History Literature / FourteenOhEight

* ShellShockedVeteran: Enslin becomes totally paranoid after his experience. He cannot sleep in strange places, he can't answer the phone, he can't allow any light from the sunrise or sunset into his room (as it reminds him of the colors in the room), and he is an all-around broken individual.

* EvilPhone: The phone shout numbers at him in a voice that sounds like 'an electric hair-clipper that has learned how to talk.'

The story was included in the ''Literature/EverythingsEventual'' collection.

* GeniusLoci: The room doesn't have anything evil ''in'' it. ''The room itself'' is evil. Considering the larger King canon, there's a good chance that it's a thinny.

* TalkativeLoon: Enslin becomes this while in the room, blithering about the turnpike wolves and fuming oranges.

* AlienGeometries: The door to 1408 is first crooked to the left, then it's straight, then to the right, then both. Each time, it changed when he looks away. And the room itself also takes on some extremely alien geometries near the end. Mike finds "Moorish" the closest thing he could come up with to pinning a word to it. King's text calls it "a convex, rotting cave full of swoops and mad tilts."

* AlienGeometries: The door to 1408 is first crooked to the left, then it's straight, then to the right, then both. Each time, it changed when he looks away. And the room itself also take on some extremely alien geometries near the end. Mike finds "Moorish" the closest thing he could come up with to pinning a word to it. King's text calls it "a convex, rotting cave full of swoops and mad tilts."

* BitterSweetEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408. Still, the room seems to be at least temporarily incapacitated, and Mike still fared much better than any 1408 guest prior to him.

* BitterSweetEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408. Still, the room seems to be at least temporarily incapacitated, and Mike still fared much better than any 1408 guest prior to him.

* BitterSweetEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408. Still, the room seems to be at least temporari;y incapacitated, and Mike still fared much better than any 1408 guest prior to him.

* DownerEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408.

* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Inverted. Mr. Olin, the hotel manager, begs Mike Enslin not to stay in Room 1408, and says that after reading Mike's books about spending nights in supposedly haunted houses and castles, he gets the impression that Mike has absolutely no belief in the supernatural. Olin thinks that this will make Mike's stay in 1408 that much worse. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for Mike, Olin is right.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408.]]

* KillItWithFire: An interesting case: [[spoiler: The way that Mike escapes from the eponymous room is by setting his lucky Hawaiian shirt on fire, and he speculates that the entity dwelling in the room had no interest in absorbing a burned man. Mike needs a few skin grafts but only avoids more serious injury because another guest on the same floor happened to be walking back from the ice machine, and he dumped his bucket of ice onto Mike's burning shirt.]]

* GeniusLoci: The room doesn't have anything evil ''in'' it. ''The room itself'' is evil.
** Considering the larger King canon, there's a good chance that it's a thinny.

One of Steven King's better short stories and an unusual variation on the classic haunted hotel room, 1408 tells the story of Mike Enslin, a professional supernatural investigator/debunker and horror writer who stumbles on something much worse than a ghost . . .

!! 1408 contains examples of:

* ParanoiaFuel: Discussed in King's notes. King states that hotel rooms are inherently creepy due to the fact you have no idea who else has come and gone from them before you came, and who will come and go after. Any number of those people could have been sick or insane at the time they stayed, and several of them have probably already died.

* UncannyValley: Shades of this in the descriptions of the the still-life paintings (one of which was originally a plastic plum sitting on a plate, and only becomes a painting after he looks, turns away, and looks back) and the bed covers, innocuous objects that just seem off and give Mike a sense of revulsion and dread.

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408.]]

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: 1+4+0+8=13. And because of the way floors are numbered in the West, it's actually on the 13th floor.

* AlienGeometries: The door to 1408 is first crooked to the left, then it's straight, then to the right, then both. Each time, it changed when he looks away. And the room itself also take on some extremely alien geometries near the end. Mike found "Moorish" the closest thing he could come up with to pinning a word to it. King's text called it "a convex, rotting cave full of swoops and mad tilts."
* DownerEnding: The room melts and distorts near the end, and is about to consume Enslin. Enslin sets himself on fire, and the room lets him leave. Enslin is saved by another hotel guest who happened to be walking by with a bucket of ice water. Enslin doesn't publish his story, the recordings are useless, and he has third degree burns, scarring him for the rest of his life. He retreats to a house in Long Island where he lives out a lonely life, has health problems, and is completely traumatized by his 70-minute stay in room 1408.

* GeniusLoci: The room doesn't have anything evil in it. The room itself is evil.

* ShellShockedVeteran: In the book, Enslin becomes totally paranoid after his experience. He cannot sleep in strange places, he can't answer the phone, he can't allow any light from the sunrise or sunset into his room (as it reminds him of the horrible colors in the room), and he is an all-around broken individual.

* ParanoiaFuel: Discussed. Enslin states that hotel rooms are inherently creepy due to the fact you have no idea who else has come and gone from them before you came, and who will come and go after. Any number of those people could have been sick or insane at the time they stayed, and several of them have probably already died.

* Alien Geometries: The door to 1408 is first crooked to the left, then it's straight, then to the right, then both. Each time, it changed when he looks away. And the room itself also take on some extremely alien geometries near the end. Mike found "Moorish" the closest thing he could come up with to pinning a word to it. King's text called it "a convex, rotting cave full of swoops and mad tilts."

EldritchAbomination: The room doesn't have ghosts. Whatever's wrong with it was never human.
EldritchLocation: It's a room that warps, melts, threatens you over the phone and may or may not want to eat you.
EvilPhone: The phone shout numbers at him in a voice that sounds like 'an electric hair-clipper that has learned how to talk.'

GeniusLoci: The room doesn't have anything evil in it. The room itself is evil.
ParanoiaFuel: Discussed. Enslin states that hotel rooms are inherently creepy due to the fact you have no idea who else has come and gone from them before you came, and who will come and go after. Any number of those people could have been sick or insane at the time they stayed, and several of them have probably already died.
ShellShockedVeteran: In the book, Enslin becomes totally paranoid after his experience. He cannot sleep in strange places, he can't answer the phone, he can't allow any light from the sunrise or sunset into his room (as it reminds him of the horrible colors in the room), and he is an all-around broken individual.
TalkativeLoon: Enslin becomes this while in the room, blithering about the turnpike wolves and fuming oranges.
ThirteenIsUnlucky: 1+4+0+8=13. And because of the way floors are numbered in the West, it's actually on the 13th floor.