"Rest Stop" is an 18-page short-story originally published in the December 2003 issue of Esquire magazine, and later included in King's own 2008 collection Just After Sunset.
Plot[]
The story concerns American literature professor John Dykstra, who also writes novels under the pseudonym Rick Hardin, as he drives back to Sarasota from Jacksonville, Florida. Pulling into a Turnpike rest stop for a bathroom break, Dykstra encounters a man beating on his pregnant girlfriend, and is forced to channel his alter ego in order to handle the situation.
Notes[]
The dichotomy of alter-egos, particularly involving writers, is a theme explored in greater depth in King's novel The Dark Half, and King draws largely from his own experiences writing as Richard Bachman.