StickLegsMcOhio

Someone mentioned that in the short story, only automobiles come to life - just to clarify, in the short story, ONLY trucks come to life (at first). This is why the story is called "Trucks". In fact, the trucks actually destroy a bunch of cars (including the narrator's) to keep the humans from escaping. Eventually a few pick-up trucks join their larger brethren and a character in the story has heard a bus got "possessed", but the only other machine that comes to life is a bulldozer - which razes the diner in a successful bid to impel the stubborn humans to pump some gas. This is how the short story ends; the survivors taking turns pumping gas for an endless line of trucks. And although King manages to infuse some apocalyptic dread into a line of trucks waiting for gas, it's still very anti-climatic. It's almost as if in the middle of writing the story, King suddenly realized he would have to address the fact that trucks run out of gas and that the trucks would somehow have to convince humans to help them get more gas so they could continue killing more humans. I have no doubt King was thrilled to have painted himself into this corner and he jumps down the rabbit hole headfirst. Thus, we have contrivances like trucks that know morse code (and luckily, humans that know morse code), trucks that are so agile and cat-like they can chase down and corral humans and humans that are so limited in imagination and running ability that they have no choice but to pump gas until their hands bleed and they pass out. In the end, knowing the details of the short story just made me more sad. King adapted and directed his own work and it came out an eye-rolling, plot hole ridden, brow-furrowing piece of camp - yet he still, to this day, can rant for an hour about how Kubrick "ruined" his bloated haunted hotel story. Hopefully he never fulfills his promise to try directing again - because I have no doubt it would prove that cocaine actually had little to do with how Maximum Overdrive turned out.