King’s first collection of short stories showcases the darkest depths of his brilliant imagination. Here we see mutated rats gone bad (“Graveyard Shift”); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity (“Night Surf,” the basis for The Stand); a possessed, evil lawnmower (“The Lawnmower Man”); unsettling children from the heartland (“Children of the Corn”); a smoker who will try anything to stop (“Quitters, Inc.”); a reclusive...

Age-old images of fear fuse with the iconography of contemporary American life in this collection of tales from the modern master of horror.

The city's Highway 784 extension is being constructed right through every aspect of Bart Dawes's existence -- his home, his neighborhood, and the plant where he works. But something's happening inside his head, a complete and irrevocable burnout of the mental circuit breaker that keeps a mild-mannered person like Bart from turning to violent means. He's not about to give up everything without a fight.

"'Snapshot' is the disturbing story of a Silicon Valley adolescent who finds himself threatened by "The Phoenician," a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that erases memories, snap by snap. A young man takes to the skies to experience his first parachute jump. . . and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero's island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own in 'Aloft.' On a seemingly ordinary...

A domestic flight makes an unusual stopover in the land of "The Langoliers; " a writer confronts the reality of his success in "Secret Window, Secret Garden; " after being scolded by "The Library Policeman, " you'll never return a book late again; and once again the community of Castle Rock finds itself besieged by a nasty pooch in "The Sun Dog."

The story begins in our own time with Lestat, tall, blond, and handsome, a world-renowned rock star. His gifts are timeless, his youth never withers. But he was not always the powerful and famous child of darkness. Before his long earth-encrusted sleep, he was an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-Revolutionary France. It was then that he came face-to-face with the incarnation of evil and the temptations of love that he has ravenously pursued through...

"Laney Kilpatrick has been renting her vacation home to strangers. The invasion of privacy gives her panic attacks, but it's the only way she can keep her beloved Hemlock Island, the only thing she owns after a pandemic-fueled divorce. But broken belongings and campfires that nearly burn down the house have escalated to bloody bones, hex circles, and now, terrified renters who've fled after finding blood and nail marks all over the guest room closet,...

Years after a plague killed 99 percent of the population, turning them into infectious zombies, Finnegan and his family live in a barricaded New York City. But Finn's sheltered life fractures when his unsuspecting mother falls sick with the zombie disease - latent inside her since before her son's birth. Finn, too, can be infected. If he remains healthy for the last two years of potential incubation period, he'll be cleared. Until then, he must be...

After his childhood sweetheart is brutally killed and suspicion falls on him, Ig Parrish goes on a drinking binge and wakes up with horns on his head, hate in his heart, and an incredible new power which he uses in the name of vengeance.

The town of Castle Rock, Maine has seen its fair share of oddities over the years, but nothing is as peculiar as the little curio shop that's just opened for business here. Its mysterious proprietor, Leland Gaunt, seems to have something for everyone out on display at Needful Things...interesting items that run the gamut from worthless to priceless. Nothing has a price tag in this place, but everything is certainly for sale. The heart's desire for...