Trucks (short story)
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| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Country |  USA USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror fiction short story |
| Released in | Cavalier (1st release), Night Shift, Death on Wheels |
| Publication type | Magazine |
| Publisher | DuGent publishing |
| Media Type | |
| Released | 1973 |
Trucks is a short story by Stephen King. It was first published in Cavalier magazine in 1973. It was revised and included in King's 1978 anthology collection Night Shift and published in the compilation Death on Wheels in 1999.
[edit] Plot summary
The story details the plight of a group of strangers who are trapped together in a roadside diner, after semi-trailers and other large trucks are suddenly brought to independent life by an unknown force and proceed to gruesomely kill every human in sight. The humans are able to fight off the trucks for a time, but in the end the diner is half-destroyed, and the few survivors are forced to pump gas to keep the trucks running. As he does this, the nameless narrator has a grim vision of a future world remade in its new masters' image. But, as the narrator points out, within fourty to fifty years, the trucks will most likely be broken down.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The story has been adapted twice for the cinema. In 1986 it was adapted for cinema with the tongue-in-cheek, King-directed Maximum Overdrive. In 1997 it was adapted again as the TV movie Trucks, starring Timothy Busfield, which is a somewhat more faithful adaptation although made on a considerably smaller budget then Maximum Overdrive.
