The Jaunt

"The Jaunt" is a horror short story by Stephen King first published in The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1981, and collected in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew.^[1] The story takes place early in the 24th century, when the technology for teleportation, referred to as "Jaunting", is commonplace, allowing for instantaneous transportation across enormous distances, even to other planets in the Solar System. The term "Jaunting" is stated within the short story to be an homage to The Stars My Destination, a science fiction novel by Alfred Bester.^[2]

Plot summary[]

In the future, humans have developed a form of instantaneous teleportation called "the Jaunt", enabling colonization of the Solar System. Mark Oates and his family are transferred from their home in Schenectady to a new posting on the Mars colony of Whitehead City with Texaco Water. As his family prepares to be "jaunted" from the Port Authority Terminal in New York City, Mark entertains his two children by recounting a semi-apocryphal tale of the discovery and history of teleportation.

He explains how in 1987 a scientist named Victor Carune inadvertently discovered the ability to Jaunt after years of research when he accidentally teleported two of his own fingers. Although the Jaunt functioned perfectly when he tested inorganic objects, Carune discovered a side-effect on the mice sent through his two Jaunt portals. The mice would either die instantly or behave erratically before dying moments later. He eventually discovered that they could only survive the "Jaunt effect" while unconscious. Mark explains that this is why all people must undergo general anaesthesia before using the Jaunt.

Mark spares his children a gruesome account of the first human to be Jaunted awake, a condemned death-row murderer named Rudy Foggia, who had been promised a full pardon upon taking part in the experiment. After six other inmates were Jaunted under the effects of anesthesia, Foggia died of a massive heart attack after emerging, living just long enough to utter the cryptic phrase, "It's eternity in there."

Mark also omits mention that since its invention, 30 people have jaunted while conscious, voluntarily or otherwise. Each time, they either died instantly or emerged insane. Taking care not to frighten his children, he carefully elaborates that some believe that while physically jaunting occurs nearly instantaneously, to a conscious mind it lasts an "eternity", leading to one simply being left alone with their thoughts in an endless field of white for what is suggested to be possibly anywhere from hundreds to billions of years.

After Mark finishes his story, the family is subjected to sleeping gas and jaunted to Mars. Mark awakens to find that his adventurous son, Ricky, deliberately held his breath while being administered the anesthetic to experience the Jaunt while conscious and has been rendered completely insane, shrieking "It's longer than you think" before clawing his eyes out as he is wheeled away from his terrorized family by several attendants.

Television Adaptation[]

In 2015, it was announced that the story was set for a movie adaptation by Andy Muschietti before he opted to realise King's It instead.^[3]

As of January 2021, the story is due to be made into a television series for MRC by Fear The Walking Dead co-creator Dave Erickson.^[4]

References[]

See also[]

• Stephen King short fiction bibliography