a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell phone network turns the majority of his fellow humans into mindless vicious animals.
Clayton Riddell, a struggling artist from Maine, lands a graphic novel deal in Boston when "The Pulse", a signal sent over the global cell phone network, turns cell phone users into zombie-like killers. Civilization crumbles as the "phoners" attack anyone in view.
Amidst the chaos, Clay is thrown together with middle-aged Thomas McCourt and fifteen-year-old Alice Maxwell; the trio escapes to Tom's suburban home as Boston burns. The next day, the "phoners" forage for food and band together. Clay is determined to return to Maine and reunite with his son, Johnny. Tom and Alice reluctantly come with him. They trek north across a devastated New England, having fleeting encounters with other survivors and catching hints about the activities of the phoners, who attack non-phoners on sight.
Crossing into New Hampshire, they arrive at the Gaiten Academy, a prep school where only Headmaster Charles Ardai and pupil Jordan are unaffected. Every night, the local phoners pack themselves into the academy's soccer field and "switch off" until morning. They have become a hive mind and are developing psychic abilities. The five survivors destroy the flock using propane tankers.
Clay tries to get everyone to flee, but the others refuse to abandon the elderly Ardai. That night, the survivors share the same nightmare: they see themselves in a stadium, surrounded by phoners, as a disheveled man wearing a Harvard hoodie approaches. Waking, they share their dream and dub him "the Raggedy Man". A new flock surrounds their residence; its leader is the Raggedy Man. The flock kills other normals in reprisal and orders the group to journey to a location in Maine called "Kashwak". The flock psychically compels Ardai to commit suicide. Clay and the others bury him before departing.
En route, they learn that as "flock-killers", they have been psychically marked as untouchables, to be shunned by other normies. Alice is killed by a pair of normies. In Clay's hometown of Kent Pond, they discover his estranged wife Sharon was turned into a phoner, but their son Johnny survived. He and other normies were prompted by the phoners to head to the supposedly cell phone-free Kashwak. Clay has another nightmare that reveals that the normie refugees were exposed to the Pulse. He remains intent on finding his son, but after meeting another group of flock-killers, Tom and Jordan decide to avoid the executions the phoners have planned. Before separating, the group discovers that Alice's murderers were psychically compelled into suicide for touching an untouchable.
Clay sets off alone, but the others soon reappear driving a small school bus; the phoners have used their psychic powers to force them to rejoin him. A flock-killer, construction worker Ray Huizenga, gives Clay a cell phone and a phone number, telling him to use them when the time is right; Ray then commits suicide. The group arrives at Kashwak, the site of a half-assembled county fair, where increasing numbers of phoners begin behaving erratically and break from the flock. Jordan theorizes that a program caused the Pulse and that, while it is still broadcasting into the cell phone network, it is corrupted with a computer worm that has infected the newer phoners with a mutated Pulse. Nevertheless, an army of phoners is waiting for them, and Sharon is among them. The phoners lock the group in the fair's exhibition hall for the night; the following morning their execution will be psychically broadcast across the world.
While awaiting their execution, Clay realizes Ray filled the bus with explosives and killed himself to prevent the flock from telepathically discovering them. Jordan drives the vehicle into the inert phoners. Thanks to a jury-rigged cell phone patch set up by the pre-Pulse fair workers, Clay detonates the bomb, wiping out the Raggedy Man and his flock.
The majority of the group heads into Canada, to let the approaching winter wipe out the region's unprotected and leaderless phoners. Clay heads south, seeking his son. He finds Johnny, who received a "corrupted" Pulse; he wandered away from Kashwak and seems to almost recognize his father. Clay decides to give Johnny another blast from the Pulse, hoping the increasingly corrupted signal will cancel itself out and reset his son's brain. The book ends with Clay dialing and placing the cell phone to Johnny's ear.
A role in the story was offered to the winner of a charity auction for the First Amendment Project, sponsored by eBay:[1]
One (and only one) character name in a novel called CELL, which is now in work and which will appear in either 2007 or 2008. Buyer should be aware that CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the brain. Like cheap whiskey, it's very nasty and extremely satisfying. Character can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female. In any case, I'll require physical description of auction winner, including any nickname (can be made up, I don't give a rip).[2]
Other authors like Peter Straub also participated in the online auction, selling roles in their upcoming books. The King auction ran between September 8 and 18, 2005 and the winner, a Ft. Lauderdale woman named Pam Alexander, paid $25,100 (equivalent to $31,000 in 2023). Ms. Alexander gave the honor as a gift to her brother Ray Huizenga; his name was given to one of the zombie-slaughtering "flock-killers" in the story, a construction worker who specializes in explosives, but then later commits suicide in order to aid the "flock-killers" escape.[3]
The book generally received positive reviews from critics. Publishers Weekly described it as "a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization" and full of "jaunty and witty" sociological observations.[4] Stephen King scholar Bev Vincent said "It's a dark, gritty, pessimistic novel in many ways and stands in stark contrast to the fundamental optimism of The Stand".[5]
On March 8, 2006, website Ain't It Cool News announced that Dimension Films had bought the film rights to the book and would produce a film to be directed by Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) for a 2009 release.
Said Roth about his approach to the film:
I love that book. Such a smart take on the zombie movie. I am so psyched to do it. I think you can really do almost a cross between the Dawn of the Dead remake with a 'Roland Emmerich' approach (for lack of a better reference) where you show it happening all over the world. When the pulse hits, I wanna see it hit EVERYWHERE. In restaurants, in movie theaters, at sports events, all the places that people drive you crazy when they're talking on their cell phones. I see total armageddon. People going crazy killing each other – everyone at once – all over the world. Cars smashing into each other, people getting stabbed, throats getting ripped out. The one thing I always wanted to see in zombie movies is the actual moment the plague hits, and not just in one spot, but everywhere. You usually get flashes of it happening around the world on news broadcasts, but you never actually get to experience it happening everywhere. Then as the phone crazies start to change and mutate, the story gets pared down to a story about human survival in the post-apocalyptic world ruled by phone crazies. I'm so excited, I wish the script was ready right now so I could start production. But it'll get written (or at least a draft will) while I'm doing Hostel 2, and then I can go right into it. It should feel like an ultra-violent event movie.[6]
On June 15, 2007, Eli Roth posted in his MySpace blog that he would not be directing Cell "anytime soon", as he planned to spend the rest of the year writing other projects. On July 10, 2009, he dropped out of the project, saying:
There was just sort of a difference in opinion on how to make to film and what the story should be, and there’s a different direction the studio wants to go with it. It was very friendly because it’s the Weinsteins, they made Inglourious Basterds and we’re all friends. I said, ‘I’m not really interested in doing the film this way. You guys go ahead and I’m going to make my own films.’ I’ve also learned that I really am only interested in directing original stories that I write, that’s another thing I learned through that whole process.[7]
On November 11, 2009, Stephen King announced at a book signing in Dundalk, Maryland that he had finished a screenplay. He stated that he had complaints with the ending of the book and it was redone for the screenplay.[8]
On October 31, 2012, it was announced that actor John Cusack would play the lead role of Clayton Riddell.[9] On November 5, 2013, it was reported that Samuel L. Jackson had signed on to play Tom McCourt.[10] Both actors previously starred in 1408, a 2007 film adaption of Stephen King's short story of the same name.
The film was released on June 10, 2016, to video on demand, prior to a limited release scheduled for July 8, 2016.[11]
