Stephan King:
Stephen King was born in 1947 in Portland, USA. While he was studying at the University of Maine in Orono he met his present wife Tabitha Spruce. Stephen King is one of the most famous and best payed authors in the world. With his horror stories he earns about 100 million dollar a year. The screen version of Misery was one of the most popular films in 1990.
Story:
Paul Shelton was a world-famous writer. On his way to deliver the typewritten pages of his latest book, he had an accident on a snow-covered road. When he woke up, he was in bed, but it wasn´t a hospital bed. It was a bed he had never seen before, and on his right side there was the woman who saved him. Her name was Annie Wilkes. She was one of his greatest admires. On her lonely farm she kept Paul, his legs badly broken and in extreme pain. She loved all his books about Misery Chastain, her favourite character from his books. But there was a problem, as she learned what Paul had done to Misery in his latest novel he knew that he was in trouble. Annie was a nurse about two years ago, but as the hospital suspected that she had killed new-born babies, she was fired. But there weren´t enough evidences to send her to prison.
Paul had so much pain that he needed drugs to stay alive. Annie read his latest novel “Misery´s Child” and she loved it. But as she came to the end of the book Paul realized once more, that he was in trouble, because Misery died while she bore her child. Annie got very angry and she didn´t know what to do. So she told Paul, who was her prisoner now, to write one more novel about Misery. He should write “Misery´s return”. He hated it, but he knew, that while he wrote a book for her, she wouldn´t kill him. So he started to write it, it wasn´t easy to make Misery alive again without cheating, because Annie hates stories which where cheated. Once Annie left the house for about two days. Paul managed to unlock the door from his room with a hairpin and he tried to escape. But all doors were locked with locks he couldn´t open. So he drove through the house with his wheelchair and looked for his medicine, because he had so much pain in his legs. He found his medicine and found something else too. An album with many newspaper articles in it. All articles where about Annie Wilkes, and in all articles she was suspected to kill babies.
But what made Paul really scared was the last article. It was about him, he was wanted by the whole world, but no one would find him here. As Annie came back from her trip he was in his room again and he had locked himself in, so that she wouldn´t get suspicious. Suddenly he heard a car coming up the farm. It was a police car, and a young officer got out of the car. Paul couldn´t believe it and wasn´t able to shout. A few minutes later he gathered all his energy and threw a vase through the window. The vase smashed on the floor and the policeman saw him. But it was too late, Annie took a cross which marked a grave and with a thin cry Annie stabbed the cross into the policeman´s back. She did it about five times. The policeman was dead immediately. She came back to the house and put Paul in the wheelchair. She drove him through the house and threw him downstairs in the cellar.
There where rats everywhere and he was afraid of rats. She told him, that she would bring the dead policeman to a secret place and that she would come back in about two days. He was very lonely, and he was afraid too. But suddenly he saw a can of barbecue fuel and took it with him. Two days later Annie came back and brought him up to his room, so that he could continue writing. She left the house a third time and he managed to get out of his room once again. Now he drove into the kitchen and saw a butcher´s knife. He took it and hid it under his mattress. As Annie came back he was asleep because she had given him an injection with some sleeping medicine. As he woke up she asked him how often he had escaped from his room. He didn’t answer and so she told him that she would perform a “little operation”. He was afraid of her “operation”, and he had a good reason for being afraid, because she was holding a huge axe in her hands. He shouted and cried, that he would be good, but she didn´t listen. She seized the axe in both hands. The axe whistled through the air and buried itself in Paul´s left leg He lost his foot became unconscious. As he woke up a few days later he had no feeling in his left leg. He has no feeling in his whole body. Annie put him into his wheelchair and he tried to finish the book. As he finished it he asked for a last cigarette. Annie was so curious about the end of the book that she couldn´t control herself. She left and a while later she came back with a cigarette and a box of matches – with only one match in it.
Paul started to pour the barbecue fuel all over his work. The whole room smelled of fuel.
He asked Annie to come in now. As she stared at him he lit the single match and threw it onto his soaked work. She screamed that he should not burn Misery, her lovely Misery. And she jumped up to him and tried to put the fire out. As soon as she turned her back to Paul he picked up the heavy typewriter, lifted it over his head and threw it at her. It hit her in the middle of the back. She fell down with a dump sound. Paul stood up on his one good leg and left the burning room. He hurried to the bathroom and looked after his work. His real work. He didn´t burn the book, he only burned some notes.
A few minutes later he heard some voices, there were the firemen and the policemen all over the house.
As he woke up he was in a hospital. Paul´s legs slowly recovered and the doctors made him an excellent left foot. “Misery´s return” sold millions of copies…but Paul still sees Annie Wilkes in every woman who ever tells him that he is her favourite author.