10 Unfinished Stephen King Novels (That He Should Definitely Finish)
7. The Milkman
The Milkman is a novel fans have, apparently, seen a small part of. Parts, actually. Two excerpts of the work were published in the short story collection Skeleton Crew, under the titles Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1) and Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2).
These excerpts tell the tale of a serial killing milkman, Spike, who make his rounds in a small Pennsylvanian hamlet. In Morning Deliveries, he leaves deadly gifts (poison, spiders) in addition to milk. In the second story, two drunken locals wind up fleeing from Spike on the road, only to have him eventually run them into a ditch (and frame one for the murder of his wife). Interestingly, one of these men seems to know that Spike "kills people."
It's unclear what caused King to give up on the novel, although the now-dated concept of a milkman could cause difficulty were he ever to return to the project. Still, as short stories, they were two rather entertaining tales, and it feels like Spike's story is incomplete at this point. Set in the original time period (there's no point in updating it with the two excerpts so widely available), this story could turn out to be quite the page turner.
Crowdfunding for a dollar baby (short independent film) based on the work began earlier this year.