Dreamcatcher (2001) is a novel by Stephen King. It is the story of four friends whose lives changed when they saved a Down's-syndrome kid named 'Duddits' from bullies. The four friends, now men with separate lives that are equally screwed-up, meet for their annual hunting trip and end up facing an alien invasion, an obsessive, borderline psychotic army colonel who has patterned himself after Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now, Abraham Kurtz, and one of their own, Gary "Jonesy" Jones, who seems to be under the control of "Mr. Gray", an unpleasant alien who has a nasty agenda of his own planned. In the novel Jonesy, an English professor, was in an automobile mishap similar to King's own in 1999; this book, written longhand, was the author's tool for recuperation. The manuscript took half a year to complete.

The alien invasion begins when Jonesy discovers a man walking in the woods. The man complains of stomach problems due to berries he ate earlier on and Jonesy notices a red mark on his cheek. After Beaver - another of the 4 friends - returns, they watch a large pack of animals who all have marks like the stranger's. When they return, the man is in the washroom, dead. What this fellow and the animals are infected with is a macro-virus that humans have named "The Ripley" after a character in the Aliens series. Most of the friends all discover that the parasite infection causes it host to create a half-grown worm-like alien nicknamed 'Shit-weasels', that incubate fiercly inside the human body, after which they break through, in a very rectal way. The story continues as 2 of the friends are killed and Jonesy suffering from hallucinations created by a full grown Ripley named "Mr. Gray". The whole set of characters then begin a fight to stop the aliens from taking over.

Film

Dreamcatcher was made into a film (released in March 2003), directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring Morgan Freeman (Colonel Abraham Kurtz,), Thomas Jane (Dr. Henry Devlin) and Donnie Wahlberg (Douglas 'Duddits' Cavell).

ISBN numbers

• ISBN 0743211383 (hardcover, 2001)
• ISBN 0743436288 (mass market paperback, 2001)
• ISBN 074343627X (mass market paperback, 2001)
• ISBN 0743221885 (e-book, 2001)
• ISBN 0741003694 (e-book, 2001)
• ISBN 1589456211 (e-book, 2001)
• ISBN 0743467523 (mass market paperback, 2003)