Stephen King's The Mist - puzzle at the end?

Cafe Society
1

I just read Stephen King’s story “The Mist” and I’m trying to figure out his little hint at the end.
The story: a guy and his son go to the supermarket, while they’re there they are surrounded by a thick fog and then monsters are wandering outside. They eventually escape with a couple of other people from the supermarket and start driving away to get out of the fog.
On the car radio they are trying to listen for signs of civilization and the father thinks he hears a faint signal. They have holed up in a motel for the night. The last few lines:

So what’s the other word? The only thing I can think of is “soap-on-a-rope”, meaning they might be able to take another shower one day.

2

The inference I got was that the two words were “Hartford” and “hope.” As in “I hope that we’ll be able to get out of this,” and “maybe the mist hasn’t reached Hartford.”

3

“nope”?

As in “Nope, no hope.”

4

I like a lot of Kingt’s stuff, but didn’t care for “The Mist”. Not sure why…perhaps the unresolved ending. In most of his stories, you get a definitive resolution one way or the other (either you bites the bear, or the bear bites you…), but this one just sort of trails off…

5

Home? ( It says they sound a bit alike, not that they necessarily rhyme).

6

Count me in on “home”.

I’ve read the story several times, as well as listened to the cd. I couldn’t really figure it out either.

7

I think it’s Hartford, and I agree with Superdude.

Wasn’t there a movie in the works based on The Mist?

8

Didn’t he also write a short story about a married couple driving around in a newly-built subdivision, looking for a house to buy? IIRC, all the streets started looking the same, and they couldn’t find their way out. And then the fog came in.

I think King was trying to abscond with enough characters to populate a small town, so that he could mess with their minds in some longer work (or series of works). But he had to do it with small numbers of characters from each story, so nobody’d notice what was going on.

:smiley:

9

From here:

10

Cool, a “mist” movie. IIRC there was also a videogame based on the Mist.

(I never played it, but I could have sworn I saw it).

11

I liked the Mist, and I agree with superdude. Personally, I like ambiguous endings.

12

Have you tried The Fog?

13

You mean Myst? Nothing to do with the book.

14

No, not Myst. There was a text adventure based on The Mist that came out some time in the 80’s.

15

I, too, thought the word was “Hartford.”

16

Yeah, I didn’t mean Myst. I was thinking of the 80’s game. I actually never played it, but I heard it was slightly decent. I’ve been trying to get my hands on it recently.

17

Chalk me up with the “Hartford” folks. Of course that means most of New England was covered by the Mist.

One of King’s better stories, and a rather daring ending.

18

Another vote for “Hartford”, although I had never considered “Home” before, and that does sound a lot like “Hope”. They tried to get home earlier though, and were totally unable to, so I don’t know why the father would bring that up again.

19

I believe at the end, the father mentions that he heard one word just before he turned off the radio. He doesn’t say right away what it was. Then he says that he will whisper two words in his son’s ear “against the dreams that may come. One of them is Hartford. The other is hope.”