In Stephen King’s novel The Mist, David Drayton and other survivors are trapped in a supermarket when the mist arrives.
David takes his young son Billy to a local supermarket after a severe storm damages the area. A strange mist soon covers the town, and people inside the store discover that dangerous creatures are moving through it. The supermarket becomes both a refuge and a pressure cooker as fear, uncertainty, and competing beliefs divide the customers.
The confined setting allows King to examine how ordinary people respond when familiar institutions stop working. The characters must decide whether staying inside is safer than attempting to leave, even though they do not understand the source of the mist or the creatures within it.
The story is often called a novel, but The Mist is more precisely a novella. It was first published in the 1980 anthology Dark Forces. Frank Darabont’s 2007 film adaptation retained the supermarket setting while changing the ending.