If you’re scared of rats, you may not want to find out what’s lurking at the bottom of the mill when the men find a hatch leading to a sub-basement…Ī young boy runs into a convenience store, during a snowstorm, deathly afraid. It’s the lurking inevitability of where the story heads that makes this story gruesomely fun – it reminded me of one of the classic Creepshowshort films that King also wrote, and you can tell he’s having a blast doing it. The author takes seemingly ordinary situations and turns them around on their heads to create taut, tension-filled nightmare fuel. His first short story collection, Graveyard Shift embellishes the core elements that made King a household name. As they descend into the depths of the mill they encounter horrors of epic proportions… “ Graveyard Shift” (Night Shift, 1978)Ī crew of men are tasked with cleaning out the abandoned basement of a textile mill that’s been infested with rats for years. They are great, so you should check them out when you get the chance, but we’re focusing on the short stories here.ġ0.
Therefore stories like ‘ The Body,’ ‘ The Langoliers,’ ‘ Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption,‘ and ‘ 1922,’ won’t be included. Note: this is a list of short stories, NOT novellas. You may scoff at some of the decisions on the list, and that’s okay because the thing about Stephen King’s work is that there is something for every horror aficionado. For this list, I’ve selected the stories that linger in the back of your mind, occasionally scratching with a sharpened talon, demanding to be let out of the dark shadows of the cranium.
I mean, there’s just so many to choose from. I doubt that there’s a genre he hasn’t tackled in some form or another during his illustrious career.Īnd so we come to this list – The 10 Best Scary Short Stories by Stephen King.
King is a master of the short story form, not only scaring audiences with horror but also weaving astounding sci-fi, fantasy and heartfelt dramas in his rich tapestry of woven words and vivid imagery. By the time Night Shift, was published he was 30 years old and already the author of three classic horror novels: Carrie, Salem’s Lot and The Shining. A horror story, as King wrote in the preface to his first collection Night Shift, “must tell a tale that holds the reader or the listener spellbound for a little while, lost in a world that never was, never could be”.
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