15 Stephen King stories ranked from heartwarming to horrifying

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Cover image via Scribner)

3. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

For those of you who shudder at even the hint of a child in peril, here is a spoiler right away: the girl survives.

Of course, like any good novel, the ending isn’t what really matters. Instead, the journey of young Trisha through a remote wilderness is surprisingly compelling. It’s also got just a hint of the good old Stephen King horror, courtesy of a mysterious, maybe-real monster.

The story begins when Trisha’s mom takes her children on a hike, in the wake of a tumultuous divorce. Trisha pauses to relieve herself just off the trail. When she falls down an embankment, Trisha becomes hopelessly lost. Instead of heading back towards the trail and civilization, Trisha inadvertently begins walking deeper into the woods.

Among the scanty supplies in her backpack, Trisha also has a Walkman. As she spends more and more time in the woods, she listens to the radio on her Walkman to keep her spirits up. She listens for either news reports focusing those searching for her, or broadcasts featuring her favorite baseball player, Tom Gordon.

Trisha’s growing exhaustion leads to intense hallucinations. Some of the visions include her family members and Tom Gordon. Others are more sinister, leaving the reader to wonder if some of the strange events are taking place in Trisha’s mind or in the real world around her.

Trisha eventually begins to believe that she is hunted by the God of the Waste, an evil entity that will soon confront her. Trisha is eventually saved, having encountered a bear and believing that she has so earned her escape.