Few short stories in horror fiction are as terrifying as The Raft. The 9th entry in Stephen King’s second collection, Skeleton Crew, is a simple but bone chilling tale about a floating wooden raft in the middle of a deserted lake and the horrors that befall a group of college friends who swim out to it one October day. Incorporating dread, paranoia, betrayal, and even body horror, the lean and mean story is both heartbreaking and horrifying, ideal for an autumn night huddled around the campfire. Though scary throughout the year, what makes The Raft such a perfect tale for fall is the way King captures the death of summer within its pages. Set on an unseasonably warm day in autumn, four friends learn a harsh lesson about the dangers of holding onto the past. The story’s horror unfolds as they attempt to reject the passage of time and hold onto summer long after the theoretical sun has set.
Randy and Deke are college roommates and friends, though they couldn’t be more different. Randy is quiet and bookish while Deke is an outgoing athlete. After an afternoon spent drinking at home, the boys and their girlfriends, LaVerne and Rachel, reminisce about summers spent at a nearby lake and the raft floating on its deep waters. They share fond memories of sunbathing after the invigorating swim out to its wooden planks and the fun they had on those long ago summer days. The beer and bravado take over and before any of them know it, they’re driving out to the lake for one last taste of summer before giving themselves over to the fall semester. Rushing out the door to recapture their youth, they don’t even bother to bring swimsuits and splash into the chilly water in their underwear. Following Deke’s lead, they barely bother to close all four doors of the car before swimming out to the lake’s lonely raft.
Once in the water, it’s clear to Randy that they’ve made a mistake. The water is freezing and the fun of the adventure wears off quickly. But a burgeoning flirtation between Rachel’s boyfriend Deke and Randy’s girlfriend LaVerne leaves the two jilted lovers more concerned with protecting their fragile relationships than protecting their lives. Randy abandons reason and swims to the raft so he won’t look like a loser in front of his disinterested girlfriend and Rachel reluctantly follows suit. Once they’ve gone too far to turn back, Randy notices an oil slick in the water. The strangely circular patch of glistening black viscous seems to move with intention and follows the swimmers as they close in on the raft. Randy is immediately suspicious, but the others laugh off his concern. It’s not until Rachel is dragged into the water and essentially dissolved by the deadly mass that they begin to understand the dangerous situation they’ve gotten themselves into.
Now wet, freezing, and far from shore, the three remaining friends can see the folly of their actions. They’ve told no one where they were going. They’ve left themselves no way to get back to their car, and they’re in a remote location unlikely to see any visitors. With no one using the lake’s facilities, even a caretaker will have no reason to visit the property until it’s time to prepare for winter’s snow. The unseasonably warm day gives way to night and the temperature begins to drop. They are stuck in a dying season and will likely not survive the transition.
This fading warmth and the slow death of summer is an evolution most of us experience every year. The leaves change from bright green to beautiful shades of red, brown, and yellow, but only because they are dying and falling off the trees. This is the season of harvest because failing to do so will leave the food that sustains us rotting on the vine. Halloween has become a celebration of the macabre and the terrifying, but it originated from an ancient ritual to mark an acceptance of death and decay, natural and often beautiful elements of the cycle of life. We celebrate the reaping of the season in which the bounties of summer are cut down and whisked away because we know that nothing lasts forever and that with every death comes the possibility of new life down the road.
Ostensibly about a killer patch of acidic goo, The Raft is really about the dangers of trying to hold onto the past. As college students, Randy, Deke, LaVerne, and Rachel all sit at one of life’s great transitions, straddling the death of childhood and the birth of adult responsibility. Their impromptu trip is a way to hold onto the carefree nature of high school freedom and stave off the realities of adulthood for just a little longer. Each has their own motivations for entering the water. LaVerne has her sights set on the popular and spontaneous Deke, possibly trying to escape a relationship with the predictable Randy. Seeing this attraction, Randy and Rachel reluctantly dive into the lake to hold onto relationships they can feel slipping away.
Of the four friend’s motivations, Deke’s is perhaps the most relatable and his demise the most disturbing. As a jock, he’s confident in his ability to outswim the oil slick. His brave but foolish plan is to overpower the danger and save the day and he’s so confident in his ability to do so that he forgets to be cautious. Before he can even dive into the water, the creature gets a hold of him. Sneaking up between the boards of the raft, the oil slick grasps his foot and begins to suck his body down through wooden slats. His horrific death is told in gruesome detail as Deke is slowly pulled through a space not big enough to fit his class ring. Slipping off his finger as his body finally disappears, this iconic piece of jewelry is all that’s left of the overconfident boy, a tragic symbol of his lost youth and vitality.
Even the cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Raft could be viewed as an attempt to hold onto the past. The story is brought to life as the second entry in Creepshow 2, the sequel anthology film to the original 1982 collaboration, Creepshow, from horror masters George A. Romero and Stephen King. Creepshow 2 has its ardent defenders and does contain some genuinely spooky moments, but few would rank it above it’s iconic older brother which features classic shorts like Father’s Day, The Crate, and Something to Tide You Over. Of the three vignettes featured in Creepshow 2, “The Raft” is arguably the best, but even it hasn’t aged particularly well.
The only flaw in King’s nearly perfect story occurs when Randy (Daniel Beer) and LaVerne (Jeremy Green) have sex on the raft. The issue of LaVerne’s consent is murky here but their hormones and the comfort of each other’s warm bodies override reason and they succumb to their carnal desires. While this passage smacks of a young writer’s preoccupation with sex, it’s at least understandable. After all, few creatures on earth are more horny than college students. But the adaptation in Creepshow 2 doubles down on the ickiness with an even creepier interpretation. LaVerne is asleep when Randy begins to lift her shirt. She has not consented and rather than have sex, Randy ogles and fondles LaVerne’s body while she sleeps. In both versions of the story, LaVerne pays the price for Randy’s libido. While laying on the raft, the deadly oil slick locks onto her hair through the boards of the raft and begins to dissolve her face. It’s a horrific death for a vilified character who, while not entirely pleasant, definitely doesn’t deserve the fate that befalls her.
The ending of The Raft‘s cinematic adaptation differs slightly from Stephen King’s original story, but in both versions, not one of the four friends survive their ill-advised trip to the lake. Their foolish attempt to hold onto the past has deadly consequences and they fall into the machinery of time as it moves relentlessly forward. And in that way, their horrific fates can serve as a cautionary tale for us all. While many horror fans welcome the arrival of autumn, there is more to the season than giant skeletons, pumpkin spice lattes, and mini Reese’s pumpkins. The emergence of fall signals the passage of time; another journey around the sun and another year full of experience and wisdom. And, yes, another step towards our inevitable deaths. This is the cycle of life and none of us can escape it. Time marches on and if we choose to reject the reality of change, we will end up like Randy, alone on a raft of our own delusion. the