Stephen King

Stephen King had to be on my list.  I mean, I was infected by him back in grade 12, my brother left a copy of "Firestarter" lying around and "bang!"  I became relentless, borrowing every Stephen King book I could from my local library.  I was running into a decided problem by the fall of '79, when I finished grade twelve and went out to work.  The libraries, take time to purchase books from the newly published lists.  So, I started my own library.  I believe I own every King and Bauchman book the dear man wrote.  Stephen King will be required reading in English classes sooner rather than later.  The man's talent won't be forever denied by idiot critics.

Word Processor of the Gods

Desperation/Regulators
John Jude Palencar

Desperation
Desperation is the story of several people traveling along the desolate Highway 50 in Nevada who all get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for his abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to “rescuing” a family from a nonexistent gunman.
The captives quickly realize that something is very wrong with Entragian, as his bizarre statements and mannerisms soon escalate to brutal assaults and murder. They come to understand that he is possessed by an ancient evil, a supernatural entity which calls itself Tak, that had been imprisoned in an old abandoned mineshaft until recent activity by a local mining company unearthed it. Tak has the ability to control the local desert wildlife, such as vultures, snakes, spiders, scorpions, and coyotes, and can also take more direct control of human hosts, though such manifestation causes rapid deterioration of the host's body. As such, Tak needs to frequently find new hosts to inhabit in order to travel outside of the ini, a well in an underground chamber, and Tak’s entryway into this world. The story suggests that Tak is actually a physical being trapped in another dimension, but can send its spirit into our world through this opening.
Among the travelers is a boy named David Carver, who is able to commune with and receive guidance from God. This aspect brings a philosophical, religious depth unseen in some of King's other, earlier works.
As the survivors eventually manage to escape the clutches of Entragian/Tak, their first inclination is to escape Desperation, until David reveals that it is God's will that they confront Tak and seal the ini again. (Desperation is a good read.  The movie was actually quite well done.)

Desperation
"The Sheriff"
Don Maitz

Regulators (as Richard Bachman)
The story takes place in the fictional town of Wentworth, Ohio. On Poplar Street, an autistic boy named Seth has gained the power to control reality through the help of a being known as Tak. Soon, Poplar Street begins to change shape, transforming into a wild west caricature based on what Seth has seen on his television. Meanwhile, the other residents of the street are being attacked by the many beings that Seth's imagination is creating, due to Tak's control over them. These residents are forced to work together to stop Seth and Tak from completely transforming the world around them and stop Tak before he kills anyone else. (This book was a rollercoaster ride, once it started, you had to ride it to the end.)



Talisman w/Peter Straub

Black House w/Peter Straub
Rick Berry

More "Black House" Art by Rick Berry

Talisman w/Peter Straub
This book charts the adventure of a twelve year old boy named Jack Sawyer. The young hero sets out from the East Coast of the USA in a bid to save his mother - who is dying from cancer - by finding an artifact called 'The Talisman'.  (terrific tale, I've read it several times.)
Black House w/Peter Straub
Twenty years earlier, in (The Talisman), a boy named Jack Sawyer travelled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her "twinner" (a similar person in this other world) from premature and agonizing deaths.
Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to unlock those memories. However, a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish. The new killer is dubbed "The Fisherman." Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. The investigation, which takes place on several levels and in at least two parallel universes, reawakens Jack to his previous experiences. (it was good to revisit Jack Sawyer even under the gory circumstances)

Novels

Carrie
Ron Walotsky

Salem's Lot
Tim White

Rage (as Richard Bachman )

The Shining
Dave Christensen

The Stand
John Cayea

The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman )

The Dead Zone

Firestarter
Michael Whelan

Roadwork (as Richard Bachman )

Cujo

The Running Man (as Richard Bachman )

Cycle of the Werewolf

Pet Sematary
Linda Fennimore

Christine

Thinner (as Richard Bachman )

The Eyes of the Dragon

It
(not the cover per se, but Tim Curry did a wonderful job portraying Pennywise in the Mini Series)

The Tommyknockers

Misery

The Dark Half

Needful Things
Rob Wood

Gerald's Game

Dolores Claiborne
Rob Wood

Insomnia
Steve Crisp

Rose Madder

The Green Mile

Bag of Bones

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Dreamcatcher
Cliff Nielsen

From a Buick 8
Mark Stutzman

Cell
Mark Stutzman

Lisey's Story
Mark Stutzman
(inside cover)

Blaze (as  Richard Bauchman)

Duma Key
Mark Stutzman

Under the Dome
Platinum FWD

Carrie
The book uses fictional documents, such as book excerpts, news reports, and hearing transcripts, to frame the story of Carietta "Carrie" White, a teenage girl from Chamberlain, Maine. Carrie's mother, Margaret, a fanatical Christian fundamentalist, has a vindictive and unstable personality, and over the years has ruled Carrie with a proverbial rod of iron. (What can I say?  The book is good, the movie was credible.)
Salem's Lot
Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew up in the (fictional) town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Cumberland County, Maine (or “The Lot”, as the locals call it), has returned home following the death of his wife. Once in town he meets local high school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan Norton, a young college graduate. However, his arrival back to The Lot is disrupted when a horde of vampires, led by the evil Kurt Barlow, start taking control of the town. (Truthfully, I don't like vampire stories.  I find them boringly similar to each other. The movie, with David Soul, was a complete disaster.)
Rage (as Richard Bachman)
The narrator, high school senior Charlie Decker, details his growing rage against the authority figures which populate his world. He finally snaps and hits one of his teachers with a heavy wrench he had taken to carrying in his pocket; after much wrangling and discussion, the incident was dropped and he was allowed to return to school. His mental problems worsen upon return to school and he snaps during a meeting with the school principal. This time, he storms out of the meeting and retrieves a gun from his locker. After setting the contents of the locker on fire, he returns to his classroom and shoots Mrs. Underwood, his math teacher. The fire sets off an alarm and the school begins to be evacuated. Charlie then shoots another teacher, Mr. Vance, after Vance enters the classroom to tell the students to evacuate. The school empties and the police and media arrive on the scene.
This begins a long discussion with his hostages/fellow students. Among many other things, Charlie says that he honestly does not know why he chose to do these things and claims that if he did know, he probably wouldn't do them. While toying with various authority figures who attempt to negotiate with him, he turns the class into a sort of therapy group, causing his schoolmates to semi-voluntarily tell embarrassing secrets about themselves and each other. Interspersed throughout are narrative flashbacks to Charlie's own unpleasant childhood and adolescence, particularly his horrid relationship with his father, an abusive alcoholic.
He finally comes to the realization that only one of the other students is really being held there against his will: a seeming "big man on campus" named Ted Jones, who is harboring his own unpleasant secrets. The other students attack Jones, leaving him battered and catatonic, and file out of the school. When the police enter the classroom, the now-unarmed Charlie deliberately makes a wild "threatening" gesture and is shot three times. He survives and is committed to an insane asylum, where he finishes telling his tale to whomever he is telling it, saying it is time to turn out the light.   (This was a quick read.  Not bad, but not great.)
The Shining
Jack Torrance is a temperamental writer who is trying to rebuild his life (and his family's) after his alcoholism and volatile temper cause him to lose his teaching position at a prestigious New England preparatory school. Having given up drinking, he accepts a job as a winter caretaker at a large, isolated Colorado resort hotel with a gory history. (This one's up there as one of my favourite King books.  The movie with Jack Nicholson . . . well, let's face it, Jack Nicholson stole the show . . . the story somehow got lost along the way.  The Mini Series was much better, but it tried too hard to make Jack Torrence a hero.)
The Stand
Illustrations by Bernie Wrightson
The Stand is a post-apocalyptic science fiction / horror / adventure novel by Stephen King originally published in 1978. It re-works the scenario in King’s earlier short story, "Night Surf" (included in the short story collection Night Shift).  I can't say anything about "The Stand" that hasn't been said before and better than I can say it.  I usually re-read it once every year or so.  The Mini Series was okay, but come on!  Molly Ringwald?  That girl can't act her way out of a paper bag.
The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman)
One hundred teenage boys (picked at random from a large pool of applicants) are chosen to participate in an annual walking contest called "The Long Walk". Each walker must maintain a constant speed of no less than four miles an hour or risk being shot by soldiers monitoring the event.  (This story hit me like a sledge hammer over the head.  Sincerely, I was reeling after I finished it.)
The Dead Zone
Johnny Smith is injured in an accident and enters a coma for nearly five years. When he emerges, he can see horrifying secrets, but he cannot identify all the details because of an area of his brain being dead.   This story is right up there with "The Stand" and "It" in my opinion.  Christopher Walkin's portrayal of Johnny Smith in the movie deserved better credit that it received.
Firestarter
The title character of Firestarter is Charlene "Charlie" McGee, a young girl with pyrokinesis — the ability to create fire with the power of her mind, along with other psychic powers. Charlie is a mutant; she was born with her pyrokinetic talent due to her parents' involvement in an experimental drug trial in college.  (As mentioned earlier, it was the first Stephen King book that I ever read.  He does tend to write stories that you can't put down until you're finished, doesn't he?)  The movie wasn't a patch on the book.
Roadwork (as Richard Bachman)
The story takes place in an unnamed city in the 1970s. Barton George Dawes, grieving over the death of his son and the disintegration of his marriage, is driven off the deep end when he finds that both his home and his business are going to be condemned and demolished to make way for the construction of a new interstate highway.  I really felt for Dawes.  I can't see myself ever going off the deep end that far . . . but who knows?  I guess that's what makes it so scarey.
Cujo
The book tells the story of the middle-class Trenton family and rural Camber clan in Castle Rock, Maine. Marital and financial difficulties of the mundane sort plague disgraced advertising man Vic Trenton and his adulterous wife Donna. Their domestic problems are dwarfed by mortal danger when Donna and her four-year-old son Tad are terrorized by a rabid St. Bernard named Cujo.   Okay, the book was great and again the stupid movie was a disapointment.  Why let the child live in the movie? 
The Running Man (as Richard Bachman)
Ben Richards needs money to get medicine for his gravely ill daughter Cathy. Not wanting his wife Sheila to continue prostitution to pay the bills, Richards turns to the Games Federation. After rigorous physical and mental testing, Richards is selected for the most popular game, The Running Man.   This story was very satisfying. I loved the fact that he died taking out the stupid people responsible for the damned show.   Don't talk to me about the Arnold Schwartzennegar disaster -- it destroyed the integrity of the story completely.  Someone ought to have their face slapped.
Cycle of the Werewolf
Illustrations by Bernie Wrightson
Set in the fictional small town of Tarker's Mills, Maine, a werewolf is viciously killing people and animals and strange incidents takes place every full moon. Marty Coslaw, an eleven-year-old boy in a wheelchair, goes back and forth from the terrifying incidents to his normal day-to-day life.  (I can't really remember reading this . . . I'm as interested in werewolves as I am in vampires, although I'm positive the movie, "Silver Bullet," with Cory Haim, resembles it very little.)

Pet Sematary
Louis Creed, a doctor from Chicago, moves to a large house near the small town of Ludlow with his wife Rachel and their two young children. From the moment they arrive the family runs into trouble but fortunately their new neighbor, Jud Crandall, is there to help. When their cat dies, Jud takes Louis to an ancient Indian burial ground, and when they bury the cat there, it comes back to life. After Louis' son is accidentally killed, Louis uses the burial ground to bring him back to life, but soon finds out that his reborn son is actually a hell-spawn inside his dead son's body.  It was good enough for what it is, but it didn't thrill me.  Let's not talk about the dumb movie, okay?
Christine
The story revolves around teenage nerd Arnie Cunningham and his 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury, dubbed "Christine" by the previous owner. The story is set in Libertyville (supposedly a suburb of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania between the summer of 1978 and the spring of 1979. Christine seems to have a mind of her own and wants to get rid of anyone who stands between her and Arnie.  I have got to admit to an embarrassing truth.  I refused to buy this book when it came out because it was about  a car.  The movie helped me hold on to my prejudices . . . however,  I recently bought a copy.  The book was great.
Thinner (as Richard Bachman)
An obese lawyer named William "Billy" Halleck has just been through an agonizing court case in which he was charged with vehicular manslaughter. He received a handjob from his wife Heidi while driving, causing him to run over an old woman who was part of a group of traveling Gypsies. Halleck is acquitted thanks to the judge, who happens to be a close friend of Billy's. As Halleck leaves the courthouse, the old woman's ancient father strokes his cheeks and whispers one word to him: "Thinner." After this, Halleck starts magically losing weight at a dangerous rate. He tries to get the curse lifted by finding the gypsy and making up for his wrongdoing.
This was a total hoot!  Took a couple hours to read, but what a bang for the time spent.  The movie wasn't half bad, either.
The Eyes of the Dragon
This book is a work of classic fantasy with a clearly established battle between good and evil and magic playing a lead role. It is told from the perspective of an unnamed story-teller, who speaks casually and frankly to the reader, frequently adding his own commentary on character's motivations.   (This was a wonderful tale.  It's one of the first "real" books that my children read once they got to the point of reading novels - "The Thief of Always" by Clive Barker is another one.  Randall Flagg makes an appearance and it's a different  take on the "fairytale" genre having the prince locked in a tower, rather than the princess.)
It
"It" takes place in two separate time periods: In 1985, when the book was first published, and the main characters are adults, and in 1958, when they are eleven years old. The seven self-proclaimed members of the "Losers' Club" are united in seeking refuge from a gang of bullies led by Henry Bowers. The children each individually discover the existence of a terrifying, child-murdering, shape-changing monster.  (Sorry everyone, but "It" is the number one book on my list of favourite Stephen King books.  The Mini Series was okay . . . but limited as it was for TV and all that.) 
The Tommyknockers
While maintaining a horror style, the novel is more of an excursion into the realm of science fiction for King, as the residents of the Maine town of Haven gradually fall under the influence of a mysterious object buried in the woods.  Tommyknockers is my husband's favourite King book.  I've read it a few times.  I find it engrossing despite the main character being a poet.  The mini series was okay but I really hate it when they change the endings.
Misery
Paul Sheldon is the author of a best-selling series of romance novels featuring the Victorian-era heroine Misery Chastain. Paul is rescued from a car wreck by a woman named Annie Wilkes, who lives nearby and claims to be Sheldon's #1 fan. Wilkes - an experienced nurse - feeds and bathes Sheldon and splints his broken legs. When the final book of the Misery series comes out, Annie doesn't like the ending where Misery dies and forces Sheldon to write a comeback for Misery...or else.   Wow.  I'm sorry, but I giggled my way through this one.  The subject matter was not funny, but it did seem to be a terror that pertained to famous writers, personally.  The movie was very well done.
The Dark Half
Thad Beaumont is an author and recovering alcoholic who lives in the tiny Maine town of Ludlow (the setting of Pet Sematary and about an hour away from the fictional town of Castle Rock, often used in King's novels). His own books are not very successful, but under the pen name George Stark, Thad writes gritty crime novels about a violent killer named Alexis Machine, which are very popular and successful.  I didn't find this story very memorable.
Needful Things
Set in the small fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, a new shop named "Needful Things" opens, to the curiosity of the townspeople. One by one, they start to come into the shop, drawn there by something they want more than anything else.  Great story and the movie was tongue-in-cheek black humour at its best.
Gerald's Game
Jessie Burlingame and her husband Gerald are simply trying to spice up their sex life with a little bondage game. But the game turns into a nightmare for Jessie, handcuffed to the bedposts and forced to face her deepest fears.  Funny thing about this book, my husband bought it for me when it first came out, I devoured it.  I tried to reread it a few months back and couldn't get farther than half way . . . of course, I'm just a tad older than the main character.  I suppose, I have a different perspective now.
Dolores Claiborne
Dolores Claiborne decides to tell the truth when her longtime employer, Vera Donovan, dies under suspicious circumstances. Including the mysterious death of her husband during a solar eclipse thirty years before.  Has a brief tie-in with Gerald's Game - the eclipse.  Terrific story.  Great movie, although, the actress playing Dolores' daughter . . . I just wanted to punch her head.
Insomnia
Set in Derry, Maine, this novel features Ralph Roberts, who falls victim to insomnia, which gives him the remarkable ability to see visions of his fellow townspeople turning into demons. He knows he's not dreaming. He knows he's not crazy, because someone else sees what he sees. But knowing doesn't tell him how to stop the visions coming true.   Confession time again.  This is my second favourtie King book.  It's a thick book, but my children and husband were a little neglected until I finished it.
Rose Madder
Rose Daniels has been dreaming away her life. One single drop of blood is enough to rouse her from her sleep, and sends her on a journey hundreds of miles away from her abusive cop husband, Norman. She begins to find happiness in her new home, until Norman figures out where she is.   This was a great read.  I don't know why it gets such a bad rap.  Perhaps, most people would rather not have spousal abuse shoved in their face, where they have to see it.  Rose Daniels, like most battered women, doesn't believe she's worth very much, but just like, Rose, they may have an important destiny, not only in this world but in others.
The Green Mile
The Green Mile is Cold Mountain Penitentiary's Death Row. Paul Edgecombe has seen many men come and go through E Block, but none quite like John Coffey. The giant, sentenced to death for a horrifying crime, reveals a fascinating truth to Paul, shaking the very foundations of his world.   Rant time -- blank, blank, blankety-blank, stupid serial novel!  I like to read my books all in one go, thank you very much.  Other than that, it was a great story.  Movie was good too (Tom Hanks, how could it be bad?)
Bag of Bones
After the sudden death of his wife, author Mike Noonan is plagued by writer's block. With his dreams haunted by the summer house the couple shared, he reluctantly returns to the isolated lakeside retreat. There he finds his once beloved town in the grip of a powerful millionaire, who twists it to his own purpose, attempting to take his granddaughter away from her widowed mother. As Mike becomes drawn into their struggle he falls in love with both of them and is further drawn into the mystery of this ghostly town.   Sorry, but this story dragged . . . I barely managed to finish it.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Patricia "Trisha" McFarland, a Red Sox fan, gets lost in the woods during a camping trip toilet break. As the days pass, she wanders deeper and deeper into the impregnable forest, home to the God of the Lost. To comfort and guide her, her idol, Tom Gordon, a Red Sox player, occasionally speaks to her through her walkman.   My husband bought it for me after I told  him not to bother.  I read it in a couple of hours.  Again, I couldn't put the damned thing down.  It was a lot better than I thought it would be.
Dreamcatcher
Four lifelong friends gather in the woods for an annual hunting trip. When younger, they were bound together forever by an act of bravery involving a fifth friend, whose influence gave them special powers. The trip is disrupted when a stranger wanders into camp, muttering about light in the sky. Before long, they find themselves pitted against an alien invasion and must draw on their old friend's strength once again to fight for their lives.   Good enough, but a little gross for my tastes.  Didn't like the movie, either.
From a Buick 8
When a mysterious vehicle is left at a Pennsylvania gas station, it becomes the property of Troop D. Officers soon realize this is no ordinary car. The steering wheel doesn't move, the buttons and knobs on the dashboard can't be pushed or turned, and it can't even be started. They realize there is much more to the car than it seems, as the horror unfolds through two decades of day-to-day Troop D life.  Ah, hello?  Don't these idiots read Stephen King?  They have a Lowman car!
Cell
Clayton Riddell is in Boston to sell his comic books when something horrifying happens. Anyone who uses a cell phone becomes insane and violent, attacking anyone around them. Clay must, with the help of survivors Tom and Alice, return to Maine to find out if his wife and young son are among the survivors or the monsters.   When I read this book I thought gleefully  to myself, "Thank God!  He's Back!"  This is quintessential Stephen King.
Lisey's Story
Widow Lisey Landon has finally gotten around to cleaning out her dead writer husband's study. The cleaning stirs up old memories, many of which she has blocked out and fights to keep blocked. But those memories become vitally important as her life is threatened. She must use every ounce of courage and willpower to go "beyond the purple" and remember.   I don't know why I had a hard time with this book, maybe it was her husband's absolutely horrible childhood.  He was probably wise not to have children . . . but I have four children and children really are a gift.  I guess that was it.  The poor woman, no children.  It was a good read despite my personal difficulties with the subject matter.
Blaze
The story concerns Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. (known as "Blaze" for short, thus the title), a mentally challenged small-time con artist who kidnaps a millionaire's infant child, in the hopes of fulfilling the dreams of George, Blaze's deceased best friend and partner in crime.   I felt so sorry for Clayton Blaisdell.   At least, he did the right thing and saved the baby's life.
Duma Key
How to Draw a Picture
Start with a blank surface. It doesn't have to be paper or canvas, but I feel it should be white. We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can't remember.
How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I’ve come to believe.
Imagine a little girl, hardly more than a baby. She fell from a carriage almost ninety years ago, struck her head on a stone, and forgot everything. Not just her name; everything! And then one day she recalled just enough to pick up a pencil and make that first hesitant mark across the white. A horizon-line, sure. But also a slot for blackness to pour through.
Still, imagine that small hand lifting the pencil... hesitating... and then marking the white. Imagine the courage of that first effort to re-establish the world by picturing it. I will always love that little girl, in spite of all she has cost me. I must. I have no choice. Pictures are magic, as you know.
My Other Life
My name is Edgar Freemantle. I used to be a big deal in the building and contracting business. This was in Minnesota, in my other life. I learned that my-other-life thing from Wireman. I want to tell you about Wireman, but first let's get through the Minnesota part.
Gotta say it: I was a genuine American-boy success there. Worked my way up in the company where I started, and when I couldn’t work my way any higher there, I went out and started my own. The boss of the company I left laughed at me, said I'd be broke in a year. I think that's what most bosses say when some hot young pocket-rocket goes off on his own.
For me, everything worked out. When Minneapolis–St. Paul boomed, The Freemantle Company boomed. When things tightened up, I never tried to play big. But I did play my hunches, and most played out well. By the time I was fifty, Pam and I were worth forty million dollars. And we were still tight. We had two girls, and at the end of our particular Golden Age, Ilse was at Brown and Melinda was teaching in France, as part of a foreign exchange program. At the time things went wrong, my wife and I were planning to go and visit her.
Another great book.  I've already read it twice.
Under the Dome
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a selectwoman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry.
But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.  I can't decide which is the most terrifying aspect of this novel - the evil that people do to each other or the idea of other-worldly intelligences who view us as "unreal."

Collections

Night Shift
Don Brautigam

Night Shift
"Jerusalem's Lot"
Jerusalem's Lot is an epistolary short story set in the fictional town of Preacher's Corners, Maine, in 1850. It is told through a series of letters and diary entries, mainly those of its main character, the aristocrat Charles Boone, though his manservant, Calvin McCann, also occasionally assumes the role of narrator.
 "Graveyard Shift"
A young drifter has been working at a decrepit textile mill in a small town in Maine when his boss, a cruel taskmaster, recruits him and others to assist with a massive cleaning effort. The basement of the old mill has been abandoned for decades, and over the years, a monumental infestation of rats has taken hold. Some have even gained rudimentary flight. They eventually come across a sub-basement, locked from the inside, that harbors something more terrifying and hideous than any of the men could have dreamed - a cow-sized mother rat with no eyes or legs, only breeding more rats.  Creepy little story, creepier, though cheesey movie.
 "Night Surf"
The brief story follows one evening with a group of austere teens, survivors of a catastrophic virus called A6, or "Captain Trips", that has wiped out virtually the entire population. A reference is made to a previous virus called A2, which the teens had all survived, leading them to think they were immune to A6's lethal effect. Toward the end of the story, some of them begin to show symptoms of A6, and they realize that perhaps their exposure to A2 did not in fact grant them immunity to this deadlier virus.  Couldn't happen to a better group of rejects.
 "I Am the Doorway"
This story is a crippled ex-astronaut's account of the terrifying change he undergoes after being exposed to an alien mutagen during a space mission to Venus. The change takes the form of numerous tiny eyes that cover his hands. These eyes act as the titular "doorway" for an alien intelligence, allowing it to see into our world, which, the man perceives, it fears and hates intensely.. . Strangely enough, this story reminds me of a short story by Gordon R Dickson that escapes me a the moment . . . it'll come to me, eventually.
 "The Mangler"
The Mangler is set in an American town, and the action largely takes place in an industrial laundry. Talk about machines with an evil heart!
 "The Boogeyman"
The majority of the story takes place in a psychiatrist's office, where a man comes to talk about the "murders" of his three young children.
The story's protagonist comes across as paranoid and possibly insane as he describes the circumstances surrounding the death of his children. His first two children die mysteriously of apparently unrelated causes when left alone in their bedrooms. The only commonality to their deaths is a crack in the closet door that the protagonist is certain he had closed when he left his children. His wife becomes pregnant approximately a year after their second child's death, at which time the family is living in a different house far away from the location of the original deaths. Their first year in the new house was happy and without incident, but not long after, the protagonist's mother in law falls ill. The wife leaves to care for her mother, and the protagonist and his son are left alone. It soon becomes apparent that whatever had killed the first two children has managed to track down the protagonist's new house, and after a brief period of lingering in the closets, this creature (which is now identified as the boogeyman) attacks the protagonist's son. The father runs into the son's room as the monster is approaching his child, but rather than confront the creature and save his son, he flees to a local 24 hour diner. As the man finishes his story, the psychologist recommends he make an appointment for further discussion, but upon entering the lobby, the protagonist finds it deserted. Returning to the room in which he told his story, the protagonist finds the psychologist taking off a mask to reveal that he is in actuality the boogeyman that had killed his son.  Sometimes children are telling the truth and parents should listen as carefully as possible.
 "Gray Matter"
The story, told from the perspective of an older "local" man, begins as he is sitting around at a convenience store with a group of his friends during a heavy snowstorm. A young boy runs in, deathly afraid. The men recognize him as the son of Richie Grenadine, a local man who was injured some time ago in a work accident, and was given lifetime worker's compensation. With no need to support himself, Richie became a recluse, rarely seen outside the confines of his apartment except to purchase the cheapest of beer, although lately, he had been sending his son out to purchase his beer for him.
After speaking privately with Richie's boy, the owner (Henry) and a few other regulars decide to take the beer to Richie personally. On their way, Henry relates some of the terrifying experiences the kid had told him — of how one day his father drank a "bad" can of beer and since has been slowly transforming into an inhuman blob-like abomination that detests light and craves warm beer. Spying on him one night, the boy saw his father eat a dead cat, causing him to finally seek help.
Arriving at Richie's home, the men confront him from behind his closed door, demanding that he come out and show himself. The odor pouring out from behind the door convinces the group that Richie was eating more than dead cats, speculating that he may be responsible for a recent rash of missing people, as well.
The men are horrified when Richie opens the door, and shambles out. No longer resembling anything human, Richie is more fungus than man. Worse yet, he appears to be in the process of dividing. The rest of the men run off, as Henry stands his ground, firing his pistol at the creature.
The story ends with the narrator calculating the exponential growth the creature is capable of, as they sit at the convenience store, waiting to find out who survived, Henry or the creature.  Loved it.
 "Battleground"
Renshaw is a professional hit-man who returns from his assassination of a toy-maker to find a package delivered to his penthouse apartment. The package contains a G.I. Joe Vietnam Footlocker, sent to him by the mother of the toy-maker he had recently killed. When he opens the package he finds that the toy soldiers are alive with working copies (albeit miniature) of weapons, jeeps, and helicopters. To Renshaw's surprise the tiny soldiers begin to attack him. At one point, the toy soldiers even offer him the chance to surrender on a small sheet of paper passed under a door, Renshaw does not and is then attacked with more force. Renshaw plots to attack the soldiers with a Molotov cocktail constructed from a bottle of lighter fluid, but before the cocktail detonates the entire apartment explodes, and kills him. At the very end of the story,a couple finds Renshaw's bloody t-shirt,and the other contents of the footlocker are revealed, including one made-to-scale thermonuclear weapon, which was what ultimately killed Renshaw.  I love it when a bad man gets what he deserves!
 "Trucks"
The story's nameless narrator and a handful of strangers find themselves trapped together in a freeway truck stop diner after semi-trailers and other large trucks are suddenly brought to independent life by an unknown force and proceed to gruesomely kill every human in sight. As the story begins, a salesman named Snodgrass cracks under the strain, attempts to flee across the stop's parking lot and is knocked into a drainage ditch, taking hours to die. The situation worsens when the diner's power goes out, and the narrator's attempt to collect any available drinking water ends in near-disaster, but then a note of hope appears when the trucks begin to run out of gas. An enormous semi-truck noses up to the diner and demands, via morse code blasts from its horn, that the humans start pumping fuel. The narrator is out-voted when he suggests they comply with this, and a bulldozer arrives and proceeds to attack the diner. The narrator and a teenager named Jerry destroy the dozer with improvised Molotov cocktails, but the diner is half-destroyed and Jerry is killed. The remaining three humans surrender and, taking turns, start pumping the gas into the mile-long string of waiting trucks. As he toils, the narrator thinks that perhaps this will last only until the trucks rust and fall apart, but he then has a grim vision of forced assembly lines churning out new generations of trucks, and the entire world flattened out and remade in its new masters' image. The story ends as a pair of planes fly overhead, and the author laments that they probably are unmanned.  Yes, this is the story that spawned that abortion of a movie with Emilio Estevez, Maximum Overdrive.
 "Sometimes They Come Back"
Two brothers are walking to the library when they are attacked by a gang of local greasers. One brother is killed while the other gets away. Many years later, Jim, the survivor of the attack, takes a job as an English teacher at a high school. Students from his class are murdered and are replaced by students that resemble the greasers that attacked him years before.
As it turns out, the greasers were killed in a car accident after they attacked the boys. They have been brought back to life to finish their business with Jim. After they kill his wife, Jim uses a ritual to summon a demon (taking the form of his slain brother) to kill the greasers. Because he deals with the powers of darkness, things turn out less well than he had hoped. The ending implies that the forces he summoned to dispatch the greasers may also be just as sinister and difficult to rid himself of as the greasers themselves were (the demon posing as his brother states "I'll be back, Jim").  Making deals with the devil never work out.
 "Strawberry Spring"
An unnamed narrator sees the words "Springheel Jack" in a newspaper, which leads him to recount a time, about eight years ago, when he was at New Sharon College. His recollections are nostalgic, almost melancholy. It was 1968 when the strawberry spring, a ‘false’ spring, much like an Indian summer, broke. It brought a thick fog, which covered the campus at nighttime, providing perfect cover for a serial killer called ‘Springheel Jack.’ The body of a girl was found in a parking lot, the first murder in a series. Several more students are murdered during the strawberry spring, and the narrator describes the reactions of the college community throughout this time; the contradicting rumors that are spread about the victims ("she was ugly but cute... she was a lesbian who had been murdered by her boyfriend"), the blind panic of police and security guards (including a humorous anecdote about a student who passed out in the parking lot, only to be bagged and taken to the morgue by the security guard who found him) and the feelings of suspicions among students. No reliable suspects are found.
Eight years later, a new strawberry spring has arrived again, and so has "Springheel Jack", who took another victim at New Sharon College the previous night. The narrator can’t remember where he was last night - the last thing he remembers is turning on his headlights to find his way through the "lovely creeping fog"
 "The Ledge"
King employs a first person narrator and opens with the protagonist (named "Norris") in the clutches of a wealthy, cruel criminal overlord ("Cressner") intent on exacting revenge on Norris, who has been having an affair with his wife. Instead of killing him outright, Cressner reveals his penchant for striking wagers, and offers a chilling ultimatum: if Norris is able to circumnavigate the titular 5-inch ledge surrounding the multistory building which houses Cressner's penthouse, he can have Cressner's wife, along with a large sum of money, no strings attached. If he refuses to take the bet, he'll be framed for heroin possession and never see his lover again.
Seemingly without any other choice, Norris accepts the wager, and proceeds to carefully make his way around the building's cold, windswept exterior. Norris encounters multiple obstacles, including an obstinate pigeon. The narrator completes the harrowing ordeal, only to discover that Cressner had already murdered his unfaithful wife. Mad with rage, Norris overpowers Cressner and his bodyguard and takes the bodyguard's gun, and turns the tables on him, proposing to spare his life if only he is able to complete a trip around the ledge. However, as Cressner starts out, Norris reveals to the reader that he has been known to welch on bets...  One, I don't like aldultery, but still, this guy, Cressner deserves what happens to him.
 "The Lawnmower Man"
Harold Parkette hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn. Conversing with the serviceman who arrives to do the job, Parkette is unsettled to hear him use the expression, "by Circe." The lawnmower man eventually deploys an "aged red power mower" which autonomously mows the lawn while he crawls in its trail on all fours, naked, devouring the grass. The lawnmower then chases after a mole, chopping it up, before returning to its track. The lawnmower man eats the shredded mole. It emerges that the lawnmower man is working for the god Pan. At this point, Parkette tries to call the police. The lawnmower man notices this, and directs the mower into the house, chewing up the carpet and a coffee table. Parkette tries to escape, but the mower catches up with him on the lawn and runs him over like the mole earlier. The story ends as the police discover Parkette's entrails behind the house in a birdbath. And absolutely nothing like the movie, which, as far as I can see, only had the title in common with the story.
 "Quitters, Inc."
Richard ("Dick") Morrison, is a middle-aged man who would like to quit smoking. A friend advises Morrison to go to Quitters, Inc., the firm that had he says helped him kick the habit. The firm is said to have a 98% success rate with their clients and guarantees that once the person has enrolled for treatment, he will never smoke again.
Morrison finds out about the brutal enforcement methods used by Quitters, Inc. from Vic Donatti, Morrison's quitting counselor. These include administering non-fatal electric shocks of increasing intensity to his family members if he is caught smoking a cigarette, and eventually, with enough infractions, administering shocks to him as well. Donatti also reveals that after the ninth infraction, Morrison's mentally disabled son's arms would be broken. Finally, if Morrison commits a tenth infraction, Donatti says, placing a gun on his desk, Morrison would become part of "the unregenerate two percent." "But even the unregenerate two percent never smoke again. We guarantee it."
With some difficulty, Morrison is able to quit, after only one slip, which results in his wife being abducted and shocked. But she understands- she too wants Morrison to quit smoking, so she forgives him. Morrison, however, now must deal with other aspects of the firm's strict methods. His counselor gives him a prescription for some diet pills, and said that if he does not lose the weight he has gained as consequence of quitting smoking, then his wife's finger will be cut off. Morrison loses the weight, but later learns that the friend who sent him to Quitters, Inc. had not been so lucky... His wife is missing a finger.  I loved this story!  I smoke.  I've become and expert at quitting (I do it so often), I'm glad these people only exist in a story.
 "I Know What You Need"
Told from the perspective of a popular, college-age girl named Elizabeth Rogan, the premise of this story concerns her sudden, unexpected attraction to a social outcast named Ed Hamner, Jr., whose paranormal ability to perceive what will make any person happy has not resulted in his own happiness. It is revealed through the course of the tale that he has been secretly craving Elizabeth's love since childhood, and has employed a variety of black magic rituals and charms to murder her lover and manipulate her emotions.
While this story flirts with casting a sympathetic light on Ed's character (describing his sad childhood, and his inability to please his parents despite his amazing gift), when his plans are ultimately brought to ruin, he is revealed less as a product of anti-elitism and more as a childish, murderous coward, morally corrupt and self-serving.
 "Children of the Corn"
While driving in rural Nebraska, a couple, Burt and Vicky Robeson, on their way across America to California in an attempt to save their marriage, run over the body of a young boy who was killed and thrown onto the road. Looking for the authorities, they take the body on to the next spot on the map; Gatlin, a small, isolated town that seems to be abandoned. Too late, Burt learns that years previously the town's children murdered everyone after embracing the bloody pseudo-Christian cult of an evil being that lurks in the corn fields: "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". The wife is captured by the children and the husband barely manages to escape into the cornfields surrounding the town. After running some distance, he believes that he has lost the children that had been following him but instead discovers the body of his wife, the town's minister, and a police chief. All three have been sacrificed to "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." It is then that he realizes that he is on the holy grounds of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" and that an enormous being with glowing red eyes is slowly approaching.
The next morning, a group of children from Gatlin arrive at the sacrificial place, looking at the bodies of the two recently killed adults. A nine-year-old boy, Isaac, who is known as a "seer" by the inhabitants, tells them that "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is displeased with their most recent sacrifice and lowers the sacrificial age from nineteen to eighteen. The story ends with the eighteen-year-olds in the town walking stoically into the corn. Was an okay story made into an excrutiating movie.
 "The Last Rung on the Ladder"
It is written from the perspective of a man burdened with deep guilt and regret after discovering that his estranged sister has committed suicide. He recounts one fateful day long ago when the two were children, playing in their family's barn. They had a game where they would take turns climbing to the top of a very tall ladder in their barn, and leap off into a huge haystack. On one of his sister's turns, the old, rickety ladder suddenly gave way, leaving her dangling desperately to the titular ladder's last rung. He managed to pile enough hay under her to break her fall and save her life, but is later astonished at her complete trust and faith in him to save her. He tells of how the intervening years were not kind to her, and how he was too wrapped up in his own affairs to come to her when she needed him. The story ends as he reads the final letter she had written to him a couple weeks before she jumped off a building to her death; one that would have made him realize how desperately she needed him to save her again.  Suicides are totally selfish.  I have no sympathy for his sister and I wish I could comfort him.  It isn't his fault.
 "The Man Who Loved Flowers"
The story begins in May in 1963 in New York in the early evening. The main character is an unnamed man who is walking up 3rd Avenue. It's a gorgeous evening, and the sky is just changing color from light blue to violet. The man is wearing a light grey suit. He looks like he is in love. The people around him all seem to perceive and respond to this feeling. The man stops at a flower vendor. A transistor radio drones on about a war brewing in Vietnam, and a woman's body that was found in the river and a hammer murderer that was on the loose. Based on the conversation the man has with the vendor, we learn he is buying flowers for a girl named Norma. He buys half a dozen roses, and leaves. He continues up the street, and the people on the street continue to respond to him and the lovestruck look on his face.
He then turns into an alley. By now it is getting darker, and stars are starting to appear. We learn he is on his way to meet Norma. He sees a woman walking down the alleyway, and he rushes up to her. He calls her name, and she looks around. He says: "I've bought some flowers for you, Norma." The women tells him: "You must be mistaken, my name is-" She then sees a hammer in his pocket and opens her mouth to scream. The man kills the woman because she isn't Norma, just as he has done five times previously. After an unspecified amount of time, he leaves the alleyway. Through the narrator, we find out that 'Norma' has been dead for ten years. The young man says that his name is Love. He feels optimistic, sure that he will find Norma some day soon.
He passes a middle-aged couple on the street. The woman turns to her partner and asks: "Why don't you ever look like that anymore?" "Huh?" "Nothing," she says, while thinking that "if there is anything more beautiful than springtime, it's young love". Okay, psychotic killer mistaken for a young lover . . . really creepy Stephen.
 "One for the Road"
This tale is narrated in the first person by Booth, an elderly resident of a small town that neighbors Jerusalem's Lot, Maine. He details the events that took place one winter's night years ago, during a ferocious snowstorm, when he and his friend, a bar owner named Herb Tooklander (Tookey), attempted to rescue the family of a stranded motorist named Gerard Lumley. Instead, they barely managed to save themselves from the man's wife and daughter, who had been turned into vampires.
"The Woman in the Room"
Narrated from the perspective of a man burdened with deep remorse and pain as he decides to euthanize his terminally ill mother with pain killers.
Different Seasons

Different Seasons
Kinuko Y. Craft

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: Hope Springs Eternal
The Story begins in 1948 when Andy Dufresne arrives at Shawshank prison. In contrast to most other convicts, Dufresne is not a hardened criminal but a soft-spoken young banker, convicted of killing his wife and her lover. Like almost everyone else in Shawshank, Dufresne claims to be innocent. As we later learn throughout the novella, unlike almost everyone else in Shawshank, Andy actually is innocent.
 Apt Pupil: Summer of Corruption
The story begins with 13-year old Todd Bowden, arriving at the doorstep of neighbour Arthur Denker and accusing him of being Kurt Dussander, the "Blood Fiend" of Patin. At first Dussander denies the allegation, but eventually confesses. To Arthur's surprise, Todd is not interested in blackmail or in alerting the authorities, but only in hearing the stories of the atrocities Dussander committed while in charge of the camp, what he refers to as "the gushy parts".
The Body: Fall From Innocence
Vern Tessio informs his three friends that he has overheard his older brother Billy talking with a friend about the location of the corpse of Ray Brower, a boy from Chamberlain, a town forty miles or so east of Castle Rock who has gone missing. Billy and his friend mentioned a place called Back Harlow Road, so the four friends decide that they will find it.
 The Breathing Method: A Winter's Tale
David, the narrator of the frame tale, is a middle-aged Manhattan lawyer, who at the invitation of a senior partner joins a strange men's club where the members, in addition to reading, chatting and playing pool and chess, like to tell stories, some of which range into the bizarre and macabre. This club and its butler are also featured in King's short story "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands."
One Thursday before Christmas, the elderly physician Dr. Emlyn McCarron tells of an episode early in his long and varied career: the story of a patient of his who was determined to give birth to her illegitimate child, no matter what.

Three of these stories made into movies.  "The Shawhank Redemption", which, you don't need me to tell you how good it is.  "Standy by me," equally excellent.  "Apt Pupil," eeeeeew, but then, I didn't like the story much, either.  The Breathing Method was a good read, but I was hardly as surprised as the Doctor was.  Women will, mostly, always go to extraordinary lengths to save their children.
Skeleton Crew

Skelton Crew
J.K. Potter

"The Mist"
The morning after a violent thunderstorm, a thick unnatural mist quickly spreads across the small town of Bridgton, Maine, reducing visibility to near-zero and concealing numerous species of bizarre creatures which viciously attack any human who ventures out into the open. The source of the fog and its inhabitants is never revealed, but strong allusions are made to an inter-dimensional rift caused by something known second-hand to the townsfolk as "The Arrowhead Project," long rumored to be conducted at a nearby top-secret military facility.  Again, loved the story, hated the movie 'cause they changed the ending.
 "Here There Be Tygers"
This story is extremely short, and written from the perspective of a boy who believes a tiger is lurking in his school bathroom.
 "The Monkey"
The story centers on a cymbal banging monkey toy that is possessed by an evil spirit. Every time the monkey claps its little cymbals together, a nearby living thing dies. The monkey is found in a family's attic in an old toy chest by a group of children, unknowing that their father was tormented by the monkey years ago, when it worked its lethal magic on his family and friends. The father takes the monkey and throws it in the lake in his backyard. At the end of the story is an excerpt of a newspaper article, which talks about hundreds of dead fish floating in the lake.
 "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut"
The story is detailed to a friend of Homer, an older man who likes spending time at the gas station.
The plot concerns Mrs. Todd, who is obsessed with finding shortcuts. Homer admires her persistence but begins to have doubts, as there are only so many shortcuts someone can find. Mrs. Todd's habit of resetting her odometer shows remarkable evidence that something weird is going on. He also discovers evidence that her shortcuts are using up less miles than are in a straight line from one destination to another; something that would be impossible anyway in this section of Maine. Mrs. Todd finally convinces Homer to take one of the special 'shortcuts'. Homer loses his hat to the grasping arms of a tree and sees road signs and animals that he cannot explain. Frightened, Homer does not wish to take any more rides. Nonetheless, Mrs. Todd is changing with each trip she takes, and the appeal of this overwhelms Homer, despite his having found a smashed, horrifying millipede-like creature on the grill of her car (she brushes this off, having perceived it as an unfortunate, normal animal).
The story ends with Homer, who is looking younger himself, getting into Mrs. Todd's car in front of his friend. It is implied that Mrs. Todd (who by this time is considered missing together with her car) will now take him into whatever new world that she has found a shortcut to.  This story caught my imagination something fierce and has yet to let go of it.
 "The Jaunt"
As a family prepares to be "Jaunted" to Mars, the father entertains his two children by recounting the curious tale of the discovery and history of this crude form of teleportation. He explains how the scientist who serendipitously discovered it quickly learned that it had a disturbing, inexplicable effect on the mice he "sent through"--eventually concluding that they could only survive the "Jaunt effect" while unconscious. That, the father explains, is why all people must undergo general anaesthesia before using the Jaunt.
The father spares his children the gruesome semi-apocryphal account of the first human to be Jaunted awake, a condemned murderer offered a full pardon for agreeing to the experiment. The man "came through" and immediately suffered a massive heart attack, living just long enough to utter a single cryptic phrase:

 It's eternity in there... The father also doesn't mention that since that time, roughly thirty people have, voluntarily or otherwise, jaunted while conscious; they either died instantly or emerged insane. One woman was even shoved alive into eternal limbo by her murderous husband, stuck between two jaunt portals. The man was convicted of murder, though his attorneys attempted to argue that he was not guilty on the grounds that his wife was not technically dead.
<>After the father finishes his story, the family is subjected to the sleeping gas and Jaunted to Mars. When the father wakes, he finds that his inquisitive son held his breath in order to experience the Jaunt while conscious, and has been rendered completely insane. Hair white with shock, corneas yellowed with age, clawing out his own eyes, the boy reveals the terrible nature of the Jaunt: "longer than you think". While physically the process occurs nearly instantaneously, to the conscious mind it lasts an eternity and beyond.  You gotta explain everything painstakingly to children.  Stupid man.
 "The Wedding Gig"
Told from the viewpoint of a bandleader during prohibition, the story centers around a small time racketeer, Mike Scollay, who hires the narrator's Jazz Band to play at the wedding of his 300 pound sister Maureen, and her 90 pound fiance. At the gig, Scollay's enemy, The Greek, forces a man to come to the wedding reception and insult Maureen in front of the guests. Shortly after, Mike is shot down in a hail of gunfire from The Greek's men.
Maureen takes over his business, making it into a large criminal empire, and getting revenge on the Greek, until she dies of a heart attack years later.
 "Paranoid: A Chant"
A Poem
, "The Raft"
"The Raft" is about four college students, two young men (Randy and Deke) and two young women (Rachel and LaVerne), who go out to swim on a remote Pennsylvania lake during the autumn, when nobody is around. After they swim out to the raft in the middle of the lake, a mysterious oil slick-like creature appears in the water beneath them. Deke ridicules Randy's suspicions that the "oil slick" was chasing the girls, refusing to take the situation seriously until Rachel touches it. The creature instantly wraps around her arm, pulling her into itself and gradually dissolving her.
, "Word Processor of the Gods"
In the days when dedicated word processors were still popular, the main character, a middle-aged writer tired of his wife (a fat, bad-tempered tyrant), son (an amateur musician with an attitude problem), and life in general, gets a gift from his nephew (a teenage genius) – a custom-built word processor. Unfortunately, the nephew has recently died in a car accident (at the hands of his own evil, violent brother who was driving drunk), so the writer must figure out on his own how to use it. He discovers that, with this word processor, he can write things into existence, and also delete them – at least, as long as the word processor can last. He erases his son and wife, and finally (seconds before the processor's demise) replaces them with his nephew and the nephew's kind, gentle mother. The story ends with the writer going inside with his new son.  This is one of the sweetest stories Stephen King has ever written.
 "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands"
It entails an aged, wealthy man recounting a card game he played in many years ago where he met an odd man who refused to touch anyone, recoiling from contact in fear. After the odd man wins the game, a young player leaps up and shakes his hand enthusiastically. The odd man screams and bolts from the room. The narrator then makes it his mission to find him and give him his winnings. It is revealed shortly thereafter that the young player who shook the odd man's hand died of a brain aneurysm. The narrator speaks with an old associate of the man, who tells him the title character was cursed by an Indian shaman after an unfortunate accident where the "Shake Hands Man" accidentally caused the death of a boy. The man is cursed to cause the death of any person he touches. The narrator then finds that the odd man died in a seedy inn, one hand firmly clasping the other.
 "Beachworld"
It's set in an undefined distant future. Among the few clues to the date is the passing reference that the last of the Beach Boys died 950 million years ago.
After the catastrophic crash landing of a Federal spacecraft, only crew members Rand and Shapiro survive. The men stare out over the sand dunes and remark on how it is similar to a beach. Rand refuses to move from the dune he is sitting on or drink water. When help arrives they try to take Rand with them. However the sand itself prevents them from rescuing him by both wrecking the android they send and sending a hand of sand up to stop a tranquilizer dart. The ship escapes just in time with Shapiro narrowly avoiding a giant hand of sand. Rand, left alone, stares up at the ship as it disappears, and then begins to pile handfuls of sand into his mouth.
 "Nona"
The story is the account of a man being held in prison, recounting his life as a college dropout who had met and fallen in love with a girl named Nona while aimlessly hitchhiking on a snowy winter's night in Maine. That night, he was pretty swiftly seduced into murdering several people who had the misfortune of crossing the duo's path as they speed towards an unknown goal. Somewhere near King's fictional town of Castle Rock, Nona takes him to a graveyard, where he encounters a possibly supernatural force, and is later found alone by the authorities, taken into custody, tried, and sentenced to prison, where he now writes his tale, contemplating suicide as he hears strange sounds in the walls.
 "For Owen"
A Poem
 "Survivor Type"
"Survivor Type" is written as the diary of a disgraced surgeon, Richard Pine (real name Richard Pinzetti), who, while attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin on a cruise ship, finds himself marooned on a tiny island in the Pacific with very limited supplies and no food. A self-proclaimed "survivor" type, his diary entries documenting his day to day activities become more and more disjointed and raving, revealing his slow mental decay and eventual insanity caused by starvation, isolation, and drug use. Determined to hold out for rescue, he goes to horrifying lengths to survive, using his surgical training to amputate his own limbs to use as a food source, ingesting the heroin for anesthesia, drools uncontrollably as he ponders which body part to consume next. The diary entries end when he cuts off his left hand to eat ("lady fingers they taste like lady fingers").
 "Uncle Otto's Truck"
The story concerns a wrecked and abandoned truck owned by Otto Schenck and George McCutcheon, wealthy Castle Rock businessmen in the post-depression era. After George is deliberately crushed beneath his derelict vehicle by Otto, the murderer becomes fixated on the truck, insisting it is not only moving of its own accord, but coming to kill him. At the same time he also becomes a social recluse, living in the house he once built across from the truck itself, and generally does begin to lose his sanity. His nephew, who tells the story, finally finds him dead - the corpse has been drowned with oil and there is a spark plug rammed down his throat.
 "Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)"
The story follows the morning route of a milkman named Spike Milligan, who leaves various "surprises" in the milk bottles for his customers to find, including poisonous liquids, deadly gas, and venomous spiders.
 "Big Wheels: A Tale of The Laundry Game (Milkman #2)"
It describes the outlook on a disgruntled laundryman's life. It is a tie in to the first milkman short story, rather than a direct sequel.
 "Gramma"
The story concerns a young boy named George who is dismayed to find himself left alone on a stormy night with his ancient bedridden grandmother, who years previously gained vile magic powers from the reading of certain ancient tomes. During the course of the night, she dies, but passes on her powers, and a large portion of her personality, to the boy.
"The Ballad of The Flexible Bullet"
The main character is Henry (usually referred to as simply "the editor"), fiction editor for "Logan's," a struggling magazine. Henry receives an unsolicited short story from up-and-coming novelist Reg Thorpe, and considers the story to be a masterpiece. Through his correspondence with Thorpe, Henry learns of -- and, due to Henry's own alcoholism, eventually begins to believe in -- Thorpe's various paranoid fantasies. Most notably, Henry and Thorpe believe that their typewriters serve as homes for Fornits -- tiny elves who bring creativity and good luck. The story, told from Henry's perspective as he relays it in anecdotal form at a barbecue, concerns Henry's descent into Thorpe's madness. Meanwhile, Henry also struggles to get Thorpe's story published, despite the fact that "Logan's" is in the process of closing its fiction department.  I believe this is another "in" joke for writers.
 "The Reach"
The Reach is a body of water that separates the mainland from Goat Island, Maine, where 95-year old Stella Flanders has contentedly lived her entire life. In this story, Stella remembers the past, the present, the living that populate the island, and the dead that populate her memories. She becomes alarmed when she begins seeing visions of her long deceased husband, Bill Flanders. Bill keeps attempting to lure Stella across the newly frozen Reach, having last froze over in 1938. With her health rapidly deteriorating, Stella sets off to cross the Reach only to become lost in the snow. Frightened, she is soon surrounded by her husband and dearly departed old friends assisting her to the mainland. She is later found following the snowstorm on the mainland four miles from her home, frozen to death.
Four Past Midnight

Four Past Midnight

"The Langoliers"
 You are strapped in an airplane seat on a flight beyond hell.
Great story and the movie was pretty good.
"Secret Window, Secret Garden"
 You are trapped in the demonic depths of a writer's worst nightmare.
Okay story.  My husband really loves the movie.

"The Library Policeman"
 You are forced into a hunt for the most horrifying secret a small town ever hid.

"The Sun Dog"
 You are focusing in on a beast bent on shredding your sanity.



Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Rob Wood

"Dolan's Cadillac"
The narrator, Robinson (no first name given), finds himself a childless widower when Dolan, a wealthy crime-boss, has Robinson's wife murdered in order to prevent her from testifying against him. The murder (by ignition bomb on her 1968 Chevrolet) is never solved, and Robinson, unskilled in the arts of revenge, has no recourse. Over a seven-year period, however, haunted mentally by his wife's voice, Robinson devises a scheme of retaliation. Discovering that Dolan regularly makes the same cross-country road trip in his gray/silver Cadillac, Robinson sets an elaborate trap on a desert road in Nevada: He takes on a summer job with a road paving crew just so that he can learn to operate the heavy equipment he needs to execute his plan - excavating a funnel-shaped ditch just long and deep enough to contain the car, but not so wide as to allow escape through the doors.  I don't usually like revenge tales, but this one was exceptional.
 "The End of the Whole Mess"
The story, narrated by Howard Fornoy in the form of a personal journal, recounts the life of his genius younger brother, Robert. Bobby, a child prodigy whose adult interests led him to study a variety of scientific disciplines, discovered a chemical that reduces the aggressive tendencies of humans and other organisms. While doing sociological research in Texas, Bobby used crime statistics to create a sort of topographic map which displayed a geographical pattern of violent crime. Examining the map, Robert noted diminishing levels of crime centered around the town of La Plata. When he arrives to investigate, he finds that this town has never had any water supply, a phenomenon that is mentioned in (but had nothing to do with the causations of) King's earlier novel It. Even minimal exposure to the chemical will calm down an angry person or animal, and Bobby has been able to isolate the chemical and reduce it to concentrated form violent crime. Bobby is ultimately able to determine that the cause of the non-aggression is the presence of a chemical to the town's .  This story just shows that it ain't smart to fool with the human animal's instincts.
 "Suffer the Little Children"
An elderly teacher with back problems at Summer Street School, Miss Sidley, uses the reflection on her glasses to watch her class. She calls on Robert to use the word "tomorrow" in a sentence. He says "Tomorrow a bad thing will happen." Miss Sidley is disturbed by the nature of Robert's answer, and in the reflection of her glasses she see his face change into something described as "different".
 "The Night Flier"
The story concerns a deeply cynical and jaded reporter and photographer named Richard Dees, who works for a fictional tabloid magazine called The Inside View. Dees' current subject of investigation is the Night Flier, an individual who travels between small airports in a Cessna airplane, gruesomely killing people in a way that leads Dees to think the man is a lunatic who believes himself to be a vampire.
 "Popsy"
Sheridan, a gambling addict, has taken to abducting children for a man known as Mr. Wizard in order to pay off his enormous debts to a mobster who has threatened Sheridan with grievous bodily harm. While lurking in a mall parking lot in his modified van, Sheridan spots his newest probable target of opportunity - a child standing near the entrance, obviously separated from his parents and distressed. Sheridan approaches him, convincing him that he has seen the child's Popsy (as the boy calls him).  The guy gets what he desrves, that's all I'm saying.
 "It Grows on You"
The story recounts some of the bizarre and inexplicable events that have taken place in a notorious house in the town of Castle Rock. As the incidents increase, the house has additional wings added, so the house literally takes on a life of its own, growing in what seems proportion to the awful things that continue to happen.
 "Chattery Teeth"
In the story, salesman Bill Hogan notices an odd pair of walking "Chattery Teeth" (odd due to their unusually large size and the fact that they are made of metal) in a convenience store display. The clerk ends up giving Hogan the teeth, claiming they had been dropped and no longer work.
<>Hogan reluctantly (having been robbed by a hitchhiker once before) gives a ride to a hitchhiker outside the convenience store; his fears prove prophetic when the hitchhiker tries to carjack him and then kill him. During the struggle, Hogan wrecks the van, and before the hitchhiker can recover and kill him, the teeth come to life and gruesomely dispatch the criminal. Hogan passes out to the vision of the Chattery Teeth dragging the hitchhiker's body off into the desert.Nine months later, Hogan stops again at the same convenience store, where he is unexpectedly reunited with the "broken" teeth again.  This tale weirded me out.
 "Dedication"
It tells the story of a black house maid working in a hotel and an eccentric alcoholic, and prejudiced, writer who is a frequent guest there. The maid consumes some of the writer's semen which was left on his sheets as part of a possible black magic spell, in the hope that it will pass talent and ability along to her unborn son. The story is told, in part, in the past tense.
 "The Moving Finger"
A very ordinary man who has a strange fascination with Jeopardy, named Howard Mitla is confronted by the bizarre sight of a human finger poking its way out of the drain in his apartment's bathroom sink. He tries to deny the reality of what is happening, but the solitary digit eventually proves to be infinitely long and multijointed, and capable of attacking him. Mitla burns it with a bottle of heavy-duty drain-cleaner, then chops it off with a pair of electric hedge trimmers. Soon, the police arrive, after Howard calls his neighbor a "bog-trotting Irishman", and making an enormous racket, and constantly swearing. When the police arrive, the officer they send in checks in on Howard, who is lying in a daze next to the toilet. He tells the officer, "If you have to go to the bathroom, I definitely suggest you hold it." and the toilet lid pops up. Howard, after cutting up the finger, starts thinking about the creature it was attatched. He realizes it surely had multiple digits and that there were several openings in an average bathroom, and an ominous sound is heard from the toilet.
 "Sneakers"
Music exec John Tell thinks that working at Tabori Studios with famous producer Paul Jannings will be a big opportunity, but when he notices a pair of old dirty sneakers in an adjacent bathroom stall he doesn't realise what he's getting into. John at first assumes they belong to somebody who works at the studio or a delivery person, but when he visits the bathroom again throughout the week, he notices that not only have they not moved but are now covered in a layer of dead flies and other bugs. Eventually Tell discovers that particular pair of shoes were the trademark of a dealer who supplied the recording talent with regular supplies of cocaine who was killed in the men's room and his money stolen. Tell finally confronts the ghost, to find himself face to face with himself, then the ghost turns into an Indian man of about 30.
The ghost informs him that he was brutally killed by Tell's boss, a drug addicted and somwhat predatory homosexual. This prompts Tell to quit his job.
 "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band"
A warning to those who would take short cuts, get lost and fail to heed their wives' advice about asking directions.
 "Home Delivery"
The protagonist of the story is Maddie Pace, a rather timid and indecisive young woman who lives on a small island named Gennesault (or "Jenny"), off the coast of Maine. Maddie is both pregnant and a widow, having recently lost her husband in a fishing-boat accident.
After a scattering of initial outbreaks, dead bodies all over the world begin to reanimate en mass and attack the living. The source of the phenomenon is eventually traced to a bizarre, presumably alien, construct in orbit high above the Earth's south pole (more precisely "above the hole in the ozone layer".) A space shuttle under joint American-Chinese authority visits the site, and promptly meets with disaster. One of the crew survives just long enough to report that the target object appears to be a giant ball of seething worms which attack and rip open the shuttle. Further attempts to destroy the ball fail, the zombie plague spreads, and civilization collapses.All of this is witnessed by Maddie and the other inhabitants of Jenny. They gather up all the available firearms to prepare for their own attack, which all too soon erupts from the island's small cemetery. The island's men are forced to destroy the zombies of their dead loved ones as they crawl out of their graves. The still-moving pieces of the reanimated corpses are then burned with kerosene and the remains plowed underground by a bulldozer. Frank Daggett, the elderly man who did most of the organizing of the successful defense, suffers a fatal heart attack, and has himself blasted to pieces so he won't revive.Maddie remains very much an observer in all of this, only seeing it on TV (as long as there is TV to watch) and hearing about the battle at the cemetery from her neighbor. This changes at the end of the story when she is confronted by the animated corpse of her husband, come back to get her from the bottom of the sea. She succeeds in singlehandedly destroying him/it, and faces the future, however grim, with renewed confidence and hope.
 "Rainy Season"
A young husband and wife on summer vacation rent a house in a small town called Willow, Maine, only to be warned repeatedly (if vaguely) to leave by the local inhabitants. They do not comply and, having purchased groceries, return to the house. They never learn the price for prosperity the citizens of Willow must pay: every seven years a husband and wife will come there from outside and will stay, despite protests, to become sacrifices during the rainy season.  Reminds me of the story, "The Lottery."
 "My Pretty Pony"
An elderly man, his death rapidly approaching, takes his young grandson up onto a hill behind his house and gives the boy his pocketwatch. Then, standing among falling apple blossoms, the man also "gives instruction" on the nature of time: how when you grow up, it begins to move faster and faster, slipping away from you in great chunks if you don't hold tightly onto it. Time is a pretty pony, with a wicked heart.
 "Sorry, Right Number"
One night, while the children are arguing about whether or not to watch the gory TV adaptation of her husband's novel Ghost Kiss, Katie receives a strange phone call in which the person at the other end of the line sobs "Take... please take... t-t-" before the line goes dead. She at first thinks it's her daughter Polly, away at boarding school, then her sister Dawn, but neither of them was the source of the mysterious call. The incident is quickly forgotten when she finds her husband slumped in his chair, dead from a heart attack. The story then jumps forward in time: to Polly's wedding day, five years to the day of Bill's death. Katie is in Bill's old office when a tape of Ghost's Kiss she found starts on the television. She is hysterical with grief over the death of her husband and dials the old house number. She is startled when it rings and is answered by herself five years previously. She tries to warn herself of the terrible tragedy that is about to befall her/them but is unable to speak her intended message of "Take him to the hospital! If you want him to live, take him to the hospital!". Instead, in her shock, she is only able to get out "Take... please take..." before the line goes dead. It's then that she realizes the truth of what happened that night.
 "The Ten O'Clock People"
The main character, Pearson, is a smoker trying hard to quit for health reasons. He discovers a horrible aspect of reality that only those attempting to quit like him are capable of seeing - that many of the people living among us in positions of power, including many police officers and political figures and even the Vice President of the United States, are in fact inhuman monsters disguised as people. A unique chemical balance, caused by his smoking only on his morning break (thus the reference to Ten O' Clock in the title) makes him able to see the true nature of these creatures through their disguises. When Pearson first notices one of them, a young black man named Dudley "Duke" Rhinemann stops him from screaming.
Dudley later explains that if Pearson wants to live, he must go about his day as usual and meet him at 3 o'clock after work. Pearson does as he is told and discovers that his boss is also one of the "batmen". He leaves work a bit shaken, meets Dudley and goes to a bar with him. After explaining that smokers trying to quit are the only ones who see them, Dudley invites Pearson to a meeting of those who can see the "batmen".
Shortly after arriving, the leader of the group says he has "big news" for them all. Pearson, who already had some suspicion about the idolized leader, notices nearby batpeople and says they all need to get out of there. The leader then says the batmen have granted them amnesty, but soon after a horde of them attack those in the meeting. Pearson along with two others manage to escape the meeting, while the others are presumably killed. The survivors form a new resistance group of 'Ten O'Clock People' and succesfully kill many 'bat-men'.
 "Crouch End"
On August 19, 1974, two police officers, alcoholic veteran Ted Vetter and newcomer Robert Farnham, are working the night shift in the London neighborhood of Crouch End. They are discussing the case of Doris Freeman, a young American woman who came in to report the disappearance of her husband, lawyer Leonard Freeman. Nearly hysterical, Doris' story involves monsters and other supernatural incidents. Farnham dismisses the story as rubbish, but Vetter, who has worked in Crouch End for years, isn't so sure.
 "The House on Maple Street"
After a summer spent abroad, the four Bradbury children return to their home on Maple Street and discover that something is growing upwards through the house's walls from below, replacing wood and plaster with metal and machinery, counting down to some cataclysmic event. Although somewhat afraid of what this means, Trent, the eldest of the four, realizes they have an opportunity to rid both themselves and their beleaguered mother of the tyrannical Lewis "Lew" Evans, their hated and feared stepfather. As the countdown approaches its final minutes, they contrive to lock Lew in his study and leave him to his fate, escaping the house just in time to watch as it raises itself from its foundations and blasts away into the clouds. The story ends with the children waiting on the curb for their mother to return, shaken but glad to be free from Lew's oppressive rule.
 "The Fifth Quarter"
The story follows "Jerry Tarkanian", a crook looking to avenge the death of his friend Barney, who died at the hands of his own accomplices after taking part in an armored car heist. Unknown to them, Barney managed to get to Tarkanian before he died and told him of the heist and of the map divided amongst his killers that reveals the location of the stolen money.
At the start of the story, Tarkanian has tracked down two of the men, Keenan and Sarge, who are about to make a deal between themselves and manages to hold them at gun-point, forcing them to give him their sections of the map. However, things go wrong when the third man, Jagger, appears during the confrontation and attacks them both, in the firefight that follows Sarge is killed, but contributes to Jagger's downfall when his body obstructs his path, letting Tarkanian get the advantage and finish him.
Despite not having Jagger's part of the map, he now has enough to recover the money. The story ends with Tarkanian leaving the scene, knowing that in the aftermath of this shootout that his debt to his friend has been paid and he himself now has a lot to be grateful for. Sometimes, it's good to see the underdog get ahead.
 "The Doctor's Case"
Dr. Watson narrates a heretofore unreleased case in which he and Holmes are called by Inspector Lestrade on an unexpectedly rainy day to investigate the murder of a sadistic British lord named Hull in his study. Each member of his family - his wife and three sons - has reason to murder him; his wife had been hounded with constant abuse for the duration of their marriage; one son, an artistically-skilled (and bowlegged) youth, was the target of constant ire from his father for his unattractive appearance; another, the youngest, was the most intellectual and the most capable of maintaining his father's affairs, but was doomed to never receive more than a pittance, due to his placement in the family line. Furthermore, in spite of his treatment of them his family had stayed with him in the hopes that Hull would die and leave them with his considerable wealth; however, they had recently learnt that Hull had rewritten his will so that none of them received a thing, and that all his wealth would go to a boarding-house for stray cats. Despite having ample motives to kill him, his family have effectively given each other alibis, and the murder itself is effectively a locked room mystery; there's no place in the crime scene for anyone to hide without being seen, and all the doors and windows were locked by the lord himself.
 "Umney's Last Case"
The story follows a private investigator named Clyde Umney as he goes about what he thinks is just another morning in 1930s Los Angeles. He soon discovers that his life as he knows it is falling apart, and is brooding alone in his office when he receives his final client: the crime-fiction author who created him. Through some unknown means, Umney is forced to trade places with the writer and finds himself in the year 1994, where he assumes his new identity but has the goal of returning to his own universe and taking revenge on his creator.
, "Head Down"
The essay chronicles the 1989 season for his son Owen's Little League baseball team, Bangor West. He takes the reader through the ups and downs of the season, giving details of every game, as well as practice sessions and time on the road while focusing on the reactions of the players and the coaches. This builds to the team winning a hard-fought victory in the final game of the tournament to become the Maine State Champions. The team then goes forward to the Eastern Regional Tournament, only to be beaten in the second round. However, the story ends on a high note as the team coach, Dave Mansfield, is honored as amateur coach of the year by the United States Baseball Federation.
 "Brooklyn August"
A poem
 "The Beggar and the Diamond"
It tells the tale of an old beggar named Ramu who has had a miserable life. One day Ramu is walking along thinking about his unhappy existence and feeling angry at God. God, at the request of an archangel who felt pity for the beggar, drops a massive diamond on his path in plain sight. The diamond is worth so much that it would feed him and all his descendents for several generations. On the ground, Ramu has decided after some pondering that he should not be angry about his life or blame God because he still has a few things to be grateful for, such as retaining his sight at such an old age. To illustrate to himself how much worse life could be if he was blind, he decides to close his eyes as he walks. Ironically, he does not see the diamond because of this and merrily walks past it, missing it by just inches. God takes back the diamond and puts an ironwood branch further up the path. Back in heaven, God says, "The only difference is that Ramu shall find the branch. It shall serve him as a walking stick until the last of his days." The archangel asks God, "Have you just taught me a lesson, God?" God answers, "I don't know. Have I?"
Hearts in Atlantis

Hearts in Atlantis

"Low Men in Yellow Coats"
The first, and longest, part, "Low Men in Yellow Coats", takes place in 1960 and revolves around a young boy, Bobby Garfield. He lives in Harwich, Connecticut with his self-centered mother, Liz, a widow, and he really wants a bicycle. His mother claims they do not have the money for a bike, despite her constant purchases of new clothing. For his eleventh birthday, Bobby's mother gives him a birthday card containing an adult library card. During this time, Bobby doesn't realize that his mother is having a relationship with her boss. Bobby spends his time with his two best friends, John "Sully" Sullivan and Carol Gerber.
An older gentleman named Ted Brautigan moves into an adjacent apartment on the floor above Bobby and his mother. It is obvious from the start that she doesn't like Ted, but Bobby does. Ted spends a lot of time discussing books with Bobby and gives him Lord of the Flies, which makes a huge impression on the boy. Bobby's mother claims to be worried that Ted might be sexually abusing Bobby, though in fact she feels guilty about neglecting her son. Bobby, understanding the situation but unable to articulate it, solves the problem by keeping the two apart.
"Hearts in Atlantis"
The Story takes place in 1966 and is narrated by Peter Riley, who has just started at the University of Maine. He has been a good student before, but he is drawn to the interminable card game of Hearts that is going on in the communal room in the all-male dormitory where he lives.
The story explores how the university of the 1960s was an "Atlantis", an imaginary kingdom isolated from the troubles of the world. However, as more and more of the students become addicted to playing Hearts, their grades begin to suffer...and the only way they are escaping the draft for the Vietnam War is through their student deferments. If they flunk out of college, they will be drafted and sent to the war in Southeast Asia.
Peter Riley quickly falls behind in his studies, but even though he knows he might flunk out, he is unable to stop himself. Meanwhile, he meets Carol Gerber, Bobby Garfield's friend and childhood sweetheart from Low Men in Yellow Coats. Peter Riley falls in love with her, and with her help tries to cure himself of the addiction to Hearts. However, he is too self-involved and therefore unaware that Carol herself has become caught up in an escapist addiction of her own: student terrorism. As Peter Riley and his friends' self-destructive addiction to Hearts continues, the Vietnam War grows closer, drawing Carol into an activist group and taking part in bloody demonstrations.
 "Blind Willie"
Blind Willie is about a Vietnam veteran's penance after the war. The main character in this story is Willie Shearman, and the story takes place over a single day in December 1983. At first we see him commuting from Connecticut to New York City like any normal businessman; we then discover that he elaborately disguises himself as a blind beggar who takes hundreds of dollars a day in donations from passersby, keeping the bills for himself and distributing the coins to various churches and charities. We also learn that he was in combat with John Sullivan, and saved his life; and that Willie keeps a scrapbook about Carol Gerber, and has never forgotten the day that she was beaten up by Harry Doolin while he and Richie O'Meara held her down.
 "Why We're in Vietnam"
Why We're in Vietnam describes a reunion of two veterans, one being John Sullivan, at the funeral of a third and recounts an incident that almost escalated into a My Lai Massacre involving a former student and player in the Hearts game in Hearts In Atlantis, Ronnie Malenfant. Throughout the story, Sullivan sees an old Vietnamese "mama-san" whom Ronnie killed during this incident. In the end Sullivan dies of an apparent heart attack during a traffic jam on the way home.
 "Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling"
Bobby Garfield returns to his hometown after almost 40 years to attend John Sullivan's funeral, and finds closure to his relationships with Carol Gerber and Ted Brautigan.

I really liked the first story, but the others . . . The movie "Hearts in Atlantis" was well done.

Everything's Eventual

Everything's Eventual
Mark Stutzman

"Autopsy Room Four"
Howard Cottrell awakes from some form of unconsciousness to find himself laid out in an autopsy room. As the doctors prepare to begin, Howard struggles to come to grips with what is happening.
After realizing that he is not dead, he deduces that he is in a paralysed state, and struggles to somehow inform the doctors of this fact before they cut into him.  Thrilling suspence!
 "The Man in the Black Suit"
The story tells of Gary, a nine year-old boy, whose brother had died not long ago due to a bee sting. One day Gary goes out fishing and falls asleep. When he awakens, he finds a bee is hovering near his face. Due to the allergy he shared with his brother he is very scared, but then he hears a clap and the bee dies. He turns around and he discovers a man in a black three-piece suit with as is described in the story, glowing, burning eyes, as if there's a fire inside him, looming over him, with pale skin and claws for fingers, and horrible, sharp, shark-like teeth when he grins. The man--whose body odor smells like burnt match heads-- tells Gary terrible things: that his mother has died while he was away, and that the man intends to eat him. Gary does not believe at first, but soon realizes that this man is actually the devil, and makes his escape by throwing his caught fish at the stranger; he then runs off as the creature swallows the fish whole and pursues the boy to the outskirts of the forest. The things the man said were false, but Gary is still haunted by the incident for the rest of his life.
  "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away"
Alfie Zimmer, a traveling salesman peddling bar code readers and instant dinners, pulls into a Motel 6 in Nebraska for the night. He settles in, and pulls out a revolver, ready to commit suicide because he "couldn’t go on living the way he had been living."
He has a wife, a daughter, and a hobby: recording strange bathroom graffiti which he discovered on his many long, lonely travels. He first started noting down scrawls on the walls that attracted his attention without any reason but then became "fascinated with those messages". Alfie has filled a whole notebook with such gems as "Save Russian Jews, collect valuable prizes" and "Mammon is the king of New Jersey."
In his solitary life of a traveling salesman with only miles and miles of the empty road for his companion those "voices on the walls" became his friends; something to think about during the long drive, something precious and important, something that "spoke" to him.
Alfie decides that "a shot in the mouth is easier than any living change", but every time he puts the gun in his mouth, he worries that leaving the notebook filled with bizarre ramblings behind will make him seem crazy to whomever finds his body. Alfie wants to write a book about the graffiti, even coming up with a great title, but knows "the telling would hurt." While standing in the freezing cold of the winter night, sobbing to himself, Alfie decides on a plan: if the lights of a farmhouse behind the motel reappear through the snow before he counts to 60, he will write the book. If not, Alfie will toss the notebook into the snow, then go inside and shoot himself.  I already mentioned my view on suicide did I not?
"The Death of Jack Hamilton"
The story is written in the first-person. Homer Van Meter, a member of John Dillinger's gang, tells of the slow, painful death of fellow gangmember Jack Hamilton. Van Meter begins by describing Dillinger's death outside the Biograph Theater at the hands of Melvin Purvis's men (who is referenced several times throughout the story as the character's nemesis), as well as addressing the theory that it wasn't actually Dillinger that was killed. Van Meter debunks the theories, citing that the causes for arguments happened during his witnessing the death of Jack Hamilton. During his getaway from a shootout at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin, Hamilton is shot by police, and the bullet lodged in his lung, eventually creating a gruesome case of gangrene. Hamilton is refused treatment by Joseph Moran, and Van Meter and Dillinger take Hamilton to stay at the home of Volney Davis and his girlfriend Rabbits, two members of Ma Barker's gang, as well as Ma's son Arthur. King's narrator spares no detail, as the man lapses into dementia before his agonizing, but merciful expiration.
 "In the Deathroom"
Fletcher, an ex-reporter from the New York Times, has been captured by members of a South American interrogating him about a Communist insurgency he has been supporting, due to the government's killing of a group of nuns which included his sister, will not let him leave this room alive, despite their claims that he will be set free.
During the course of his interrogation, Fletcher manages to keep calm, and hatches a desperate plan to save his life, which, to his surprise, actually works. He fakes an epileptic seizure, and in the captors struggle to save him he steals a gun. After killing three of his captors and maiming one, he escapes "the deathroom." Fletcher, having no way of knowing if the gunfire was heard, starts up the stairs to see if he can escape. The story begins as he is brought into the titular "deathroom" as he realizes that his captors, after
 "The Little Sisters of Eluria"
Roland and his horse arrive at a deserted village, Eluria, where he encounters a feral dog bearing a cross-shaped spot in its fur attempting to eat a dead body. Roland scares it off, and while looking over the corpse, finds a rectangle-shaped medallion. Roland takes it, and is immediately attacked and rendered unconscious by a group of slow mutants, but later awakens in a hospital marquee run by a strange group of would-be nuns. Calling themselves The Little Sisters, they use tiny bug-like creatures they call "doctors" to heal his severe injuries. At first, they seem benign, but Roland slowly discovers that they are actually vampires, who bring stray survivors back to their "hospital" only to feed on them once they've recovered. Boring.
 "Everything's Eventual"
The story is told in first person perspective by a 19-year-old high-school dropout Richard "Dinky" Earnshaw. Dinky fatuously explains that he's got a good job now. He used to be a clerk at the "Supr Savr," where he worked with morons and was relentlessly bullied by an aggressive dimwit named Skipper. But now Skipper's dead and Dinky's got a new job, where the main perks are that he gets his own house and his own car and virtually anything he asks for, including CDs that have not been released yet. He also gets a small wad of cash each week, provided he doesn't look for the people who drop it through his mail slot, and that he remembers to destroy or throw away any money left over at the end of the week. He gets rid of his excess change by dropping it down the gutter by his house, and he puts his bills in the garbage disposal, each week. In his usual down-to-earth style, King stretches the tiny details of this situation out to great length before finally settling down to the obvious and compelling questions: what exactly is this mysterious job, and what does a dead supermarket clerk have to do with it?
As it turns out, Dinky has a certain gift. He has the ability to kill people by drawing complicated designs or pictures, in a way that he does not completely understand. This is illustrated when he recalls that, as a child, he (semi-unknowingly) used this ability to kill a dog that used to torment him on his way home from school. After Skipper humiliated him every day for years, Dinky makes the decision to use this power to kill Skipper, or more accurately to make Skipper kill himself.
Dinky is discovered by a man named Mr. Sharpton, who claims to work for Trans Corporation, an organization that searches across the world for people with such talents. Dinky is recruited to kill very specific targets by e-mailing them these designs that he creates on an Apple computer. He is, in return, given a life that seems ideal, complete with a house and other benefits. Mr. Sharpton tells Dinky that the people he is ordered to kill are wicked, horrible criminals that the world is better off without.
For a time, Dinky is happy with his new position, living life in a semi-mindless bliss; however, when Dinky finds an article in the newspaper about one of the individuals whom he has killed (a seemingly innocent old newspaper columnist) he begins to feel guilty for what he has done. After researching more into his other victims, Dinky realizes that the Trans Corporation has been using him to assassinate political dissidents and alternative thinkers. As the story ends, he is planning his escape from the Trans Corporation, but not before sending one final deadly email to Mr. Sharpton, his recruiter.  I was glad to see Dinky grow up and cotton to what was really going on.
 "L. T.'s Theory of Pets"
The story is told from a first person perspective about a working class husband who recalls a story told by L. T., a chatty co-worker who recalls the brewing trouble behind his marriage, attributed to pets purchased by L. T. and his wife. His wife purchased a dog for L. T. which in turn, disliked him instantly and sided with the wife, while L. T. purchased a cat for his wife, who immediately took to L. T. Despite the fact that the dog and the cat get along fine, L. T. and his wife continuously argue, adding some irony. The story provides an interesting character study, told from the mouth of garrulous L. T. and reveals an unusually bloody twist that has you wondering what became of certain characters.  I really liked this one.
"The Road Virus Heads North"
The story follows a successful horror writer named Richard Kinell as he drives back to his home in Maine. Along the way, he comes across a yard sale, where he notices and is captivated by a bizarre painting of a sinister-looking man with filed teeth driving his car somewhere. The painting, which is apparently titled "The Road Virus Heads North," was painted by a tortured genius who had burned all his other paintings prior to killing himself, leaving a cryptic note that he couldn't stand what was happening to him. Kinnell, a collector of such oddities, has no hesitation in buying the painting from the woman running the sale.
As Kinnell travels north, he stops at his aunt's house to show her the painting... and notices that some of the details in the painting have changed. At first he dismisses this by assuming he hadn't examined it closely, but he soon realizes that the painting is continuing to change. Deeply unsettled by this fact, he discards the painting at a rest stop.
When he arrives at his home, he finds to his horror that the painting has somehow followed him, and hangs from his wall. It has changed again, this time depicting a bloody aftermath at the yard sale where he had purchased it. He hears on the news that the woman running the yard sale was brutally murdered. He realizes that the man in the painting somehow really exists, and the ever-changing painting shows him getting closer and closer. Kinnell lights a fire in the fireplace, and tosses in the painting. Confident this will destroy it once and for all, he decides to take a shower, where he passes out and has a nightmare about the various things he's encountered that day.
When he awakens, he realizes that the artist who created The Road Virus burned ALL his paintings, including this one, which means that the painting survived his attempt to burn it, and the man in the painting has arrived and is walking through the house. Kinnell tries to escape, but ultimately fails, and the painting gets him as well; the book's final passage describes Kinnell seeing the latest change to the painting, with fresh blood on the front passenger seat of the car, and realizes the painting is showing what is about to happen to him.  Scarey as all get out!
"Lunch at the Gotham Café"
A man named Steve Davis comes home one day to find a letter from his wife, Diane, coldly stating she has left him and intends to get a divorce. He becomes depressed, especially since Diane's departure prompts him to give up cigarettes, and he begins to suffer nicotine withdrawal. Diane's lawyer, William Humboldt, calls Steve with plans to meet with the two of them for lunch. He decides on the Gotham Cafe and sets a date. Steve's lawyer is unable to attend due to a family crisis.
Before entering the Cafe, Steve impulsively buys an umbrella. Upon entering, he finds that the maître d', eventually revealed to be named Guy, is talking senselessly about a dog. When Steve attempts to seek reconciliation with Diane, things begin to fall apart. Much to Steve's consternation, she regards him with contempt tinged with fear. The maître d' then makes a surprise reappearance, drunkenly insane, chanting "Eeeee!" and stabs Humboldt through the head with a knife. Steve briefly fends off the lunatic with his new umbrella, then drags the helplessly terrified Diane into the kitchen. Guy gives chase, and after giving the cafe's cook a grisly injury, proceeds onward. Diane almost gets Steve killed, but Steve is still able to incapacitate Guy by dousing him with scalding water and whacking him with a metal frying pan.
After finally escaping both the Cafe and Guy, Steve attempts to snap Diane from her state of panic. Diane recoils and rants at him venomously, seeing him as a bully rather than a protector. Steve is filled with incredulous fury that she has irrationally blotted out how his resourceful actions saved both of their lives while she stood by uselessly. Diane's self-empowering harangue is interrupted by a sudden slap across the face. After attempting to hurt him with claims of extramarital lovers, she leaves him for good. As Steve sits on the curb and watches ambulances haul away both the victims and the heavily-restrained Guy, he is left wondering about Guy's private life, and the nature of insanity.  Can you say BITCH?   He won't miss his ex, that's for sure.
 "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French"
As the story progresses, she begins to remember skeletons from the closet, starting as financially strapped newlyweds who went onto greater things with her husband's eventual success in the computer industry. It is implied, though never explicitly revealed, that the man and woman have been killed in a mid-air plane collision, and are suffering eternal torment.  I can see hell as being repitition.
 "1408"
Mike Enslin who writes non-fiction works based on the theme of haunted places. His book series, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards, and Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Castles, prove to be bestsellers, but Enslin internally reveals some guilt and regret at their success, privately acknowledging that he is neither a believer in the paranormal nor in the supernatural elements he espouses in these books. Nonetheless, he arrives at the Hotel Dolphin on 61st Street in New York City intent on spending the night in the hotel's infamous room 1408, as part of his research for his next book, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotel Rooms.   Cool story, great movie.
 "Riding the Bullet"
The story concerns a man named Alan Parker, who is a college student trying to find out what he wants to do with his life. He gets a call informing him of his mother's recent stroke, which is terrible news since his mom has always been the person closest to his heart in life (his father died when he was young). Left without a car, he has to hitchhike to the hospital to see her.
At first, he is picked up by a bizarre old man with a stench that drives Alan to walking. This brings him to a graveyard, where he finds a headstone for a man named George Staub ("Well Begun, Too Soon Done," the headstone reads). And as fate would happen to have it, the man who gives Alan his next ride is George Staub himself.
 "Lucky Quarter"
Darlene Pullen, who is a struggling single mother with two children (a rebellious teenage daughter and a sickly young son) and a lousy job as a maid, is left a tip of a single quarter with a note saying that it is a "lucky quarter". She takes a quick gamble on it and finds that it brings her some small luck. Moving on to a real casino, she keeps trying her luck, and soon she's winning thousands of dollars. All seems to be going exceeding well...
...and then she stops fantasizing and reappears back in the hotel room, left with nothing but her lucky quarter. As her two children come to visit her at work, she lets her son have the quarter, and as he uses it in a gamble, it starts to pay off just as it did when Darlene was fantasizing. "Lucky," she thinks to herself as the story ends. "So lucky, oh lucky me."

The Official Stephen King Website

Return to Tirpetz Tales
Powered by WebRing.