Looking For A “Night” of Horror?

(written for a class ;P)

It is that time of the year again. The time when leaves change, temperatures drop, and the nights grow long. The time when the theaters are filled with horror inducing moves, and TV shows come out with their thrilling and gruesome episode of the year.

This year, consider this: every night before bed, curl up with your favorite drink and settle in to a story designed to get you second guessing the coat hanging on your chair. If you’re not much of a reader or do not want to go in deep to a single thrilling long story, might I recommend the King of Horror himself, Stephen King, and his collection of 20 short stories “Night Shift.”

I read it all, and now I can recommend a list of seven stories, one a day, to fill your Halloween week. I will be rating the stories by length, pace, and of course the all important scare factor. All will be demonstrated with an overall ghost rating.

Let us begin nice and easy:

Day 1. Gray Matter: A boy who lives alone with his alcoholic father ventures into the cold winter to seek help when things get too strange for the mind to comprehend. What did the beer he drinks everyday do to him?

Day 2. The Boogeyman: A man seeks relief at a psychologist. He needs to tell his story of how all three of his children died due to something in the closet.

Day 3. I Am The Doorway: A retired astronaut suffers the effects of a disease he contracted in his last venture into space. When a boy ends up dead due to the thing irritating his hands, he must make a gruesome decision.

Day 4. Graveyard Shift: Workers are asked to stay overnight and helps clean up the basement, only to find out everything is infested with grossly oversized rats.

Day 5. Jerusalem’s Lot: An old family mansion passed down through generations located in a town riddled with superstition and dark, unholy secrets. Madness or reality? Truth or a man's broken mind?

Day 6. One for the Road: A family from New Jersey foolishly ventures into Salom’s Lot in a snowstorm, not realizing or understanding the horror they just willingly rode into. They are left to wander in the night, searching for each other.  

Day 7. Children of The Corn: A couple looking to save their marriage takes a shortcut on their long journey through the Midwest After hitting a young boy with their car, they soon realized it was not the car that killed him.

Over all, this was a thrilling little book. Every night being able to read a short story that did not require a copious amount of time to fully enjoy the experience is phenomenal. I really do recommend you read the whole thing. Most if not all of these stories can be found in audiobook format on YouTube. Enjoy going to bed in a black room with someone reading monstrous tales in your ear.