Stephen King is ‘sorry’ you feel stuck in one of his horror stories

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Stephen King has two words for those who feel the coronavirus pandemic is akin to being trapped in the fictional world of one of his books: “I’m sorry.” “I keep having people say, ‘Gee, it’s like we’re living in a Stephen King story,’ ” the prolific horror author, 72, told NPR Wednesday. “And my only response …

Stephen King has two words for those who feel the coronavirus pandemic is akin to being trapped in the fictional world of one of his books: “I’m sorry.”

“I keep having people say, ‘Gee, it’s like we’re living in a Stephen King story,’ ” the prolific horror author, 72, told NPR Wednesday. “And my only response to that is, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

King’s prescient 1978 book “The Stand” in particular has elicited a number of comparisons. The author’s fourth novel tells the story of a weaponized flu called “Project Blue,” which spreads from a US Army base to a Texas town, and ultimately kills the majority of human and animal life.

In early March, King took to Twitter to assure readers the comparison had no bearing. “No, coronavirus is NOT like THE STAND. It’s not anywhere near as serious. It’s eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions,” King tweeted March 8.

Later in March, he posted an audio chapter of the book to explain how pandemics spread.

King, for one, is not shocked by the pandemic, saying it was “bound to happen.”

“There was never any question that in our society, where travel is a staple of daily life, that sooner or later, there was going to be a virus that was going to communicate to the public at large,” he tells NPR.

Since the coronavirus gripped the globe, he’s decided to change the date in a book he’s writing to make it feel more reflective of reality.

“I set [the book I’m working on] in the year 2020 because I thought, ‘OK, when I publish it, if it’s in 2021, it will be like in the past, safely in the past,’ ” he says. “And then this thing came along … and so I looked at everything and I immediately set the book in 2019, where people could congregate and be together and the story would work because of that.”

As for dealing with pandemic-related stress, he says he’s avoiding it by staying productive and making the most of his cabin fever.

“I’ve made wonderful progress on a novel, because there’s really not too much to do and it’s a good way to get away from the fear,” he says. He wouldn’t go so far as to classify what he’s feeling as fear, though.

“It’s not panic. It’s not terror that I feel, that I think most people feel, it’s a kind of gnawing anxiety where you say to yourself, I shouldn’t go out. If I do go out, I might catch this thing or I might give it to somebody else.”