View source for Home Delivery (short story)

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{{Infobox short story | <!-- See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] or [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Books]] -->
| name             = Home Delivery
| title_orig       = <!--N/A-->
| translator       = <!--N/A-->
| author           = [[Stephen King]]
| country          = United States
| language         = English
| series           = 
| genre            = [[Science fiction]] [[horror comedy]] [[short story]]
| published_in     = ''[[Book of the Dead (anthology)|Book of the Dead]]'' <small>(1st release)</small>,<br>''[[Nightmares & Dreamscapes]]''
| publication_type = Anthology
| publisher        = 
| media_type       = Print ([[Paperback]])
| pub_date         = 
| preceded_by      = 
| followed_by      = 
}}
"'''Home Delivery'''" is a short story by American writer [[Stephen King]]. It was first published in the zombie anthology ''[[Book of the Dead (anthology)|Book of the Dead]]'' (1989) and later included in King's short story collection ''[[Nightmares & Dreamscapes]]'' (1993).

==Plot ==
The protagonist of the story is Maddie Pace, a timid and indecisive young woman who lives on a small island named Gennesault (or "Jenny"), off the coast of [[Maine]]. Maddie is both pregnant and a widow, having recently lost her husband in a [[fishing boat]] accident.

After a scattering of initial outbreaks, dead bodies all over the world begin to reanimate ''en masse'' and attack the living. The source of the phenomenon is eventually traced to "[[Wormwood (Bible)|Star Wormwood]]", a bizarre alien construct orbiting above the [[ozone layer]] at the Earth's [[South Pole]]. A space shuttle under joint American-Soviet authority visits the site and promptly meets with disaster.<ref>This scenario is impossible outside of fiction; an object could not physically sit stationary above the Pole while in the type of [[low Earth orbit]] that the Space Shuttle could access.</ref> After further attempts to destroy the object fail, the [[zombie]] plague spreads and [[zombie apocalypse|civilization collapses]].

Jenny's inhabitants gather up all the available firearms to prepare for their own attack, which all too soon erupts from the island's small cemetery. The island's men are forced to destroy their undead loved ones as they crawl out of their graves. The still-moving pieces of the reanimated corpses are then burned with kerosene and the remains plowed underground by a bulldozer. Frank Daggett, the elderly man who did most of the organizing of the successful defense, suffers a fatal heart attack and has himself blasted to pieces so he won't reanimate.

While she is hearing about the battle at the cemetery from her neighbor, Maddie recalls her own confrontation with the animated corpse of her husband, come back to get her from the bottom of the sea. She succeeds in destroying him/it and faces the future, however grim, with renewed confidence and hope.

==Version changes==
There are some differences between the versions published in ''The Book of the Dead'' and ''Nightmares and Dreamscapes'', none of which are significant to the plot. For example, the space expedition in the original publication was [[Soviet Union–United States relations|U.S.-Soviet]]; it is changed to U.S.-Chinese in later publication to reflect the end of the [[Cold War]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-03-23 |title=What was the Cold War—and are we headed to another one? |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cold-war |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210218005146/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cold-war |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 18, 2021 |access-date=2022-07-28 |website=Culture |language=en}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
A 2005 [[animated short]] of the story was directed by [[Elio Quiroga]] and produced by [[Guillermo del Toro]]. It was screened at [[RiverRun International Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0471744/|title=Home delivery: Servicio a domicilio|publisher=[[Internet Movie Database]]|date=|accessdate=2012-04-05}}</ref> The short is a [[Dollar Baby]] film.

"Home Delivery" has been adapted by artist [[Glenn Chadbourne]] for the book ''[[The Secretary of Dreams]]'', a collection of comics based on King's short fiction released by [[Cemetery Dance Publications|Cemetery Dance]] in December 2006.

In September 2009, the story was optioned as a theatrical release and was in pre-production, with John and Paul Buckholts, of Our Thing Productions, writing the screenplay and Japanese director [[Ryuhei Kitamura|Ryuhei Kitamu]] scheduled to direct.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/33441/ryuhei-kitamura-and-stephen-king-making-a-home-delivery|title=Ryuhei Kitamura and Stephen King Making a Home Delivery|publisher=Dread Central|date= 2009-09-10|accessdate=2012-04-05}}</ref>

==Reception==
George Beahm said that the story is "quintessential King" and that King writes the characters with "considerable skill and sympathy".<ref>{{cite book|title=Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work|last=Beahm|first=George|publisher=[[Andrews McMeel Publishing]]|year=1998|page=[https://archive.org/details/stephenkingfromt00beah/page/97 97]|isbn=9780836269147|url=https://archive.org/details/stephenkingfromt00beah|url-access=registration}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Stephen King short fiction bibliography]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.stephenking.com/library/short_story/home_delivery.html "Home Delivery" at StephenKing.com]
* {{ISFDB title|40691|short=yes}}

{{Nightmares & Dreamscapes}}
{{Stephen King}}

[[Category:Short stories by Stephen King]]
[[Category:Horror short stories]]
[[Category:Science fiction short stories]]
[[Category:1989 short stories]]
[[Category:Zombies in comics]]
[[Category:Short stories adapted into films]]
[[Category:Short stories set in Maine]]
[[Category:Zombie short films]]
[[Category:American horror short films]]

{{Wikipedia attribution|original_title=Home Delivery (short story)|access_date=2026-03-03}}