Ben Mears Timeline & Summary

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• Ben is born around 1939.
• Around 1948, his father dies, and his mother has a nervous breakdown. He is sent to his Aunt Cynthia's in Jerusalem's Lot for four years.
• In the Lot, he enters the Marsten House on a dare and sees what he thinks is the ghost of Hubie Marsten riding a giraffe. Okay, Shmoop made up the giraffe part.
• Ben leaves the Lot in 1952.
• Ben's mother dies. Guy can't catch a break.
• Grown up, Ben marries Miranda. He writes a successful novel and a couple of less successful ones.
• Miranda dies in a motorcycle accident. Shmoop mentioned that Ben can't catch a break, right?
• Ben starts researching the Marsten House. He talks to Hubie Marsten's sister-in-law and discovers many disquieting secrets. About giraffes. Seriously this time.
• Okay, Shmoop is still lying about the giraffes.
• Ben returns to Jerusalem's Lot to try to recover from his wife's death and write a book about the Marsten House.
• Ben tries to rent the Marsten House but finds it's been sold. He stays in Eva Miller's boarding house instead.
• Ben meets Susan Norton and they fall in love. Just like that—poof.
• Ralphie Glick disappears. Ben is among those who search for him.
• Susan and Ben have sex in the park at night. Susan's mom would not be happy.
• Ben begins to suspect that something supernatural is happening in 'Salem's Lot. These suspicions are confirmed by Matt Burke, a local English teacher. The two of them begin to plan to fight the vampires.
• Floyd Tibbets, Susan's ex-boyfriend, attacks Ben and puts him in the hospital.
• Ben gets out of the hospital. Mark Petrie, a local boy, appears at the boarding house and tells Ben that Susan has been turned into a vampire. Sleeping with Ben is really dangerous.
• Mark, Ben, Matt's doctor Jimmy Cody, and Father Callahan go to the Marsten House, where they find vampire Susan in her coffin.
• Ben stakes Susan, because you always kill the one you love by stabbing them through the heart.
• Vampires take over the town. Mark and Ben are eventually the only vampire hunters left, and they stake the main vampire Barlow.
• They leave town, eventually going all the way to Mexico.
• Ben sells a manuscript, which, it's implied, is about 'Salem's Lot.
• From newspaper accounts, Ben and Mark realize the vampires have not left 'Salem's Lot with the death of Barlow.
• Mark and Ben return to the Lot and set a fire to burn the vampires out of their hiding places. They then plan to stake them all. Everybody needs a hobby.