1. Children Of The Corn
Nothing puts a marriage to the test like a jaunt to bible belt Nebraska and into the midst of a pagan nightmare. But in the case of King’s hapless couple, Burt and Vicky, this is the reality they face as they discover a dead child in the road and head out to local town, Gatlin, to get help. What they actually find is a ghost town, with shadows cast by the Midwestern sun concealing a community of kids with murderous intent.
Like all of the stories in this list, Children Of The Corn starts slow and, in a way, quite mundane as we first meet this Cali couple during an argument about directions. However, the story soon builds into something frightening and, crucially, believable as Burt and Vicky start to learn more about what’s happened in this town. As the couple become separated a finale among the leafy stalks looms, where it’s safe to say that only the corn comes out feeling pleased.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may have arrived three years earlier and scared us into ever visiting backwater America – The Children Of The Corn scythed its way into the pages of Cavalier in 1977 – but this perhaps does a better job of creating an aura of terror in the remotest of locations and is a deserved number one – a short story crammed with scares, drama and a page turner in every sense.
As well as spawning its own film franchise, the monolithic power of The Stand also looms over this tale, with King fans more than likely well aware that He Who Walks Behind The Rows is none other than uber antagonist, Randall Flagg.
You’ve read the complete list, now it’s time to sharpen your memories and cut in with any other titles that you feel were contenders for this list.
2. Jerusalem’s Lot
Also taking some vital cues from Bram Stoker – the tale is written diary or letter form, as well as featuring not one, but two, monster types from the British author’s repertoire – the story unfolds at a slithering pace, as we flit between Boone and his servant’s recollections of what’s been discovered in the cellar and on their rambles to the ghostly township.
Once you reach this story’s chilling climax, you’ll start to believe there’s scratching behind your walls, too.
3. The Reach
This quite beautiful closing note from King’s collection, Skeleton Crew, first appeared in New England travel magazine, Yankee, back in the eighties under the title of Do The Dead Sing? Like all the very best works of fiction, the inspiration for this story derived from a throwaway encounter, which in this instance was a conversation King had with his brother in law, a Maine coast guard.
From this natter, King crafted a story about a Maine resident who had never left her island home. An affecting tale of life and death, the delicate plot sees Stella Flanders, a ninety-five-year-old resident of Goat Island, take her first trip across the titular waterway to a fate quite sombre.
Everything about The Reach hits the mark, from King’s quiet analogies (“The wind blew long, cold notes that fall, and Stella felt each note resonate in her heart.”) all the way to a finale that leaves a lasting imprint on the memory. This is a King story like no other.
4. The Road Virus Heads North
As a long-time fan of the moving picture story, it took an iffy portrait in his own home, of which his family couldn’t stand, for King to publish this pacey entry in turn of the millennium collection, Everything’s Eventual.
The story centres on road-bound writer, Richard Kinnell, who toasts a successful work trip by picking up an alluring painting at a yard sale. Said painting depicts a man behind the wheel of a garish muscle car – eerily sporting a “nasty, knowing grin.” – and as Kinnell hits the highway with this piece of art, it starts to change into something far more ominous.
In true King style he feeds his scares in stages, as his protagonist grows more and more uneasy as he nears home, with the man of the portrait seemingly chasing him all the way to his front door and killing anyone that he encounters en route to Maine. This sets up one of King’s most nail-biting finales.
5. Graveyard Shift
What unfolds is a classic piece of gloomy, monster horror – these rodents are mean, mutated and take all manner of grim form – as Hal stumbles deeper into his own nightmare and the waiting incisors of a colony matriarch that even James Cameron would be impressed with.
What is perhaps most commendable about this contained piece is that King was in his early twenties when he wrote it for Cavalier. But all the hallmarks of the writer’s growing strengths were here, as well as his penchant for bypassing cheap schlocky scares and pulling the musty rug out from under us with a despairing ending.
6. The Monkey
Across his career King has drawn terror from the most innocent of objects, be it Uncle Otto’s Truck, Dolan’s Cadillac, or some harmless Weeds, but never to the same effect as The Monkey.
In this story an innocent toy is unearthed from a loft by brothers Dennis and Petey. Unbeknownst to them, their father, Hal, endured a childhood plagued by this creepy simian, where it transpires the toy is actually a bona fide mechanical menace, clapping its cymbals together and spelling certain death for those nearby.
The power of this tale lies in King’s depiction of this bundle of metal and fur, as he expertly sends the adult Hal back into a childlike regression – “the lips would writhe and the cymbals would bang, stupid monkey, stupid clockwork monkey, stupid, stupid.” – turning the monkey into something almost from another realm. With time running out before this tiny terror sends others to their doom, both father and sons scramble to get rid of the toy with damming effect.
7. The Man In The Black Suit
The closest King has ever come to a remake – the author cites this as being a riff on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 19th century short Young Goodman Brown – The Man In The Black Suit is a get under your skin tale of boy goes into the woods and leaves having come face to face with pure evil.
The story was originally published in 1994 for The New Yorker and later featured as the starring moment in 2002 collection, Everything’s Eventual. The baddie of the title is what gives this story its Gothic menace, as adventurous young scamp, Gary, finds himself being taunted by a gnarled, fish snaffling man in the woods.
Told from the perspective of an adult and still terrified Gary, as he recounts his woodland nightmare to the reader, this is a great beat the devil tale, which also stands as one of King’s most lauded, having been crowned with the prestigious O. Henry Award following its publication.
8. Home Delivery
Back in 1989, a curious compendium of zombie stories hit shelves going quite aptly by the name of the Book Of The Dead. Nestled in this groundbreaking collection was a story by one Stephen King.
Given a slight reanimation for its inclusion in Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Home Delivery centres on pregnant Maine island dweller, Maddie Pace, as she joins up with the local community to face down an alien threat that has turned the majority of the world into zombies.
This gruesome tale builds up to a grand finale, where the island’s inhabitants stakeout the local cemetery and battle their former neighbours – now the shuffling undead – in order to make their haven safe once again. But it’s Maggie’s creepy reflection of how her recently deceased husband returned from his watery grave that lends this story its sombre appeal.
9. The Raft
This glaringly good tale has slithered up the list not because of its end of the summer nostalgia, or innovative gore – face melting during the throes of passion is a standout death in King’s vast oeuvre of doom – but due to the monster itself, which is both terrifying and beautiful (the colours) at the same time.
As a heads up to readers, King claims to not own a copy of this story, which originally featured in Playboy aping skin magazine, Gallery, back in 1982. So if any of you ardent fans out there have a copy, the author may be willing to take it off your hands.
10. Night Surf
First published in literary journal Ubris in 1969, revised extensively for Cavalier in 1974 and, crucially, a prequel of sorts to King’s 1978 opus, The Stand, this post-apocalyptic story could well be one of the author’s most important.
Featuring one of King’s best opening gambits, “After the guy was dead and the smell of his burning flesh was off the air, we all went back down to the beach,” Night Surf is an unsurprisingly bleak affair – a group of beach bum New Hampshire teens kill a man and burn his body on a pyre, an offering to the deadly Captain Trips virus – which keeps you gripped, even though all hope seems to be lost.
While reading, keep your eyes peeled for a neat Rolling Stones track reference, a nod to one of King’s early poems and an alternate view on where the virus outbreak could have started.
11. The Night Flier
Published in the eighties to be included in horror anthology, Prime Evil: New Stories By The Masters Of Modern Horror, this gory tale sees a tabloid journalist take on a story with perhaps too much bite, as he embarks on a chase with a mysterious Cessna Skymaster, rumoured to be piloted by a vicious serial killer. As his rain-soaked chase reaches its climax, this cynical hack comes face to face with one of King’s most chilling creations.Not content with also crafting one of his finest vampire tales to date, King also managed to link this tale to The Dead Zone – journo Richard Dees features in a cameo – and Popsy, where in the case of the latter King himself has stated it’s safe to assume the winged beast in this short story is indeed The Night Flier.
12. Sometimes They Come Back
First appearing in men’s magazine Cavalier back in 1974, and just one of the great yarns that comprise King’s first and best collection, Night Shift, Sometimes They Come back is a tale of murder and revenge with a gleefully mean twist.The story takes place in the above decade, as King’s school teacher protagonist, Jim Norman, becomes steadily unnerved when his students start to mysteriously die, only to be replaced by members of the same slippery greasers that killed his baby brother some twenty years earlier. But here’s the kicker, said rebels also died in an electrifying car wreck not long after committing their crime.
The setup is another prime exercises in unfolding supernatural drama, with those 1950s contrasts that were so vividly employed in King’s later novel, IT, being flexed here and a Dennis Wheatley esque finale hurled at readers for good measure. The story was enduring enough to spawn a 1991 film adaptation and a troupe of straight-to-video sequels of diminishing returns.
13. The Moving Finger
This entry from King’s nineties collection, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, sees an average accountant get the heebie jeebies when a human finger appears from his plug hole. Tapping into feelings of paranoia and confused terror, King takes full advantage of a New York apartment setting by cranking up the claustrophobia factor as his fretful protagonist panics over what to do with this seemingly endless digit that has invaded his sink. With time ticking before his other half returns from the shops, he has to resort to desperate measures.On the face of it, this is a throwaway Twilight Zone esque scribble, but by intercutting the creeping horror extending from the bathroom, with what is happening on the box – his protagonist has a fondness for Jeopardy – this emerges as one of King’s quirkiest tales to date, which is capped off grimly with a frenzied and bloodied finale.
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