Dreamcatcher (novel)
Dreamcatcher (2001) is a novel by Stephen King. It is the story of four friends whose lives changed when they saved a Down's-syndrome kid named 'Duddits' from bullies. The four friends, now men with separate lives that are equally screwed-up, meet for their annual hunting trip and end up facing an alien invasion, an obsessive, borderline psychotic army colonel who has named himself for Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now, Abraham Kurtz, and one of their own, Gary "Jonesy" Jones, who seems to be under the control of "Mr. Gray", an unpleasant grayboy who has a nasty little agenda of his own planned.
In the novel Jonesy, an English professor, was in an automobile mishap similar to King's own in 1999; this book, written longhand, was the author's tool for recuperation. The manuscript took half a year to complete.
The alien invasion begins when Jonesy discovers a man walking in the woods. The man complains of stomach problems fue to berries he ate earlier on and Jonesy notices a red mark on his cheek. After Beaver - Another of the 4 friends - returns and they watch a large pack of animals all with marks like the man. When they return, the man is in the washroom, dead. What the man, and the animals are infected with is a macro-virus that humans have name "The Ripley" after a character in the Aliens series. Most of the friends all discover that the parasite infection causes it host to create a half-grown alien nicknamed 'Shit-weasels'. The story continues as 2 of the friends are killed and Jonesy suffering from hulluscinations created by a full grown Ripley named "Mr. Gray". The whole set of characters then begin a fight to stop the aliens from taking over.
Film
Dreamcatcher was made into a film (released in March 2003), directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring Morgan Freeman (Colonel Abraham Curtis) and Donnie Wahlberg (Douglas Cavell).
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