I’ve been retreading some of my favorite stories by him, so after rereading a few, it occured to me how he comes up with some incredibly satisfying, pithy or even poignant last lines. So, from any of his stories, the last line of any of his novels, shorts, or novellas, be it King or Bachman.
For me, it’s a toss up between The Green Mile:
We each owe a death - there are no exceptions - but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile seems so long.
Survivor Type:
ladyfingers they taste just like ladyfingers.
and The Long Walk:
He somehow, found the strength to run.
So hard to choose, but I think I have to give it to The Long Walk.
The Jaunt would’ve been one of my picks if the story ended on the second to last paragraph:
Longer than you think, Dad! I saw! I saw! Long jaunt! Longer than you think—
Not sure if it’s the exact last line, but the end of, “The End of the Whole Mess,” has always given me a lump in my throat:
[SPOILER] I have a Bobby his nayme is bruther and I theen I am dun riding and I have a bocks to put this into thats Bobby sd full of quiyet air to last a milyun yrz so gudboy gudboy everybrother, Im goin to stob gudboy bobby i love you it wuz not yor falt i love you
This is the one I came in here to post myself. I remember when I first read it, how shuddery I was. I kind of wanted to crawl out of my own skin, I was so skeeved.
“It wasn’t until six hours later that they took him down.” - Apt Pupil
John D. MacDonald cited this sentence as a particularly good ending. In the previous paragraph, the protagonist settled into a well-sited snipers nest with plenty of ammo, and started firing on passersby. He notes in particular the economy of the single sentence which implies just how long and deadly a siege it took to bring the incident to a close.
Wonder why they wussed out on ending the movie that way? (Although you could make a case, to which I bet King would listen hard, that the movie’s ending is even worse.)
According to Wikipedia, Bryan Singer didn’t think he could do King’s original ending justice. I half believe him. The movie is about a Nazi and came out a year before Columbine, but I still think a shooting spree would have raised some (more?) ire.
I wouldn’t say the story is “about a Nazi”. There is a Nazi character, and the protagonist’s association with him is clearly not a Good Thing, but the kid was already pretty screwed up before they ever met.
The narrator is starting to believe that, while in some kind of fugue state, he might be a serial killer. His wife believes he’s been out with another woman, and the last line of the story is, “And oh dear God, I think so too.”
