Stephen King’s fourth book is also his first collection of short stories. As of this writing, he’ll go on to release three more. That’s not to be confused with his collections of novellas, of which there are four as well. Many of these quick-hit tales precede his first novel, and were published in magazines long before anyone had heard of King.
So in some ways, these are the purest stories he’s written – they were conceived without an audience or a bank statement in mind. And in others, they’re the closest he’s come to work for hire. If a magazine wanted a horror story that month, by God, he would write one. But it would be a mistake to think of these as paycheck stories, since King has remained a champion of the short story form, long after the financial need to write them has passed.
A lot can be learned about King the writer by examining his uses of these different story forms. Simply put, he’s a different writer when he’s aiming for ten pages instead of a thousand. These are not condensed novels, they’re works intended for this form, and while some are more successful than others, King’s commitment to the three-thousand-word marvel is worth praising. So here, story by story, is what to expect from Night Shift.
Jerusalem’s Lot
Night Shift begins with what appears to be a dry run for Salem’s Lot – this is the story of a man who moves into his ancestral home, and discovers undead creatures inhabiting it with him. Charles Boone and his manservant, Calvin McCann, spend most of this brief tale digging into Boone’s family history, and unearthing an ancient curse tied to a book called Mysteries of the Worm.
Jerusalem’s Lot takes place in 1850, and is told entirely through letters and journal entries. It’s not a new form of spinning a horror tale, but in this case it is an effective one. King’s traditional style of writing – even now, in his earliest days, fairly firmly established – is so distinctive that when he adopts an entirely different voice, it’s noteworthy. He does so here, slipping into Charles Boone’s more formal way of writing, and he never lets it slip.
There are two unsettling moments in Jerusalem’s Lot, and neither of them have to do with the big setpiece, in which a giant worm pulses up from the floor of an old church. (As with most creatures of its stripe, it would probably have improved things if the giant worm had remained off-screen.) The first precedes Charles and Calvin’s encounter with the undead things in their basement – Charles finds himself unable to write more than one line: “I can’t write of this yet… I I I…”
And the second is the final section of the story, in which King justifies his decision to write it as a one-sided correspondence. I can imagine him typing the final line with a little grin. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he thought of the last line first. Jerusalem’s Lot is an effectively creepy, if sometimes sterile and distant story, but one that showcases a style much different from the one King’s readers were (already) used to.
Graveyard Shift
If any entry here illustrates the difference between King’s novels and his short stories, it’s this one. The characters in the novels to this point are finely drawn, and the action revolves around their nobilities and flaws. The characters in Graveyard Shift are barely given names – we have Hall the young punk, Wisconsky the fat grumbler, and Warwick the unreasonable boss, and that’s as far as the personalities are fleshed out.
No, this story – all of 17 pages long in paperback – is merely meant to unsettle. It’s the tale of a group of men hired to work third shift cleaning out a basement. And there, they meet rats. Large ones, with sharp teeth. The sequence in which Hall forces Warwick to march to his death, surrounded by rodents, is remarkably creepy. King is asking us to shiver at a concept, rather than relate to doomed characters, and while it was the sad inevitability of The Shining that packed a punch, here it is the sight of a limbless rat the size of a calf.
And again, the final lines are shiver-inducing. “Stevenson came back with the lights; a few moments later, they started down.”
Night Surf
This story is even shorter – nine pages in paperback – but it effectively builds a world. Admittedly, it’s the world of The Stand, King’s next novel. Night Surf was the germ of the idea, and it explores the world after the disease known as A6 or Captain Trips has wiped out most of the population. It’s a bleak portrait, and not just because of the devastation – the opening line is, “After the guy was dead and his burning flesh was off the air, we all went back down to the beach.”
Characters in Night Surf barely have names, but King sketches them nicely. The unhealthy relationship between Bernie and Susie, one senses, was the same before the world ended, and will be the same until one of them dies. Granted, there is a character named Needles, whose entire purpose is to get A6 and (possibly) spread it to the others, but it’s a nine-page story. Expecting more characterization than this seems unfair.
King takes on the voice of Bernard here, writing first-person, and the short, dispassionate language works. He all but breaks that spell, however, with a hand-holding paragraph near the end: “So here we were, with the whole human race wiped out, not by atomic weapons, or bio-warfare or pollution or anything grand like that. Just the flu.” This is the sign of a young writer unsure of his skill. It is information already imparted more subtly, and it rips you out of what is a gripping little story.
I Am the Doorway
Sometimes, a short story simply doesn’t have enough space to explore its concept with any depth. In fact, as is the case here, sometimes that concept isn’t even delved into enough to determine whether it’s worth exploring.
The basic idea of I Am the Doorway is that some alien force infected our hero while he was in space, and is using his body as a portal to escape. Some of it is unsettling, such as the moments when King describes what it’s like to look out through alien eyes on one’s hands. And the ending is chilling – our hero sets those hands on fire, to stop whatever-it-is from coming through completely, only to find a new set of eyes on his chest. But with such a strange framework, and so few pages to develop it, this story never truly takes off.
The Mangler
The short story format allows writers to end their tales at any point they choose, leaving any amount of dangling plot threads they desire. Short stories are meant as snapshots, and when the basic idea is as potentially ridiculous as King’s is in The Mangler – a haunted laundry press machine that kills people – the format can get you out before it becomes ludicrous.
Unfortunately, King ends this surprisingly tense tale about one page too late, with the haunted laundry machine breaking its bonds and roaming the streets of the town, killing at will. The image is just laughable, and all but ruins what could have been a dark murder mystery. This is a well King will return to – lots of everyday objects are possessed or haunted throughout his catalog – but he rarely leaves us with a mental picture as decidedly campy as this.
The Boogeyman
And this is another good example of King working against himself. The Boogeyman takes place entirely in the office of a therapist, one Dr. Harper. He is interviewing a man named Billings, who begins by saying he has killed all three of his children. During the course of the story, we find out that he actually blames an unseen boogeyman, who lives in closets and preys on childhood fears.
But the story is written so well that we don’t know whether to believe him. Billings is a terrible human being, controlling and mean and a harsh, unlovable parent. The writing suggests Billings is capable of killing his children, and justifying it to himself, and may be partially inventing the whole boogeyman tale, and partially trying to convince himself to believe his own lie, for his sanity’s sake.
It truly is that well-crafted, even in 12 short pages. So when the story ends with Dr. Harper removing his human mask and revealing himself as the monstrous boogeyman, it’s dispiriting. King has settled for the cheap horror ending, rather than the more complex ambiguous one, and it scuttles this story almost completely.
Gray Matter
Here is another story that merely aims to unsettle, and this one does its job well. It’s the tale of a young boy seeking out help for his father, who has somehow been transformed into a shambling, amorphous creature. The story maintains a sense of dread all the way through, and never drops the ball.
In fact, the most terrifying moment isn’t the description of the creature. It’s a recitation of the multiplication tables. The monster is dividing, and one of the characters is savvy enough to realize the implications. It’s a nice escalation of an already creepy story, and sends this one over the goal line.
Battleground
This one is practically perfect. It’s economical – the story tells you only as much as you need to know about its main character, a trained assassin returning home after a hit on the founder of a toy company. Waiting for him when he arrives is a foot locker of toy soldiers, who come to life and try to kill him. That’s the entire story, but nothing else is needed. The action itself is inventive and frightening enough that it carries the day.
King does a terrific job here of ratcheting up the tension. The idea of a living room under siege by tiny soldiers starts off as laughable, but as the battle progresses, it becomes more horrifying. And King concludes things with a twist, and a final image that is by turns funny and jaw-dropping. Everything about this one works.
Trucks
If you’re counting, this is the third story in Night Shift in which inanimate objects come to life to terrorize people. Pitched somewhere between The Mangler and Battleground on the ludicrous scale, Trucks imagines a world where automobiles have come to life, and are seeking revenge for… something.
For 15 pages, the trucks hold a group of barely-sketched characters hostage in a roadside diner, finally scaring them enough to agree to refuel them. There are some imaginative moments – the trucks honk their horns in Morse code to communicate, for instance – and it ends with another of King’s now-trademark wider-perspective final images. But what’s here comes off as sillier than perhaps its author intended.
Sometimes They Come Back
This is yet another gripping story let down somewhat by its twist ending. The premise is more deeply emotional than most in this volume. Schoolteacher Jim Norman witnessed his brother’s murder 20 years ago, at the hands of classmates. He sees the faces of the killers in his mind constantly. So it’s shocking to both him and the reader when those faces show up in his classroom – Norman’s new students are his brother’s murderers, and they haven’t aged a day.
King never misses an opportunity here to ratchet up the tension. We feel Norman’s confusion and disbelief, and his pain. So it’s a shame when his course of action – raising a demon to deal with the specters of his brother’s killers – is so simultaneously unbelievable and clichéd.
King sells us on the premise, but never quite lands the idea of a demon-raising teacher, and when the end arrives, it’s clear the twist was concocted to give the title another meaning. In this case, it wasn’t worth the trouble – the dread that accompanies the ending is nowhere near as effective as the sense of creeping doom that the story spins until that twist arrives.
Strawberry Spring
And the pattern continues. Strawberry Spring is the story of a killing spree on a New England college campus. King again excels at first-person, and the tale deftly uses the narrator’s near-detachment to somehow create an atmosphere of creeping dread. It works wonderfully, until the final paragraphs, when the Murder of Roger Ackroyd-esque twist arrives. It does nothing to improve the narrative, and in fact is easy to guess from the way the story is written – so easy, in fact, that one hopes the tale does not go down that path. Alas, one’s hopes are in vain.
The Ledge
A simple, yet thoroughly effective piece of work. Like the ledge that our hero walks across, this story is a closed system, a knot so tightly tied that it can only lead where it goes. Trapped in a net of his own making, Stan Norris is offered a choice – 40 years in prison, or a walk around a building on a five-foot ledge. It sounds ridiculous, but it makes perfect sense, and it’s gripping.
King subjects us to every inch of Norris’ walk, and although there is never any doubt that Norris survives – he is the narrator of the story, after all – King convinces us that a sickening drop is a possibility all the way along. And when Norris does survive, and turns the tables, it’s a thrilling moment. This is one of the few Night Shift stories without a single supernatural or horrific element, and it soars.
The Lawnmower Man
And suddenly, we’re back to earth. The Lawnmower Man is a lark, a brief and silly romp that takes its title literally: it’s about a man who hires a lawn care service, and ends up with a strange, rotund fellow who eats grass. He also sacrifices people who ask too many questions to the god Pan, all the while dripping green grass juice from his mouth.
This is the kind of story in which King makes a special effort to tell us that the lawnmower man’s pubic hair is green. It’s a fever dream, like something that popped into its author’s head at 4 a.m. and burst onto the page amid peals of laughter. As such, its impact is light, but it’s fun. And the 10 minutes it takes to read it are worth it for the policeman’s joke near the end: “Well, like the man said when he saw the black-haired Swede, it surely is a Norse of a different color.”
Quitters Inc.
Now this one’s unsettling. It’s a razor-sharp story about a company with a unique service: a guaranteed method to help people quit smoking. The plot is laid out in a long chunk of expositionary dialogue that turns more and more chilling as it goes – clients are given 10 chances to quit, with penalties at each turn, including electrical shocks for family members and the breaking of children’s arms. The tenth relapse means death.
You don’t even have to know about King’s smoking habit to realize this was written by someone with a dark sense of humor about his own addiction. The most interesting aspect of the story is that Quitters Inc. works – clients come out healthier and better, no longer chained to their habits. The final image is terrifying, but also speaks to a belief that nothing less than this could shake people from their addictions.
I Know What You Need
An early prototype of a later King archetype: a story of a woman finding the strength to leave a horrible man. This one’s spiced up with a bit of voodoo magic, which makes it simultaneously creepier and less believable. But as a short tale, it works. King’s descriptions of Edward Hammer truly bring him across – not detestably ugly, but just unattractive and unkempt enough to remain a social outcast, if not for his talent.
And for a while, that talent appears natural and chilling, Eddie anticipating all of Liz’s needs, and perhaps – just perhaps – killing the boyfriend who stood in his way. By the end, Liz realizes how Eddie has transformed himself into just what she needs, and she’s faced with what may be an awful truth about herself. But she pushes through anyway, in one of the few truly uplifting endings in this book.
Children of the Corn
This one gets off to such a good start that its literally monstrous ending is a shame. A dark and devastating look at unchecked religion, this story finds our squabbling protagonists trapped in a tiny town surrounded by cornfields, and run by children, in service to He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Slowly it becomes clear that the kids have killed their parents, and all the adults in town, and will kill our heroes soon enough.
Many of the stories in Night Shift are tense, but Children of the Corn is a page-turner of the highest order. Which is why it’s so disappointing when it turns out there really is something living in the cornfield, and accepting sacrifices. That takes the bite out of the religious satire, and turns this into just another monster tale. But for about 20 pages, this story simply drips with dread.
The Last Rung on the Ladder
For my money, the finest tale in this collection. Stories of boogeymen and vampires are fine, for what they are, but The Last Rung on the Ladder is truly affecting, if slightly overwritten. It gets at the history between this estranged brother and sister, focusing on a childhood event that serves as a metaphor for the places their lives went afterward.
And the final pages are close to magnificent. King doesn’t quite trust his own imagery and metaphor, and I wish he did, because they’re worthy of writers who command much more respect. When we are finally allowed to read Katrina’s letter to her brother, it is heartbreaking. The monsters under the bed are King’s bread and butter, but in his best moments, these are the stories he writes, and the directions he sends his career.
The Man Who Loved Flowers
Another short one, without much to recommend it. There’s a nice plant and payoff with the early, throwaway mention of a news report on a serial murderer, and in most cases, we’d breeze right by that piece of information, and be cold-cocked with it later. But there’s something to be said for context – this is a collection of Stephen King stories, so we’re looking for the twist, and when it arrives, it’s not as shocking as its author believes. This was likely more effective in its originally published form, however.
One For the Road
If not for the brief tale of grief that concludes this collection, One For the Road would have been a fine bookend. It’s another tale of Jerusalem’s Lot, this one letting us in on what happened after the conclusion of 'Salem’s Lot. And all is not well – vampires are still living in the burned-out town, and when a traveler finds himself broken down in the heart of the Lot, his would-be rescuers run into predictable trouble.
But it’s nice to revisit a familiar setting, and the moment when the timeline clicks into place, and the reader realizes this story takes place after King’s second novel, is a nice one. It’s a trick King will return to again and again, and a notion that will become central to his magnum opus, The Dark Tower.
The Woman in the Room
As much as I would have liked to see Night Shift neatly bookended by Jerusalem’s Lot, this story is a fine one to end on. It’s painfully human – it’s about a son who decides to end his sick mother’s suffering – but it’s told in such effective language, and with such a striking narrative device, that it stays with you.
That device, which sees our protagonist fading in and out of scenes with sentences that begin in one place and conclude in another, is jarring the first time it happens, but fully captures that lost, unmoored sensation of watching a loved one struggle with death. The decision he comes to is inevitable and merciful, and yet still powerful and difficult to deal with. This is further proof that when King decides to leave the supernatural behind entirely, he’s a superb chronicler of the human experience.
Next: The Stand.
