"Everything's Eventual" Short Stories Quiz

Answer: Golf

In the first short story, a stockbroker named Howard is pronounced dead on a golf course and he realizes he's still alive as his autopsy begins. Soon, he desperately tries to show his morticians that he's still alive, and just in the nick of time, they discover that he was knocked unconscious due to a rare venomous snake bite on the golf course.

In the end, he stays alive, but has to recuperate for four years after his near-death ordeal in autopsy room four.

Answer: Bees

This story is told by an old man who experienced the events when he was a child. His brother had died of a bee sting a year earlier and he was going fishing down at a creek. During this, a man smelling of sulfur wearing a black suit arrived and he realized it was the devil.

He manages to escape and he returns with his father to find that the man has left. Now, as an old man, Gary wonders if the man in the black suit will return when he is ready to die.

Answer: Motel 6

Alfie checks into a Motel 6 on the interstate in Nebraska to kill himself, but he can't seem to part with a small notebook of graffiti that he has been adding to for many years. In the end of this short story, Alfie considers throwing the book into a nearby farmer's field, where no one will ever find it again, but he struggles to let go of the one thing that has seemingly given him meaning over the years on the road.

It is unknown whether Alfie kept the book and lived, or whether he tossed it and used the gun.

Answer: Homer

This is a story about a gang of bank-robbing criminals and the last days of a member of their gang. After Jack Hamilton is shot, Homer and John take him to a town and are forced to flee to a small house occupied by another gang. Here, they attempt to perform surgery, but it's not enough to save their friend and they watch him slowly die.

In the end, Homer and John go on to rob one more bank.

Answer: The New York Times

In this story, a man named Fletcher is captured by the government of a South American country for siding with Communists that the leaders are opposing. Fletcher is threatened to reveal information for a panel of three or else he will be shocked by a machine that killed the last visitor of the blood-stained deathroom.

He manages to devise a plan and ends up killing everyone in the room before escaping and returning to New York.

Answer: Sister Jenna

This short story follows the "Dark Tower" storyline, but it occurs before the first book, "The Gunslinger" and after Roland's time in Mejis (as mentioned in "Wizard and Glass"). In this story, Roland is nearly killed by Slow Mutants in the small town of Eluria, but he's somewhat saved by the Little Sisters of Eluria.

These Sisters act as nurses and heal Roland's wounds, but they keep him drugged through his food. One sister, Jenna, reveals that the 'doctors' are actually bugs that are healing the patients, and the Sisters control them with their dark bells.

He discovers that the Sisters are vampires when a nearby patient is killed in the night. Roland is protected by a cross that he found on a body in Eluria while Jenna manages to sneak a powerful herb under his pillow that counters the drug that the sisters are using to keep Roland from healing. Eventually, he and Jenna escape, but Sister Mary tries to stop them.

In the end, Roland is saved by a dog with a cross-shaped patch of fur and after he and Jenna claim that they love each other, she turns into 'the doctors' in the night and he continues on his quest for the Dark Tower.

Answer: Mr. Sharpton

Mr. Sharpton discovers Dinky after one of his workers realizes that he has special powers. After training at the Trans Corporation Headquarters in Peoria, Dinky is told to get to work. His work involved sending messages to people online and through letters using symbols he created.

He gets paid $70 a week, but the fringe benefits are amazing. He gets his own house and whatever he wants every week (excluding dirty magazines). When Dinky realizes that his job involves killing the recipients of his letters, he decides to send one to his boss.

Answer: Lucy

In this story, L.T. tells the story about how his wife got him a Jack Russell Terrier (Frank) for their first anniversary, and how he got her a Siamese Cat (Lucy) for their second. Over time, the pets ended up being loyal to the ones that bought them rather than their intended owner, and because of the pets, L.T. and his wife Lulubelle went their separate ways. L.T. tells the story to his friends at work and to others, but he hopes that Lulubelle is out there somewhere despite the idea that she and Frank may have been murdered.

Answer: Derry

Derry is a recurring location in Stephen King's works. In this story, a famous author stops at a yard sale and buys a painting that was created by the teenage son of the previous owner who previously hanged himself in his basement studio. Every time he looks at the painting, it seems to change.

For example, the menacing smile of the driver in the picture widens and the background changes. He throws the picture into a ravine, but he finds the picture in his house as good as new. When he discovers that the lady who sold him the picture has been decapitated (like in the picture), he calls his aunt to whom he showed the picture before returning home.

He finds that she's safe, but after taking a shower, he realizes that the man from the picture is in his house.

Answer: Guy

In this story, a man named Steve returns home to find that his wife has left him. Less than a month later, he's set to meet his wife and her lawyer to discuss the divorce at the Gotham Café and he buys an umbrella before arriving. The maître d' serving the table tells Steve not to bring his dog into the restaurant, but all he has is his umbrella.

When they sit down, they talk about the divorce, but they're interrupted by the maître d' screaming random phrases and shouting "Eeeeeeeee!". The maître d' kills Diane's lawyer and while everyone runs out of the café, Steve and Diane run through the kitchen to safety. Guy follows them and Diane nearly gets Steve killed as they try and leave out the back. Luckily, they make it out, but Steve and Diane argue over who was getting the other killed.

In the end, Steve wonders why Diane would hate him after he saved her life, and why Guy wanted to kill him.

Answer: Florida

In this short story, Carol and Bob are driving through Florida on the way to a resort for their second honeymoon, but everything Carol is seeing seems oddly familiar. As they near the resort, Bob's glasses melt to his face and his eyeball bursts causing Carol to scream, but she finds that it's a dream. Soon, she goes through the same events realizing that she recognizes the surroundings and events from her dream, but she can't stop the inevitable.

When the time comes again, she wakes up once more on the plane and repeats the process.

This repetition is how she suffers in her own version of Hell.

Answer: Hotel Dolphin

In "1408", Mike Enslin, a paranormal author who investigates hauntings and paranormal occurrences goes to the Hotel Dolphin to stay in the supposedly haunted room 1408. The hotel manager warns Enslin, but can not stop him from entering. In the room, Enslin experiences unexplainable terrors which ultimately lead to him setting fire to his own shirt to escape the horrors within the room.

Answer: George

In "Riding the Bullet", Alan Parsons is traveling across Maine to visit his mother in the hospital, and in order to do this he hitchhikes. Unfortunately, he stops in a graveyard and gets picked up by a messenger of the dead whose name was on one of the graves. On the ride to the hospital, Alan is forced to decide whether or not George takes himself or his mother with him.

Answer: Paul

In "Lucky Quarter", Darlene collects a tip during her job as a hotel maid and a note is left inside her envelope saying that she's received a lucky quarter. When she uses it in a slot machine she makes eighteen dollars, so she goes to gamble it at the casino and wins thousands. On her winning streak, she reappears back at work with the quarter in her hand.

After work she gives the quarter to her son who uses it on the slot machine. Once again, they win the money, and Darlene realizes it really is a lucky quarter.

Answer: Using a deck of playing cards

King says that he took one of each card from the deck (ace to king) and a joker, and he took the list of stories his publisher sent him. From this, he randomly chose cards and used the order from the list to determine the final order. King feels that the order created a good balance between the true horror stories and the otherwise dramatic literary works.