In the year 2025, the best men don’t run for president, they run for their lives…. THE RUNNING MAN Ben Richards is out of work and out of luck. His eighteen-month-old daughter is sick, and neither Ben nor his wife can afford to take her to a doctor. For a man from the poor side of town with no cash and no hope, there’s only one thing to do: become a contestant on one of the Network’s Games, shows where you can win more money than you’ve ever dreamed of—or die trying. Now Ben’s going prime-time on the Network’s highest-rated viewer- participation show. And he’s about to become prey for the masses…. WORKS BY STEPHEN KING NOVELS Carrie ’Salem’s Lot The Shining The Stand The Dead Zone Firestarter Cujo THE DARK TOWER I: The Gunslinger Christine Pet Sematary Cycle of the Werewolf The Talisman (with Peter Straub) It Eyes of the Dragon Misery The Tommyknockers THE DARK TOWER II: The Drawing of the Three THE DARK TOWER III: The Waste Lands The Dark Half Needful Things Gerald’s Game Dolores Claiborne Insomnia Rose Madder Desperation The Green Mile THE DARK TOWER IV: Wizard and Glass Bag of Bones AS RICHARD BACHMAN Rage The Long Walk Roadwork The Running Man Thinner The Regulators COLLECTIONS Night Shift Different Seasons Skeleton Crew Four Past Midnight Nightmares and Dreamscapes NONFICTION Danse Macabre SCREENPLAYS Creepshow Cat’s Eye Silver Bullet Maximum Overdrive Pet Sematary Golden Years Sleepwalkers The Stand The Shining Storm of the Century THE RUNNING MAN Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman With an Introduction by the author, "The Importance of Being Bachman" SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182–190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Copyright © Richard Bachman, 1982 Introduction copyright © Stephen King, 1996 All rights reserved The Running Man was first published in a Signet edition under the name Richard Bachman, and later appeared in NAL hardcover and Plume trade paperback omnibus editions titled The Bachman Books under the name Stephen King. “The Importance of Being Bachman” appeared in slightly different form in the 1996 Plume edition of The Bachman Books. REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA ISBN: 1-4295-7707-X Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Contents The Importance of Being Bachman …Minus 100 and Counting… …Minus 099 and Counting… …Minus 098 and Counting… …Minus 097 and Counting… …Minus 096 and Counting… …Minus 095 and Counting… …Minus 094 and Counting… …Minus 093 and Counting… …Minus 092 and Counting… …Minus 091 and Counting… …Minus 090 and Counting… …Minus 089 and Counting… …Minus 088 and Counting… …Minus 087 and Counting… …Minus 086 and Counting… …Minus 085 and Counting… …Minus 084 and Counting… …Minus 083 and Counting… …Minus 082 and Counting… …Minus 081 and Counting… …Minus 080 and Counting… …Minus 079 and Counting… …Minus 078 and Counting… …Minus 077 and Counting… …Minus 076 and Counting… …Minus 075 and Counting… …Minus 074 and Counting… …Minus 073 and Counting… …Minus 072 and Counting… …Minus 071 and Counting… …Minus 070 and Counting… …Minus 069 and Counting… …Minus 068 and Counting… …Minus 067 and Counting… …Minus 066 and Counting… …Minus 065 and Counting… …Minus 064 and Counting… …Minus 063 and Counting… …Minus 062 and Counting… …Minus 061 and Counting… …Minus 060 and Counting… …Minus 059 and Counting… …Minus 058 and Counting… …Minus 057 and Counting… …Minus 056 and Counting… …Minus 055 and Counting… …Minus 054 and Counting… …Minus 053 and Counting… …Minus 052 and Counting… …Minus 051 and Counting… …Minus 050 and Counting… …Minus 049 and Counting… …Minus 048 and Counting… …Minus 047 and Counting… …Minus 046 and Counting… …Minus 045 and Counting… …Minus 044 and Counting… …Minus 043 and Counting… …Minus 042 and Counting… …Minus 041 and Counting… …Minus 040 and Counting… …Minus 039 and Counting… …Minus 038 and Counting… …Minus 037 and Counting… …Minus 036 and Counting… …Minus 035 and Counting… …Minus 034 and Counting… …Minus 033 and Counting… …Minus 032 and Counting… …Minus 031 and Counting… …Minus 030 and Counting… …Minus 029 and Counting… …Minus 028 and Counting… …Minus 027 and Counting… …Minus 026 and Counting… …Minus 025 and Counting… …Minus 024 and Counting… …Minus 023 and Counting… …Minus 022 and Counting… …Minus 021 and Counting… …Minus 020 and Counting… …Minus 019 and Counting… …Minus 018 and Counting… …Minus 017 and Counting… …Minus 016 and Counting… …Minus 015 and Counting… …Minus 014 and Counting… …Minus 013 and Counting… …Minus 012 and Counting… …Minus 011 and Counting… …Minus 010 and Counting… …Minus 009 and Counting… …Minus 008 and Counting… …Minus 007 and Counting… …Minus 006 and Counting… …Minus 005 and Counting… …Minus 004 and Counting… …Minus 003 and Counting… …Minus 002 and Counting… …Minus 001 and Counting… …Minus 000 and Counting… The Importance of Being Bachman by Stephen King This is my second introduction to the so-called Bachman Books—a phrase which has come to mean (in my mind, at least) the first few novels published with the Richard Bachman name, the ones which appeared as unheralded paperback originals under the Signet imprint. My first introduction wasn’t very good; to me it reads like a textbook case of author obfuscation. But that is not surprising. When it was written, Bachman’s alter ego (me, in other words) wasn’t in what I’d call a contemplative or analytical mood; I was, in fact, feeling robbed. Bachman was never created as a short-term alias; he was supposed to be there for the long haul, and when my name came out in connection with his, I was surprised, upset, and pissed off. That’s not a state conducive to good essay-writing. This time I may do a little better. Probably the most important thing I can say about Richard Bachman is that he became real. Not entirely, of course (he said with a nervous smile); I am not writing this in a delusive state. Except…well…maybe I am. Delusion is, after all, something writers of fiction try to encourage in their readers, at least during the time that the book or story is open before them, and the writer is hardly immune from this state of…what shall I call it? How does “directed delusion” sound? At any rate, Richard Bachman began his career not as a delusion but as a sheltered place where I could publish a few early works which I felt readers might like. Then he began to grow and come alive, as the creatures of a writer’s imagination so frequently do. I began to imagine his life as a dairy farmer…his wife, the beautiful Claudia Inez Bachman…his solitary New Hampshire mornings, spent milking the cows, getting in the wood, and thinking about his stories…his evenings spent writing, always with a glass of whiskey beside his Olivetti typewriter. I once knew a writer who would say his current story or novel was “putting on weight” if it was going well. In much the same way, my pen-name began to put on weight. Then, when his cover was blown, Richard Bachman died. I made light of this in the few interviews I felt required to give on the subject, saying that he’d died of cancer of the pseudonym, but it was actually shock that killed him: the realization that sometimes people just won’t let you alone. To put it in more fulsome (but not at all inaccurate) terms, Bachman was the vampire side of my existence, killed by the sunlight of disclosure. My feelings about all this were confused enough (and fertile enough) to bring on a book (a Stephen King book, that is), The Dark Half. It was about a writer whose pseudonym, George Stark, actually comes to life. It’s a novel my wife has always detested, perhaps because, for Thad Beaumont, the dream of being a writer overwhelms the reality of being a man; for Thad, delusive thinking overtakes rationality completely, with horrific consequences. I didn’t have that problem, though. Really. I put Bachman aside, and although I was sorry that he had to die, I would be lying if I didn’t say I felt some relief as well. The books in this omnibus were written by a young man who was angry, energetic, and deeply infatuated with the art and craft of writing. They weren’t written as Bachman books per se (Bachman hadn’t been invented yet, after all), but in a Bachman state of mind: low rage, sexual frustration, crazy good humor, and simmering despair. Ben Richards, the scrawny, pre-tubercular protagonist of The Running Man (he is about as far from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get), crashes his hijacked plane into the Network Games skyscraper, killing himself but taking hundreds (maybe thousands) of Free-Vee executives with him; this is the Richard Bachman version of a happy ending. The conclusions of the other Bachman novels are even more grim.