Sunday, June 14, 2009

June 14 - "Gray Matter"

Sundays with Uncle Stevie
“Gray Matter”
by Stephen King
Night Shift (1979)

* * * * (Great) Horror

A group of old duffers leave the comfort of the local bar during a winter storm to take a case of beer to Richie Grenadine. Richie’s son, Timmy, had come to the bar for the beer, scared to return to a father that had transformed into something gray and monstrous.

I love the scary stories. The kind of stories that give you actual chills. The chance that a bad can of beer could turn a person into a dead cat-eating, gelatinous monster is enough to keep a person from drinking. King does a great job building the tension so that when the group finally reaches their destination, characters and reader are afraid to walk down that dark, smelly – eerie – hallway. And there’s even an Easter egg of a side tale about a man encountering a giant spider in the sewers.

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