Cell

A signal broadcast through cell phone networks—called 'the Pulse'—instantly turns everyone receiving a call into a mindless, violent primitive. The transformed 'phone crazies' attack anyone around them and each other before settling into a disturbing collective intelligence. The novel is set in the immediate aftermath of the Pulse in Boston.

King has resisted the 'zombie novel' label, but Cell (2006) operates within that genre's conventions: a pandemic-like event turns the population into mindless attackers, and a small group of survivors must navigate across a transformed America to find their families. The phone-crazy crowd's evolution away from simple zombies into something more organized is the novel's main horror development.

Published in 2006, the novel is a pointed satire of cell phone dependency. King has said he was disturbed by how completely phones had become extensions of people's identities and consciousness—the novel literalizes the fear that the device in your pocket could be used to destroy everything that makes you human.

Yes. A 2016 film starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson was produced from a King screenplay. It received very poor reviews and is generally considered one of the weakest King film adaptations.