“Needful Things
The story is set in the small fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, where a new shop named “Needful Things” opens, to the curiosity of the townspeople. The story starts out in first person with the narrator greeting the reader and moves to third-person, introducing each of the book’s diverse cast of characters and their complicated histories. Castle Rock’s citizens then begin to come into Needful Things, each of them drawn by an item they want more than anything else.
Leland Gaunt leaves town in the carriage, which flies, and the town is destroyed by mass riots, murder, and numerous explosions of dynamite. Those who have survived the entire harrowing ordeal find themselves facing an uncertain future in what is left of Castle Rock.
- Sheriff Alan Pangborn: the Sheriff of Castle Rock and the main protagonist. Gaunt was wary of Pangborn from the start, knowing he would not be nearly as easy to fool as the others and that Gaunt would need a lot of help before he would be able to face Pangborn head-on. Pangborn once had a wife and son, but they both died in a mysterious, unsolved car accident.
The Body -(Stand By Me),
Billy talking with his friend Charlie Hogan, about the location of the corpse of Ray Brower, a boy from Chamberlain, a town 40 miles or so east of Castle Rock, who has gone missing, while going out to pick blueberries with one of his mother’s pails. The four friends decide that they will find it so as to be famous.
The older boys ultimately decide to phone in the location of the body as an “anonymous tip” and it is eventually found by the authorities as a result. Some days after the confrontation, Ace and Fuzzy break Gordie’s nose and fingers and kick him in the testicles, and are on the verge of harming him more seriously when they are run off by Gordie’s neighbor, Aunt Evvie Chalmers. Chris’s brother breaks his arm and “leaves his face looking like a Canadian sunrise”. Teddy and Vern get less severe beatings. The boys refuse to identify their assailants to the authorities, and there are no further repercussions.
In high school, just as Chris predicted, Gordie begins taking college-preparation courses. Unexpectedly, so does Chris.
In spite of abuse from his father, taunts from his classmates and distrust from teachers and school counselors, he manages to be successful with help from Gordie.
- Vern is killed in a house fire after a party.
- Teddy, while under the influence of alcohol, crashes his car and he and his passengers are killed.
- Chris, who became an outstanding high school and college student and was in his second year of law school, is stabbed to death after trying to stop an argument in a fast-food restaurant.
- Gordon, the only survivor, continues to write stories through college, and publishes a number of them in small literary journals and men’s magazines.
Cujo
Cujo was a massive St Bernard dog, owned by the Camber Family. Cujo was once a friendly and playful companion, but when he got rabies he went insane and was turned into a killer that attacked anybody who came near.
Cujo was bitten by a bat and got rabies from it. For the next few days, he became very bloodthirsty and dangerous, eventually killing Gary Pervier and Joe Camber. When Donna Trenton and her son, Tad, go to the Cameber’s farm for an auto repair, they are attacked by Cujo and spend three days in their car hiding from him. By this time, Cujo is now completely covered in sweat, blood, grime, froth and mucus, and the smallest thing could set him off. When the phone rings, Cujo flies into a rage and viciously attacks the car, breaking a window in the process. Cujo bites Donna in the leg when she tries to escape and get help, and she barely survives the merciless and destructive attack. Luckily, the sheriff arrives, only to be killed by Cujo after a brief struggle.
The mortally wounded Cujo lunges, but Donna manages to retrieve the sherriff’s revolver from the counter and shoot him in the head, killing him.
1947–1966: The Shawshank Redemption
Shawshank, but the prison serves as the home to violent cliques, a secret economy, and a money-laundering operation. By the time we see it in Castle Rock, it’s become run-down and dank, a decline underlined by our having previously seen it in better days (if “better” is the right word).
1960: Stand by Me
Set in 1960, the film casts the past in a sentimental light, but only up to a point. The four boys who set off to find a dead body in the woods outrun trains, tell wild stories, and riff on rock and roll and cartoons. But they also, like so many kids in King stories, have to deal with parental abuse, neglect, and the looming specter of adulthood.
1983: Cujo
The ’80s have come to Castle Rock, and as with poor Cujo, what was once familiar and welcoming has started to mutate into new, more dangerous forms.
Early ’80s: The Dead Zone
Johnny Smith, a schoolteacher who awakens from a coma with the power to see the future. This leads Castle Rock sheriff George Bannerman to enlist him to search for the Castle Rock Strangler, a serial killer plaguing the town. Cujo where he’s mauled to death by the dog. RIP Sheriff Bannerman.
Johnny’s old flame Sarah , intensifying his dislocation and despair. Changing times can make the places we love and the people who live there unrecognizable, even repugnant.
1991: The Dark Half
Thad Beaumont teaches at a university miles away, but he relaxes at a Castle Rock lake house when his schedule allows. And, some come to suspect, he also commits murders there when his fingerprints start to show up at crime scenes. Thad finds an ally, however, in Sheriff Bannerman’s successor, Sheriff Alan Pangborn a dogged detective who senses the case against Thad doesn’t quite add up.
1993: Needful Things
Shell station on the outskirts of town. Then there’s the matter of how easily Gaunt can prey on Castle Rock’s citizens, as if he only needed to bring long-simmering tensions to a boil. Only Sheriff Pangborn keeps his head, but even his steady guidance can’t fully avert a disaster.
Jinx 