The Salem's Lot Character Who Helps Save The Universe In A Completely Different Stephen King Book

This post contains spoilers for "Salem's Lot" and the "Dark Tower" series.

If there's one thing you need to know about Stephen King, it's that the guy can't resist a shared universe. Characters from one book will often cameo in another book, for seemingly no other reason than to provide a fun treat for his constant readers. Fans of "The Shining" in 1986 were stunned when Dick Hallorann popped up for a random section of "It," just as "It" fans were pleasantly surprised when the time-travelling protagonist of "11/22/63" stopped by 1950s Derry to hang out with young Richie and Bev. 

None of these moments hold a candle to what King did with his "Dark Tower" series, however. The meta implications already start to get a bit trippy in the first few books, but by the fifth book in the series, "Wolves of the Calla," King fully breaks the fourth wall. The main group comes across some copies of Stephen King novels, one of them "Salem's Lot." This discovery is particularly troublesome given that a new member of the group is Father Callahan, a major character from "Salem's Lot."

The gang reads a few passages from the book, where the narrator mentions thoughts going on in Callahan's head, thoughts he never shared with anyone in his life. This gives Callahan a major existential crisis: "I can't be in a book," he says. "I am not a fiction ... am I?" The answer: it's complicated. The next book, "Song of Susannah," dives deep into answering this conundrum, with fascinating (and divisive) results. 

But what does this all mean for Callahan specifically? Well, it's complicated...

The 1975 novel "Salem's Lot," along with its subsequent movie/TV adaptations, is an ensemble story about a small town in Maine that is slowly but surely overrun by vampires. As things grow increasingly chaotic, Callahan joins a small group of survivors who set out to kill the head vampire, Barlow. Things don't turn out well for this group, most of whom die or are turned into vampires themselves. Callahan is one of the luckier characters, but he still doesn't leave the story unscathed: Barlow forces Callahan to drink his vampire blood, which doesn't turn Callahan into a vampire but does taint him forever. The priest can no longer enter a church ever again, so he leaves town and never returns. 

In a later 1983 interview, Stephen King mentioned that "Salem's Lot" was his favorite novel he'd written so far, and that he was even planning to write a sequel for it. (This was a rarity for King at the time, who hadn't yet published any direct sequels.) Those plans for a sequel never panned out, but that's because the "Dark Tower" series would soon offer King the chance to follow up on the book's biggest loose end. What happened to poor, defeated Callahan after he left 'Salem's Lot? 

"Wolves of the Calla" dedicates a hundred pages or so to answering this question: Callahan moves to New York, struggles with alcoholism, starts questioning his sexuality, and learns a bit more about how vampires worked. (Turns out there are three types of vampires — it's complicated.) He starts dedicating his life to killing off as many of the lower-rung vampires he can find, only to unwittingly attract the attention of the ominous Crimson King, an evil figure who looms over much of the "Dark Tower" series. Callahan kills himself to avoid becoming a vampire, only to wake up in Calla Bryn Sturgis, a small deserted town in the main gang's world where the majority of the fifth book takes place. 

By the time Callahan meets the main gang in "Wolves of the Calla," it seems like he's in a better place. There aren't many vampires in Calla, after all; okay, so there is an army of robot wolves that swoop in every generation or so to steal half the town's children, but that's pretty tame compared to what 'Salem's Lot had to deal with. As soon as he hears about the gang's quest to find the Dark Tower, he's down to help in any way he can, and becomes an honorary member of the group for the next two novels.

Callahan tragically doesn't survive the series, as he finds himself once again swarmed by a bunch of vampires in the final book. Still, it's not all bad: not only does he die saving the life of Jake Chambers (ensuring the chain of events that help Jake and the others save the universe from total destruction), but he rediscovers his faith. That's important because it was his wavering faith in "Salem's Lot" that got him tainted with vampire blood in the first place. His final moments make for a climactic, cinematic sequence that we can't wait to see Mike Flanagan do justice to in the upcoming TV adaptation of "The Dark Tower." 

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Callahan's arc is that he never gets much closure on his book 5 realization that he might be a fictional character. It's Roland and Eddie who get to talk to Stephen King, who learn that King didn't create them so much as he unwittingly channeled their story into his writing. Because Callahan is separated from them during this section of the story, he doesn't get this sort of closure, so he's forced to make peace with the possibility that his entire life is some words on a page somewhere. Still, this feels like a fitting route for a character whose arc revolves so heavily around his faith, or lack thereof. In the end, Callahan found peace not through having the answers to life told to him, but from finding his faith in his life's meaning entirely on his own.