Nowadays, it’s easy to see Stephen King’s name and have a conceived notion of his legacy. He remains well into old age one of the most prolific authors of his generation, producing masterpieces that dig under people’s skin and recontextualizes fears we’ve long taken for granted. In this Short Stop series, I will explore a period before he was the icon we know and love. Even with a handful of bestsellers to his name, his status had yet to cement. That is why I’ve chosen to take a look at his first story collection, “Night Shift,” and hopefully get a glimpse into the writer taking shape, before his style was cemented into a cultural touchstone. Was he always the master of horror, or was there a simpler time when he was as messy and weird as the rest of us? All it takes is turning the page to find out.
One detail that has emerged from doing this column for a few years is the importance of organization. Despite having an array of ideas, there is a need to avoid clashing too much with the works around it. That was my biggest concern for this next story, following what I ultimately took to be a bit overlong and self-indulgent. I’m aware that I’m in the minority surrounding “Jerusalem’s Lot,” but the epistolary structure can’t help but make it feel gimmicky, out of touch with the elements I’ve come to admire in King. My concern going into “Graveyard Shift” was that it would be more of the same, at least in the sense that this would be a story closer to surveillance camera footage than something experienced on a visceral level.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the framing device King uses to track the pacing. As the title suggests, this is about workers in a decrepit textile mill during the late hours of the evening. They are assigned to clean the building by hosing down hallways while making sure they don’t run into any rats. Every few paragraphs are broken up by time signatures starting, for example, with “Two A.M. Friday.” The moniker recalls how “Jerusalem’s Lot” was dated to convey letter-writing. Thankfully, though, this King story is less obsessed with the heady nonsense and gets right to the heart of his characters.
The one upside of this pairing is how they are similarly structured but have very different outcomes. Both are about the slow burn, gradually introducing details until the reader feels suffocated by the madness on display. In the case of “Graveyard Shift,” it’s the simple idea that nature has found a mutant variable that allows them to form new species that are even more terrifying than your run-of-the-mill rodent. What starts as a simple problem emerges deep in the bowels of the building’s proverbial hell as something even more surreal. If the story can be said to have one flaw, it’s that the ending is straightforward, lacking the profundity of its preceding partner. Even so, the pulpy, nasty side of King is a salacious one, and a big reason that he’s continued to thrive in the literature world.
At the center of the story is Hall. Right off the bat, King does a fantastic job of creating a relatable character that the audience can root for. There’s no pretension about him. He’s a man forced to clean out a textile building while hiding his smoke breaks from his boss, Warwick. It’s an amusing scenario for anyone involved with the working class, and his ability to expand it with small world elements makes the introductory pages delightful. Along with hearing Warwick berate other employees through the walls, he’s throwing empty soda cans at the rats for his own amusement. It also creates the perfect irony for later, as he thinks that he can control the rats but is only biding his time against the little guys. Nobody is aware of the madness to come.
Even the mundane exchanges in this short story have a snappiness that allows the reader to become accustomed to this world. It’s not the most exciting place to be, but there’s enough eeriness that develops as one night passes into another. They work in the darkness due to the unbearable heat of the morning hours. Even with that defense, it feels like King uses it mostly to convey how haunting the unseen can be. If the lights go out, these men will be trapped forever in a maze alongside rats. Hall comes across as begrudging, more doing a job out of necessity than passion, which only makes the increasing danger all the more uncomfortable.
The reader comes to like Hall without knowing too much about his outside life. To King, it’s only worth focusing on the playful antagonism of the central characters. While Warwick is set up as the awful boss, he also populates scenes with additional, less-defined characters. Key among them is a comic foil named Wisconsky. Maybe it’s because the story was published in 1970 for Cavalier Magazine, but King’s descriptions of him are less than flattering. He is a fat, bumbling man who sometimes gets the brunt of the damage.
At one point, Wisconsky is bitten by a rat. King’s greater intention is to suggest that the rodents aren’t afraid of attacking humans. However, the mind begins to wonder if there’s something more insidious on display. Will Wisconsky turn feral and attack Hall? This is an idea that’s never elaborated on, but it works as a perfect misdirect for the halfway mark of the story. It’s less about any supernatural threat than the fact that Warwick sees danger quickly approaching and, instead of protecting his employees, decides to go forward with his plan. He has no intention to eliminate the problems, believing that they would need too many exterminators for any meaningful change.
If this story has a greater thesis, it’s the downside of poor management. While the rats are continually depicted as intimidating, Warwick is a more focalized threat. Everyone moves by his directions. They must be able to sacrifice their safety to reach their goals. Hall and Wisconsky are helpless to change anything. They’re not even sure why this building needed to have anything altered in the first place. And yet, they move forward into the darkness, downward towards their deaths as management looks the other way.
King’s greatest achievement is slowly introducing new details. With each hour and evening, the rat population grows. Efforts to fight them off with cans fade, and the employees seem to be entering their own psychotic stupor. Whereas it’s easy to assume that Wisconsky is the looming threat, it’s actually another reality of poor management. Because the building was abandoned, nobody was to upkeep its structure or keep problems from festering. As a result, the rats were able to build their own ecosystem out of sight of humanity, creating a variety of creatures ranging from larger than normal rats to albinos and bats. It’s a comical situation, but one that plays well with King’s need to befuddle readers. What is this world he’s introducing, and how did it become this way?
The tragic irony again is that Hall was always capable of turning back and not showing up for work. It may have come at economic deficiencies, but it would’ve saved him from this madness. Instead of consulting any official who would put an end to this, he goes forward and ultimately loses his life at the hands of the most horrifying image yet that King has incorporated in “Night Shift.” For those who are repulsed by rats to begin with, this story already felt a bit squirmy. However, the final pages, where the author revels in graphic and vulgar abandon, are the visceral touch needed to bring it all together. It should be noted that the rats mostly attack Warwick while Hall attempts to exterminate them. Even so, news of others blindly entering the vicinity suggests that things aren’t going to end well for anyone.
If judged solely as an exercise in pulpy horror, then this is a magnificent addition to King’s oeuvre. Everything builds to the intense moment of fear where the reader is unsure if anyone will escape. It’s a brilliant exercise because it conveys the practicality of doing what your boss says and realizing that he may be wrong. It also ties into real-life fears for some regarding rats and the unknown sewer systems that could fester radioactive behaviors that produce monstrosities like this. Without overreliance on description, “Graveyard Shift” paints an effective little picture of horror that also works as a commentary on how bosses often don’t care enough about their staff’s safety. By having it in such a mundane location heightens the results and allows for everything to feel more palpable over the brisk page count.
As with most King short stories, “Graveyard Shift” was adapted into a 1990 film by the same name. It should be noted that this work isn’t dense enough to justify a proper 86-minute movie, and thus has me believe it’s mostly an excuse to do cheap horror. While this could be done effectively, the premise is much too simple for a satisfying build and leaves one to wonder why it would ever need to be done. The results speak to that concern, with Graveyard Shift (1990) receiving a rare 0% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. While not always vocal on his own adaptations, King would publicly admit that he hated this one and that it was “a quick exploitative picture.” Given this was my feelings about the story (though in a positive connotation), it more than explains the unsuccessful translation.
After a bumpy start, “Night Shift” is looking to get back on track with a simple story of working a job you hate and hoping everything works out. It’s not the most surprising idea that he’s ever explored, but there’s enough playfulness on display to keep readers invested in Hall’s journey into the rat-infested nightmare. It also does a fantastic job of describing the violence once it emerges, finding ways to be both evocative and interpretive. Nobody wants to lose their lives over a lousy job, and this story is a perfect homage to that belief. By tapping into the familiar, King has elevated the form into something more intense. If nothing else, it’ll keep some people from trusting rats again, which sounds like a pretty decent trade-off.
Coming Up Next: “Night Surf”
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