The Running Man
by Stephen King
Contents
…Minus 076 and COUNTING… He went to earth in the Brant Hotel,
Overview
Richards successfully hides in the Brant Hotel under his Springer identity, using anonymity, timing, and a forgettable manner to avoid attention. The chapter emphasizes his exhaustion and his need to obey the Network’s camera requirements while denying the audience useful clues.
By recording himself with his disguise concealed and the room made untraceable, Richards turns the game’s surveillance back into an act of defiance. His immediate victory is small but important: he gains a temporary hiding place and enough safety to sleep.
Summary
After arriving in New York under the forged identity John G. Springer, Ben Richards avoids checking into a hotel during the early-morning hours. Remembering Dan Killian’s warning to stay close to his own people, Richards spends the hours from 3:30 to 9:00 in an all-night perverto show, fighting exhaustion and staying alert after strangers twice wake him by touching him.
In the morning, Richards checks into the Brant Hotel on the East Side, a mediocre hotel near Manhattan’s blighted inner city. He keeps up a meek, forgettable salesman persona for the desk clerk, pays for two days, and goes to a twenty-third-floor room overlooking the East River.
Richards orders a modest breakfast, tips the room-service boy lightly, and examines the Network-issued videotape camera. The instructions show that each cartridge records ten minutes of sound and image, confirming that Richards must continue sending footage to satisfy the rules of the game.
To avoid revealing his location, Richards sets the camera to show only the bed and a blank wall, plans to run the shower to cover street noise, and almost exposes part of his disguise before covering his head with a pillowcase. He starts the recording, faces the camera, insults the unseen audience, then lies down.
Richards intends merely to give the Network an unhelpful tape of himself resting, but his exhaustion overtakes him. By the time the ten-minute cartridge pops out, Richards has fallen asleep.
Who Appears
- Ben RichardsFugitive contestant hiding as John G. Springer, recording a defiant, location-proof tape.
- Dan KillianNetwork executive whose warning about staying near his own people echoes in Richards’s mind.
- Desk clerkHotel employee who checks Richards into the Brant under the Springer alias.
- Room-service boyBrings Richards breakfast and receives a deliberately forgettable small tip.