There’s a reason cell rhymes with hell.On October 1,God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of theplanes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almostbouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He’s just landed a comic bookdeal that might finally enable him to support his family by making artinstead of teaching it. He’s already picked up a small (but expensive!)gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he’ll get forhis boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay’s feeling goodabout the future.That changes in a hurry. The cause of thedevastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, andthe delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone’s cell phone. Clay andthe few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in thepitch-black night of civilization’s darkest age, surrounded by chaos,carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basestnature...and then begins to evolve.There’s really no escapingthis nightmare. But for Clay, an arrow points home to Maine, and as heand his fellow refugees make their harrowing journey north they begin tosee crude signs confirming their direction. A promise, perhaps. Or athreat...There are 193 million cell phones in the UnitedStates alone. Who doesn’t have one? Stephen King’s utterly gripping,gory, and fascinating novel doesn’t just ask the question “Can you hearme now?” It answers it with a vengeance.