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.
Anyone who has read “Night Shift” will know how this journey started. King chose to open with an unreleased epistolary follow-up to his sophomore novel “Salem’s Lot.” Despite the creative pivot from his usual kinetic style, it felt like the wrong note. The slow burn was too slow, the stylistic references too arbitrary to not make me think of other authors who have done similar stories better. It felt like it was trying too hard to impress, and it left me concerned that, despite being a longtime fan of the author, I had made a mistake. I’m willing to think some writers grow into greatness, but as far as introductions go, it was the worst move possible.
Having not read “Salem’s Lot,” I was nervous about the idea of “Night Shift” having two stories branching out from that root. I prayed that “One for the Road” would fare better than “Jerusalem’s Lot,” that it would capture something that felt more organic to the King aesthetic. Even with 17 stories separating these two of varying quality, it took finally reading it to accept that the agreement you buy into when reading King is he’ll sometimes be the worst author you’ve ever read…
…but he often places his greatness against the schlock in an astounding way. “One for the Road” is a vast improvement that knows how to get under your skin and elevates the old-time vampire concept into something new and fresh. So much of the imagery is haunting not because of a grisly dismemberment, but because of the psychological horror going on somewhere in the snow. The circumstances come from a practical place full of uncertainty. Nobody could ever know what to expect by venturing out into the blizzard. It’s the perfect premise for King to overindulge, and I’d argue it never lets up until the gut-wrenching final line that ranks among his most stunning sentences to date.
The story works because it is indebted to a geography that King knows well. Maine is in a region known for hellish winters, and he’s used that premise to create a variety of ticking clocks. The snow as a plot device reflects mankind’s losing struggle against nature, where to hesitate could leave you covered in a frozen grave from the sky. Add in winds and a world disappearing from recognition, and suddenly “One for the Road” goes from just using vampire schtick to creating a story about the follies of playing hero during the worst possible time.
Which isn’t to say that the heroes are negligible. Their heart was in the right place, and it makes the tragedy more quixotic. Protagonists Booth and Herb “Tookey” Tooklander are hanging out at Tookey’s Bar. The title refers to the trend of offering somebody an alcoholic beverage before they leave for the night. Tookey is even seen handing drinks to curbside patrons, creating a richer interiority of how this society operates. Even as King draws out the intimacy of his two leads, the side details create awareness of the perils outside, and that it’s likely these two will survive the next few hours in each other’s company. Thankfully, they’re delightful chaps.
Then comes Gerald Lumley. He’s a motorist who has climbed in from the cold with an urgent mission. Despite being foolish for driving in this weather, he has a goal warranting a trip back into the unknown. His wife and daughter are stuck in their Mercedes and must be rescued. The premise sounds simple enough, but as a King story, there’s always a catch. They didn’t just get stranded in a place where the snow is boxing them in. They went down the way to a place called ‘Salem’s Lot.
The downside to reading this is that it’s the most indebted to an outside text. I’m not fully aware of the terror to be found at ‘Salem’s Lot. There might be more mystery for longtime readers that makes a visit back worse. With that said, King isn’t precious about continuity here. We know as much as Gerald does, which is that this is a place overrun with murderous vampires. To go there during the nighttime is a suicide mission. Given the mobility and likelihood that they wander the neighboring area, it’s also not unbelievable that they’ll attack anything in sight.
The three men take to the road and deliver something underrated that King has done twice now. One of my favorite parts of “Children of the Corn” was the nature of people driving. There’s a level of intimacy with an always-changing landscape that can feel visceral. While “One for the Road” doesn’t have nearly the conflict of the prior tale, King revels in the surroundings. The falling snow presents obstacles as the blizzard blinds paths and risks turning the car into a stranded casket. There’s a self-aware helplessness present that helps to create the paranoid mind of so many things going wrong for this seemingly noble act. King’s asking if it’s worth the sacrifice to not just go through the night in safety with uncertainty.
Upon arrival, the Mercedes is empty. Assumptions could be made about what happens next. The genius comes from the pages dedicating time to understand Gerald but not his loved ones. They are fragments of ideas, and thus the ambiguity allows the pain to feel worse. There is something lost in entering ‘Salem’s Lot that nobody understands. Still, he yells for them, hoping it’s not too late. As the outside world disappears, so too does the evidence of a happy ending. The bittersweet touches are some of this anthology’s most human moments, causing the reader to imagine their own final moments before they realize that there’s no return to innocence. Whether arrogance or naivety, the actions have produced such horrifying consequences.
Everything ends with a predictable pit in its stomach. They stumble upon the wife, who has fully turned into a vampire. The cognitive dissonance of realizing she is no longer the human who loved is difficult to take when the emotions are raw, and it’s what makes one try to determine if murder or possibly ending your own life early is worth it. There’s nothing worth holding onto, and it’s the closest that King has come to the abyss…
… until he introduces the fate of his daughter. The genius of this scene is the awareness that Booth got to witness the final moments of humanity. As she reaches for him, it’s a gesture meant for the old way, the comfort from the scary world around them. However, she now possesses fangs and red eyes. It won’t be long until she becomes a vampire with no goal but to murder. He cannot bring himself to hurt the child, meaning she’s left to live forever in the childlike body, never experiencing the adult world like everyone else in the story. Tookey throws a Douay Bible at her as a distraction long enough to get away.
The weight carries for years past that event. Gerald has left for a life unseen. Meanwhile, Booth and Tookey try to live on while processing the horrors. Setting the story at a bar allows for a brilliant distraction where alcohol can drown them out and numb the pain. Even so, Tookey admits to having nightmares. His body eventually gives out thanks to a heart attack.
If this wasn’t bleak enough, King lands the entire thing with one of the greatest sentences in his entire career. Having been through so much irreparable harm, everyone is incapable of moving on. They’ll always need one for the road. However, there is one person whose fate seems to be worse. Gerald’s daughter is described as “still waiting for her goodnight kiss.” The contrast of eternal damnation with personal isolation and a call to the past is haunting, reflecting on the tragedy of a life unlived. Whereas Tookey’s history was symbolized by the convoluted renaming of his bar, this girl doesn’t have a legacy. She is a victim without a story.
This story was published in the March/April 1977 issue of Maine, and what a place to have premiered. Without having been to the state, it encapsulates a unique bleakness that is only worsened by the use of climatology. It’s a suffocating story that never lets up and only gets worse by the final page. It thankfully comments on mortality without having to rely on graphic violence. If anything, it’s a study of how slowly everything is lost and the fear of observing that fate so closely. How does one go on living when you’re that aware of what is gone? Even if there are more compelling characters in “Night Shift,” this may be one of the most relatable and human.
With the penultimate entry of this series, King delivers one of the greatest punches of his early career yet. “One for the Road” encapsulates visceral imagery and a keen understanding of how horror can relate to very real emotions. This is a story that succeeds where “Jerusalem’s Lot” fails. Whereas that one pushed too hard to be clever, this one evolves into something more organic and beautiful. The novelty is chipped away, leaving behind something more provocative that defines King’s best work. I’m unsure how it compares to “Salem’s Lot,” but I think even in short spurts, it’s evident that this world says something deeper to the author and offers a greater conflicted vision of humanity’s need to appreciate its own existence while there's still time.
Coming Up Next: “The Woman in the Room”
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