Olin pleads with Enslin to reconsider, believing that a skeptic would be highly susceptible to the room's powers. He demands the right to stay in the room by threatening legal action against the hotel.

Olin also reveals that, due to the superstitious practice of never recognizing the 13th floor (the room is listed as being on the 14th), it is a room cursed by existing on the 13th floor, the room numbers adding up to 13 making it all the worse.Įnslin is secretly affected by Olin's remarks and evidence, but his determination to not appear superstitious and follow through with his research wins out. As such, he has striven to keep the room vacant during his tenure as manager, a period of nearly 20 years. While remarking he does not believe there are ghosts in 1408, Olin insists there is 'something' that resides inside, causing terrible things to happen to anyone who stays within its walls for anything but the briefest periods of time. Olin, who fills him in on the room's morbid history – 1408 has been responsible for 42 deaths, at least 12 of them suicides, over a span of 68 years. They prove to be best-sellers, but Enslin feels some guilt at their success, privately acknowledging that he does not believe in the paranormal and supernatural elements he investigates.Īrriving at the Dolphin Hotel on 61st Street in New York City, Enslin is intent on spending the night in the hotel's infamous Room 1408 as part of his research for his next book, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotel Rooms. Mike Enslin is a writer of non-fiction works based on the theme of haunted places: Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards, and Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Castles. King also noted how the numbers of the title add up to the supposedly unlucky number 13. He originally wrote the first few pages as part of an appendix for his non-fiction book, On Writing (2000), to be used as an example of how a story changes from one draft document to the next.

In the introduction to the story, King says that '1408' is his version of what he calls the 'Ghostly Room at the Inn', his term for the theme of haunted hotel or motel rooms in horror fiction. In 2002, '1408' was collected in written form as the 12th story in King's collection Everything's Eventual.

It is the third tale in the audiobook collection Blood and Smoke, released in 1999. ' 1408' is a short story by Stephen King.

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1408 by stephen king