Four Past Midnight (324-399)

Summary:

Amy calls Mort and tells him that someone burned their house down.  Then he finds out Shooter killed both Tom and Don with his tools.  Mort thought about how the first story he published was a story he stole from a student in one of his creative writing classes in college. After it got accepted and was published he went on to publishing more stories, but the rest were his own. he goes to pick up the magazine that shows that his story that was published in 1980. When he turns to the pages of his story, the pages were ripped out. Confused and angry, Mort doesn't understand how he even got into his mail and ripped the pages of the magazine out. Mort put on Shooters hat then realized, there was no John Shooter, there never had been. Mort had made him up and started to believe his own lies. Mort was Shooter. He was the one that killed those people. A car slowly drove into the driveway, it was Amy. She found the door unlocked and went inside only to find "SHOOTER" written everywhere on the walls. Mort came out in Shooters hat. He took a pair of scissors and walked toward her, she scurried away. She then fell on a stack of paper, Mort stabbed her in the thigh. She kicked him and he fell. She tried to run away and he caught up with her again and stabbed her again, then a bullet was shot into his chest. Someone saved Amy, shot Mort and got rid of Shooter. 

Quote: 

"There was no Shooter. There never had been." (King 380)

Reaction:

Once I read this quote I was literally blown away. I couldn't believe that Mort was Shooter the whole time! He had made him up and made himself believe that he was an actual person! Mort was the killer. He killed his cat and burned his house and even killed Tom and Don and he blamed it on Shooter, he blamed it on an imaginary figure. He did not want, and could not get rid of these people any other way, so he killed them and decided to say that Shooter did it. This is a very strong quote because it flips the whole story around. This was also my favorite quote because it showed that Shooter was not even a real person, just someone that Mort made up. 

Four Past Midnight (247-323)

Summary:

 A man named John Shooter shows up at Mort Rainey's doorstep. "You stole my story." he says. Mort, a writer, is confused about this accusation, Mort didn't even know what this guy in a black hat was talking about. Mort decided to close the door, and waited for the crazy man to leave. After a couple of minutes the man got into his car and left. Mort opens his door and sees that the man left a wad of paper with a rock on top of it, so the pages would not fly away. Mort takes the rock off and picks the stack of paper up. He sees that the front cover says "John Shooter - Secret Window, Secret Garden." He reads the first page and then realizes it's  almost an exact replica of his story "Sowing Season." the only difference was the title. The phone ring, it's his ex-wife, Amy, calling to make sure he was alright. Amy and Mort were divorced. After he gets off the phone with Amy he goes back to thinking what he's going to do about Shooter. He decides to take a walk. After a couple minutes of walking in the woods he sees John Shooter and his car, nervous, he approaches him. Shooter wants to know why Mort would steal a story from a man from all the way in Mississippi, and more importantly how. Mort decides to tell him that he wrote his story in 1980, whereas Shooter claimed to have written in 1983. Shooter wants proof, and Mort tells him that he has a magazine that has the story that was published in 1980 and that he would show Shooter. Shooter gives him three days to prove himself or everyone he loves will die. Mort isn't afraid of his threats and walks home and takes a nap. When he wakes up from his nap he sees his cat, Bump, killed with a screwdriver driven through his head. Shooter had killed Bump and left a note that said "You have 3 days." 

Quote: 

"As he spoke, the face of John Shooter floated into his consciousness with increasing clarity like the face of a spirit swimming up to the curved side of a medium's crystal ball." (King 303)

Reaction:

This quote is a simile, it describes the clarity like a face appearing in a crystal  ball. This shows how much Mort thought of  Shooter and how scared he was of him. Mort didn't know what to do about Shooter or who to tell. He was afraid of people dying around him, he did not want to be alone. It also shows that he could see Shooter in a very could clarity, like he could describe him very well to people, if he wanted to. Overall, this quote seems to show Morts fear of Shooter and the way he could always picture the way Shooter looked in his mind.

Four Past Midnight (1-246)

Summary:

From a flight from Los Angeles  to Boston, ten passengers find out that they are the only ones left in the plane. As they awaken they find that no one else is on the plane and the only people that are were sleeping. They had gone through a time warp that was located in the Mojave Desert where an aurora borealis was occurring. The time warp took them into the past. The ten remaining passengers, Brian Engle, a pilot, Dinah Bellman, a blind girl, Don Gaffney, an engineer, Laurel Stevenson, a teacher, Nick Hopewell, a man from England that works as an assassin, Rudy Warwick, a businessman, Alber Kaussner, a violinist, Bethany Simms, a girl that does drugs, Bob Jenkins, a mystery author, and lastly, Craig Toomy an investor that is basically crazy. Since no one is flying the plane, captain Engle decides to land the plain in Bangor, Maine. When they arrive they see no one, everything is quiet, except for the sounds of static. Craig believes this sound is the sound of the Langoliers  and goes crazy and stabs Dinah, thinking she is the one who is in charge of them. He runs off hoping that the Langoliers won't get him. They start up the plane to go back to Los Angeles hoping that the time warp would still be open so they could go back to their time. The static sound gets louder and the Langoliers are a mile away. As captain Engle starts to take off they see Craig getting eaten by the Langoliers, and everything underneath them turns black. Everything underneath them ceased to exist, including Craig. As they slowly arrive to their destination they realize they need to be sleeping in order to still be alive once they enter the time warp. Nick decides to give up his life by taking charge of the plane for the rest of the people to go through alive. When the surviving passengers awaken they land in Los Angeles, at last they are back into their own time.  

Quote: 

"The place where life is freshly minted every second of every day; the cradle of creation and the wellspring of time." (King 232)

Reaction:

This was my favorite quote because it described the whole story of The Langoliers. I like how it describes that time is where life is "freshly minted". It shows how life is made every second and the past is either forgotten of or not remembered. Time is created all the time. This quote basically illustrates the main point of the story, that  life is made in every second. This is also a personification because life cannot be freshly minted, but it can be made. Overall, I think this quote fit the whole story perfectly and commented on the theme of this story.