劫梦惊魂 (2001)

《劫梦惊魂》（英语：Dreamcatcher）是由美国小说家史蒂芬·金所创作的一部长篇小说，原版于2001年出版，中文版于2008年出版。该小说于2003年改编成同名电影。

内容简介

比弗、皮特、琼西和亨利是自中学时代已经结识的好朋友，他们每年都会到别墅打猎。2001年的冬天他们如常去到别墅，皮特和亨利去了村外的士多补给时，比弗和琼西留在别墅附近继续打猎，琼西突然发现一个在雪地里流浪了多天的人，这个人后来从体内长出一种外星生物，先将比弗杀了，后召来同伴附身到琼西。皮特和亨利在回别墅时发生了交通意外，皮特留在意外附近，亨利则步行到别墅，在步行间，亨利发觉琼西已经被附体而逃过一劫，但皮特却被琼西折磨至死。同时间，美国军方展开大规模的猎杀外星人行动，亨利成功说服了一名军官，被附身的琼西才是世界毁灭的源头，两人一直追着琼西到南部，而成功阻止外星生物计划的关键在于比弗、皮特、琼西和亨利四人的一位弱智好朋友杜迪茨身上。

Dreamcatcher is a 2001 science fiction horror novel by American writer Stephen King, featuring elements of body horror, suspense and alien invasion. The book, written in longhand, helped the author recuperate from a 1999 car crash, and was completed in half a year. According to the author in his afterword, the working title was Cancer. His wife, Tabitha King, persuaded him to change the title. A film adaptation was released in 2003.

King has since soured on the book, as, in 2014, he told Rolling Stone that "I don't like Dreamcatcher very much," and also stated that the book was written under the influence of Oxycontin, which he was on to control the pain from his crash.

Plot summary

Set near the fictional town of Derry, Maine, Dreamcatcher is the story of four lifelong friends: Gary "Jonesy" Jones, Pete Moore, Joe "Beaver" Clarendon and Henry Devlin. As young teenagers, the four saved Douglas "Duddits" Cavell, an older boy with Down syndrome, from a group of sadistic bullies. From their new friendship with Duddits, Jonesy, Beaver, Henry and Pete began to share the boy's unusual powers, including telepathy, shared dreaming and seeing "the line," a psychic trace left by the movement of human beings.

Jonesy, Beaver, Henry and Pete reunite for their annual hunting trip at the Hole-in-the-Wall, an isolated lodge in the Jefferson Tract. There, they unwittingly become caught between an alien invasion and an insane retired Air Force colonel, Abraham Kurtz. Jonesy and Beaver, who remain at the cabin while Henry and Pete go out for supplies, encounter Richard McCarthy, a disoriented and delirious stranger wandering near the lodge during a blizzard talking about lights in the sky. The victim of an alien abduction, McCarthy grows sicker and dies while sitting on the toilet. An extraterrestrial parasite eats its way out of his anus, after gestating in his bowel, and attacks the two men, killing Beaver. Jonesy inhales the spores of the strange reddish fungus that the stranger and his parasite have spread around the cabin, and an alien entity ("Mr. Gray") takes over his mind.

On the return trip from their supply run, Henry and Pete encounter a woman from the same hunting party as McCarthy. She is also delirious and infected with a parasite. After crashing their car, Henry leaves Pete with the woman and attempts to return to the cabin by foot. From there, his telepathic senses let him know that Pete is in trouble, Beaver is dead and Jonesy is no longer Jonesy. Mr. Gray, manipulating Jonesy's body, is attempting to leave the area. The aliens have attempted to infect Earth multiple times, beginning with the Roswell incident in 1947, but environmental factors have always stopped them, and the U.S. government has covered up the failed invasion attempts every time. With the infection of Jonesy, who can contain the alien within his mind and also spread the infection, Mr. Gray has become the perfect Typhoid Mary—and he knows it. Mr. Gray hijacks a truck transporting a spore-filled alien corpse while Jonesy, trapped inside a mental stronghold, is powerless to stop him.

It becomes up to Henry—by now a quarantined prisoner of the Army—to convince the military to go after Jonesy/Mr. Gray before it's too late. Jonesy himself, now a prisoner in his own mind, tries to help. Both of them are convinced that their old friend Duddits may be the key to saving the world. Using telepathic powers gained from the alien fungus, Henry alerts Army officer Owen Underhill of a plan by Kurtz to kill most of the Army personnel to maintain secrecy. The two stage an escape by telepathically inciting a riot among other prisoners, destroying the base in the process. As they flee, the pair is closely pursued by a vengeful Kurtz along with his subordinates Freddy and Perlmutter. Perlmutter is infected with a telepathic parasite and is being used to track Owen and Mr. Gray down, despite his personal reluctance and pain.