Night Shift: Excursions into Horror

by Stephen King
with an Introduction by John D. MacDonald
(New York: Signet, 1978)
Paperback, 326 Pages, Short Fiction Anthology

From the Cover: In places where fear dwells and blood runs cold, sinister forces and unspeakable things are working the Night Shift. From the depths of darkness where hideous rats defend their empire, to dizzying heights where a girls hangs by a hair above a hellish fate, Night Shift will plunge you into the subterranean labyrinth of the most spine-tingling, eerie imaginations of our time.
This collection contains the following stories: “Jerusalem’s Lot”, “Graveyard Shift”, “Night Surf”, “I Am the Doorway”, “The Mangler”, “The Boogeyman”, “Gray Matter”, “Battleground”, “Trucks”, “Sometimes They Come Back”, “Strawberry Spring”, “The Ledge”, “The Lawnmower Man”, “Quitters, Inc.”, “I Know What You Need”, “Children of the Corn”, “The Last Rung on the Ladder”, “The Man Who Loved Flowers”, “One for the Road”, and “The Woman in the Room”.
My Review: As most of you know by now, I am a Stephen King geek. Love his stuff, but his short stories deserve special consideration by any serious reader. King has published a number of short story collections, Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Everything’s Eventual, there is also Four Past Midnight and Different Seasons, and most people (fans and critics) consider Skeleton Crew to be his best collection, but personally, I think that Night Shift has the best of King’s short stories. These are some of the scariest short fiction that has ever been put down on the printed page. Since I am in a creative writing class right now, I have become especially interested in the short story, and so that is why I decided to pick up Night Shift, because, as my creative writing teacher says, “a short story is basically a manual on how to write a short story.” So, I figure, there is no one better to learn from than Stephen King (as well as Ray Bradbury).

“Jerusalem’s Lot”. This is a sort of prequel to King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, and can be found included in the hardbound volume ‘Salem’s Lot: Illustrated Edition. It is written in a style very reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft, and deals with the nature and underlying source of evil rather than with vampires. It is told in an epistolary manner (through letters and diary entries) making it sound somewhat like Stoker’s Dracula or Shelley’s Frankenstein. What I like most about it is the subtle horror that builds expertly to the revelation of what has been making the noise in the basement of the house, falls off as the characters refuse to believe what they’ve seen and then builds again to the climax that takes place in the decrepit church in Jerusalem’s Lot. A little on the long side (based on the length of the rest of the stories in this book) but effective nonetheless.

“Graveyard Shift”. Great story about rats in the basement and subbasement of a decrepit Maine textile mill. Nothing here but straight horror, especially if you hate rats as much as I do. Especially if you hate dog- and cow-sized rats as much as I do. Ick! Bytheby, this one is semi-autobiographical, as King once worked in a textile mill and although he didn’t ever work on holiday clean-out crews like in the story, he had those who did tell him tales of the rats that were encountered during those shifts. Ick ick and more ick!

“Night Surf”. This story is loosely connected to King’s shelf-buster The Stand. A group of college students try to keep their sanity about themselves as the world around them dies in the grip of a super-flu. I like this one because, other than an implied act of violence in the beginning, this is very different from what people think of when they think of “Stephen King.” Yes, the world ahs been wiped out, but this is a meditative and introspective look at what people would do when the system collapses. I especially like the small detail of the kids who have taken over a Boston radio station and are broadcasting whatever they please.

“I Am the Doorway”. More science fiction than horror, “Doorway” is a creepy tale of an alien intelligence taking over a crippled astronaut that has come back from a mission-gone-wrong to Venus. Definitely some of the creepiest imagery that King has ever come up with. Some of the older editions of the book use this story as their cover art, like the image I’ve included. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Ray Bradbury. You’ll love it. I promise.
(As an interesting side-note, I came across a website that is an academic research site of the religious, art and iconographic meanings of the “eye-in-the-hand” symbol. Some of you might find itinteresting: http://www.darkfiber.com/eyeinhand/.)

“The Mangler”. You gotta love a story about a demonic, possessed industrial laundry press machine. This one is pure horror through and through. Only some one like Stephen King could come up with a plot like this and not make it ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing ridiculous about this story, it is – in all actuality – really very very creepy. I know that that may sound stupid, but you don’t have to take my word for it, as LeVar Burton was wont to say, pick up a copy of Night Shift and see for yourself.

“The Boogeyman”. This is one of my favorite stories in this collection. It is simple, straightforward and has a killer ending. This story shows King’s talent in spades … as the questions and tension and anxiety build King paints such a wonderful portrait of a man in grief that may or may not be real. There is just enough going on in the subtext to make the reader question what it is they are hearing. I love it.

“Gray Matter”. This is another one of the best stories in Night Shift. When the local drunk’s boy comes in to the store to buy his old man a case of beer, he has one hell of a story to tell. The old men that hold court in the store decide they better go and see what’s going on, so they deliver the beer. What has happened to Richie Grenadine is worse than anything they could possibly imagine. I love this story. I hate this story. I wish I had written this story. Definitely one of Stephen King’s best.

“Battleground”. Like “Trucks” below, my biggest memory of this story is sitting on the shore of some long-forgotten lake and reading Night Shift when I was supposed to be fishing. I think it was for some Boy Scout thing or another, but I seemed to care a lot more about the book and Stephen King’s stories than I did about the fish. Seems to be the story of my life. As for “Battleground,” some of you horror geeks (like myself) will notice more than a passing reference to Richard Matheson’s own short story “Prey.” This comes as no surprise though, since King labels Matheson as one of his biggest influences and favorite authors while growing up. A bit of trivia: In July 2006, TNT made a miniseries of a number of King’s short stories. Most came from the Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection, but a few, like “Battleground” (starring William Hurt) are from other collections. The trivia is that the teleplay writer for Battleground was Richard Christian Matheson, son of Richard Matheson. There is also a parallel to be drawn between “Battleground” and the Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll” (which was also spoofed in The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror III segment “Clown without Pity”.)

“Trucks”. Please don’t judge this story by its movie. Even Stephen King himself has said that Maximum Overdrive was not the movie he envisioned it to be (mostly due to the censors, but that’s another kettle of fish). Anywho, Trucks is a great story that deals with a topic King comes to over and over and over again: don’t trust technology too much. He comes to this point in The Tommyknockers, in Cell in The Stand and in more than one of his short stories. My biggest memory of this story is reading it on the shore of a lake – I don’t remember which one – while I was supposed to be fishing. I was – obviously – more into the book than I was into the rod and reel. I don’t remember if I caught anything, but I remember reading “Trucks” for the first time. I must have been eleven or twelve, and the image of sitting by the lake and reading is very strong in my memory.

“Sometimes They Come Back”. I really like this story. This is a horror story that moves. It’s got all the bells and whistles and chrome and even the fuzzy dice and – brother, does it move! Long dead teens return from the grave to finish their business with a teacher who they once terrorized as a kid. The tension that builds as each of the gang members “return” one-by-one is nail-biting and the final confrontation in the deserted classroom is pure brilliance. Love this story. King got everything right with this one.

“Strawberry Spring”. Okay, it’s confession time. In a high school creative writing class I “wrote” a story that blatantly plagiarized Stephen King’s “Strawberry Spring.” Yes, yes I did. Mea culpa. Hand me the flagellum, I’ll be on my way to the public pillory now. Got an A – of course. Oh well. That’s a lot of water under the bridge now, so I’ll move on. Obviously, I like this story a lot. Like “The Boogeyman” the tension the builds is expertly done, and the denouement is simply amazing. Also, I always love a cliffhanger ending, and “Strawberry Spring” has a doozey of one.

“The Ledge”. This is a sort of “dark parable” – for lack of a better phrase – that deals with vengeance and anger. The story is simple, but in King’s capable hands, he manages to tell a story that is quite engaging and very, very suspenseful.

“The Lawnmower Man”. Like “Trucks” please, please don’t judge this story by the dreadful Pierce Brosnan film of the same name (which, by the way, King was so disgusted and disappointed with that he sued to have his named removed from any association with it). If you saw the film The Lawnmower Man, I am so very, very sorry for you. If you haven’t, don’t! Run to your local library or bookstore and find a copy of Night Shift and read King’s “Lawnmower Man.” Your brain will thank you for it. This story is a true trip. I just love it, especially the phrase “by Circe” that comes up and confuses the protagonist.

“Quitters, Inc.”. You think you had problems quitting smoking? Wait until you meet Dick Morrison and Jimmy McCann, two alum of the titular program. No real “horror” here, though the paranoia quotient is ratcheted way up. You’ll love it. I promise.

“I Know What You Need”. This is a love story that about two-thirds of the way through takes a hanging left turn into the macabre. It’s great in that from the beginning you know that there is something wrong, something “off,” with the main character – Ed – but the fun thing is that until the revelation come near the ends, you don’t know what it is that is “off.” King does a great job of keeping the secret and building the suspense.

“Children of the Corn”. I love this short story. This is what short horror fiction should be. King does a great job of keeping the tension and paranoia extraordinarily high. These are the creepiest kids you’ll find in fiction writing, and there is nothing scarier that the unseen yet omnipresent He-Who-Walks-Behind-The-Rows. Like some of the others in this anthology, don’t judge this story by its film (or the copious and seemingly self-replicating sequels), the original story is the best format for experiencing this tale of the macabre.

“The Last Rung on the Ladder”. This is the story to point people to when they say they never read that “Stephen King Stuff.” There is no horror in this tale. It is simply a straight-forward and very poignantly told story of a man who learns of his sister’s suicide. This news makes him remember the time he saved his sister’s life when they were young and living on their father’s farm in Nebraska. It is very emotional and shows that Stephen King is much more than a “horror writer” and truly deserves his position in American literature today.

“The Man Who Loved Flowers”. Like “I Know What You Need,” this is a simple love story that takes a hanging left turn into the darkness. There’s not much else to say about this one, other than it starts out nice and quaint … and then, then the screaming starts, in the alley, in the darkness where this story really starts to take place.

“One for the Road”. This one is in the same category as “Jerusalem’s Lot” (the first story in Night Shift, see the review above) – it is a coda, of sorts, to ‘Salem’s Lot and deals with the vampires that now inhabit The Lot. Also like “Jerusalem’s,” this can be found the hardbound volume ‘Salem’s Lot: Illustrated Edition. My favorite part of this story is the last line. It is one of the most chilling lines of fiction writing that I have ever read.

“The Woman in the Room”. Aside from On Writing, “The Woman in the Room” is, perhaps, one of the most autobiographical pieces that Stephen King has ever written. Compared with the passages in On Writing when King discusses the passing of his mother due to cancer, one can easily see where the inspiration for this story came from. Now, granted, King did not euthanize his mother, but the comparison holds nonetheless. Like “Last Rung” this is a story to direct people to when they say they don’t read anything by Stephen King.