# Poll: Stephen King Fans - Favorite story from Skeleton Crew **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565 "2011-04-07T19:03:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/41 "2011-04-08T13:52:10Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > The one that stuck most with me is _Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut_. I have a weak spot for stories in which reality just turns out to be not quite as fixed and firm as it’s made out to be. > I like to think that’s just an outgrowth of my sceptical nature (better, at least, than I like to think that I’m just an idiot sometimes). I cannot read _Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut_ without hearing Fred Gwynn as the old man. Maybe it’s just me. Of course, having seen (and adored) _The Shawshank Redemption_, I can’t re-read that without hearing Morgan Freeman, even though in the book, the character is a runty Irish guy! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/42 "2011-04-08T14:55:27Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Huh. I didn’t feel that way at all; I thought most of the stories were pretty weak, but a few were fantastic. Contrast that with Night Shift, where I thought the majority of the stories were pretty good, but there weren’t any as good as “Survivor Type” or even “The Mist”. In _Night Shift_, _Grey Matter_ came pretty close, for me, to being as good as _Survivor Type_. And _The Boogeyman_ was just downright _scary_! ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/43 "2011-04-08T15:01:28Z")
The Mist (despite the fact it is more a novella than a short story, but the battle in the pharmacy next door to the grocery story seriously squicks me out every time I read it), followed by The Jaunt which seriously creeps me out even today, years later (longer than you think, indeed!), and The Raft, which I gleefully used to remind my fellow ‘drunks on a raft’ of every summer down at our lake. They’d just roll their eyes at me and hand me another beer. 😃 Apropos of nothing, ‘TheLast Rung on the Ladder,’ from Night Shift, is a particularly poignant piece of storytelling. One of my favorites from that collection. Oh, and Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut is good all by itself on another level of creepiness just under the prose. Excellent work. Brother Cadfael said it best: > [@Brother Cadfael](#): > > Only slightly gruesome, but if you look at it just a little cross-eyed, you get just a hint of Cyclopean horrors just offstage… Oh yeah. That’s good for a few shivers…:eek: ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/44 "2011-04-09T00:37:47Z")
“The Reach” - can’t believe it’s only gotten 2 other votes! ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/45 "2011-04-09T01:43:59Z")
I guess I’m in the minority, because I LOVED _The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet_. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/46 "2011-04-09T03:01:48Z")
> [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#): > > I thought The Mist was more of a novella, but I had to throw this in the mix with The Jaunt and Survivor Type. > > I finally went with The Jaunt. It really packed a punch, and teaches you that you should never never never push that red button that says DO NOT TOUCH. > > Side note: On my computer system at work, there is a button on the touch screen that literally says “DO NOT PRESS”. So I pressed it. It shut down the system and it took the manager about ten minutes to reboot and fix it back to startup standards. But then again, I’m a wet paint kind of guy. If I see a “Wet Paint” sign, I’ll touch the surface, just to check. > Hey, you got to check the slackers, right? Anybody who knows anything at all about human nature knows that the best way to get people to touch something is to tell them not to touch it. You can’t depend on people to not do what they’re told not to do; you can basically count on them to do what they are not to do. We didn’t come down out of the trees because we weren’t curious. I don’t like the story “Surivor Type” - it’s too creepy to read again. Ick. Hey, which story is is that has the Fornits? That word has stuck with me - I call my cats varmints, and I varmint me some varmints most days. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/47 "2011-04-09T03:21:50Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Hey, which story is is that has the Fornits? That word has stuck with me - I call my cats varmints, and I varmint me some varmints most days. _The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet_ I believe. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/48 "2011-04-09T07:23:11Z")
“The Reach” – for me, that one came out of nowhere. It wasn’t horror, but it had plenty of enjoyable King elements; particularly the little details about life on an isolated island. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/49 "2011-04-09T08:12:52Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > I cannot read _Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut_ without hearing Fred Gwynn as the old man. Maybe it’s just me. > > Of course, having seen (and adored) _The Shawshank Redemption_, I can’t re-read that without hearing Morgan Freeman, even though in the book, the character is a runty Irish guy! 😉 I thought it particularly amusing that they kept the line about when asked “Why do they call you Red?” and Red replied “Probably because I’m Irish.” ---
**Author:** ![Constant\_Reader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8edcca/32.png) [@Constant\_Reader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Constant_Reader)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/50 "2011-04-09T16:34:13Z")
I chose Survivor Type, but could have easily picked The Jaunt, The Raft or The Mist. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/51 "2011-04-09T18:15:33Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > I thought it particularly amusing that they kept the line about when asked “Why do they call you Red?” and Red replied “Probably because I’m Irish.” And Morgan Freeman totally pulled it off. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/52 "2011-04-09T19:55:18Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > And Morgan Freeman totally pulled it off. 😃 I’ve always maintained that Morgan can convincingly play anything but a 19YO white girl, and even that, he might give a run for the money! 😉 Loves me some Morgan Freeman! ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/53 "2011-04-09T22:14:26Z")
Haven’t read it in twenty years, but “Longer than you think, Dad!” is ingrained in my skull from **The Jaunt**. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/54 "2011-04-10T21:58:26Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > Haven’t read it in twenty years, but “Longer than you think, Dad!” is ingrained in my skull from **The Jaunt**. That’s what I find so much more haunting in **The Jaunt** than almost anything else King has written. I don’t deal with boredom very well, so the idea of being imprisoned in your own, unblinking mind for relatively a billion years (apparently even longer, according to Ricky 😉 ) terrifies me on a primal level. The story was a lot of fun, but surely dated now. In fact, it’s probably not realistic at all to have the awake Jaunters to even be able to talk. They’d probably have turned into mindless, insane vegetables after the first “100 years” or so. But, damn… such haunting words when they come out. It’s stuck with me since I first read it 24 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565/55 "2011-04-11T01:05:50Z")
Decided to answer without Googling any of the stories. I must have read this 15 or so years ago, but that’s the only one I clearly remember by name (and every time I eat ladyfingers). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-stephen-king-fans-favorite-story-from-skeleton-crew/577565.md?page=2)