Stephen King is no stranger at second attempts at his stories, on the page and on the screen. The horror legend recently penned a new conclusion to The Stand for its updated adaptation on Paramount+. Before that, he brought a sequel to . And don’t forget his choose-your-own-ending to The Dark Tower. He has a method to his madness, and his latest return is a sequel to one of his more fearsome books of the early ’80s.
While speaking with The Losers Club podcast over at Bloody Disgusting, King revealed a few of the projects he is working on at the moment. He revealed his next novel is titled Fairy Tale and will hit shelves this fall. He has also written another Holly Gibney book, popular from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, The Outsider, and more. But it’s the other, shorter project that set off some alarm bells.
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“I just wrote a long story called ‘Rattlesnakes.’ And it involves, at one part, twins who are only four years old… falling into a rattlesnake pit. And the snakes get ’em. It’s a terrible scene,” King tells the podcast. “This novella that I’ve just written, ‘Rattlesnakes’… is actually a sequel to Cujo.”
King is constantly weaving his stories together in some connected manner, be it direct sequels, shared locales, or just the giant umbrella of his Dark Tower epic. For a sequel to Cujo, one must wonder how close we should be touching to it being a direct sequel. CinemaBlend notes that it could be a “spiritual sequel” to the terrifying rabid dog tale, which is enough to make the blood in your veins chill a bit. Snakes are high on the list of fears for folks.
Not mentioned is the sequel to Maximum Overdrive I’ve been petitioning and writing letters about since the mid-90s. At least plant the seed for a gritty reboot like Firestarter or Pet Sematary. Bring back Emilio Estevez, too, and don’t neglect the AC/DC.
There is no release date for the short story just yet, or an indication that it could appear as a stand-alone book. Only a few King stories have been released, separate from their short story collections, with The Mist standing out as the highest-profile story. Here’s hoping the story can live up to the hype. Cujo hit specific terrors for many people.
