History Monster / StephenKing

* ''[[Literature/DifferentSeasons Apt Pupil (or, Summer of Corruption)]]'': [[TeensAreMonsters Todd Bowden]] is a budding psychopath obsessed with the war crimes committed by the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and as such, is overjoyed when he learns his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, is in fact Kurt Dussander, a former Nazi commander in hiding. Blackmailing Dussander into regaling him with tales of his atrocities, Todd slowly becomes aroused at the very thought of the crimes Dussander committed, even fantasizing about raping Jewish women while they scream in terror. Beginning to show his {{sadist}}ic tendencies by cruelly crushing a bird to death, Todd begins [[SerialKiller butchering homeless people]] for his own entertainment, claiming that [[DisposableVagrant they are just subhuman trash that no one will miss]]. Regularly lusting to murder his loving parents and girlfriend for minor annoyances, staying his hand only to keep out of trouble, Todd realizes he will be caught for his association with Dussander, and decides to go out with a bang, murdering his guidance counselor before heading to a highly-populated location and opening fire on any random citizens in the area for five hours straight before being stopped. Representing the evil that Dussander spent decades trying to move past, Todd Bowden was a teenager whose only pleasure in life was the suffering of others and his own well-being, and, despite being unremarkable in almost every way, stands out as one of Stephen King's youngest, but no less wicked, villains.

* ''Literature/{{IT}}'': In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry, Maine]], [[AntagonistTitle IT]] awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town, often using the avatar of a MonsterClown named Pennywise to lure children into its clutches. IT prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, preying on their phobias and acquired fears and likening the cultivation of their terror to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hockstetter alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness, then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers; drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights; and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.

* ''Literature/TheGreenMile'': William "Wild Bill" Wharton is a PsychopathicManchild awaiting execution at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary for murdering three people in an armed robbery, one of whom was a pregnant woman. When he first appears in the prison he manages to convince the guards he's in a drugged stupor, only to attempt to strangle Dean Stanton to death when his guard was down. Failing in that, Wild Bill contents himself with causing as much mischief as he can before his eventual execution. Eventually it comes to light that Wild Bill's worst known crime was the rape and murder of the two little girls that John Coffey is accused of killing. In order to stop the girls from calling for help, he told them that if one of them screams, it's her sister that he'd kill.

* Randall Flagg is a demonic, quasi-immortal being who frequently appears throughout the works of Creator/StephenKing as an embodiment of evil. Living through different lives in different worlds, the one constant about Flagg is that he is always working to sow the seeds of chaos and despair wherever he goes. Flagg was part of the Vietnam War, Ku Klux Klan lynching, police murders, and race riots, and each time he was part of a violent experience it would ultimately serve to empower the evil within him.

** In ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series, it is revealed that Flagg has lived for so long and accumulated so much power that he has become the emissary for the [[{{Satan}} Crimson King]]. Flagg earns Roland Deschain's undying hatred for beating and sleeping with Roland’s mother, and for aiding the revolutionary, John Farson, in causing the destruction of the city of Gilead. Flagg also forces Roland to let his preteen companion, Jake Chambers, die, and drives a girl insane by telling her the trigger phrase which causes a formerly dead man to [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow recount the afterlife to her]]. Corruptive, treacherous and sadistic, Flagg's ultimate goal was to betray his master and climb to the top of the Dark Tower in order to become God of all.
* ''[[Literature/DifferentSeasons Apt Pupil (or, Summer of Corruption)]]'': [[TeensAreMonsters Todd Bowden]] is a budding psychopath obsessed with the war crimes committed by the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and as such, is overjoyed when he learns his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, real name Kurt Dussander, is in fact a former Nazi commander in hiding. Blackmailing Dussander into regaling him with tales of his atrocities, Todd slowly becomes aroused at the very thought of the crimes Dussander committed, even fantasizing about raping Jewish women while they scream in terror. Beginning to show his {{sadist}}ic tendencies by cruelly crushing a bird to death, Todd begins [[SerialKiller butchering homeless people]] for his own entertainment, claiming that [[DisposableVagrant they are just subhuman trash that no one will miss]]. Regularly lusting to murder his loving parents and girlfriend for minor annoyances, staying his hand only to keep out of trouble, Todd, realizing he will be caught for his association with Dussander, decides to go out with a bang and murders his guidance counselor before heading to a highly-populated location and opening fire on any random citizens in the area for five hours straight before being stopped. Representing the evil that Dussander spent decades trying to move past, Todd Bowden was a teenager whose only pleasure in life was the suffering of others and his own well-being, and, despite being unremarkable in almost every way, stands out as one of Stephen King's youngest, but no less wicked, villains.
* ''Literature/BlackHouse'': [[WouldHurtAChild The Fisherman]] (Charles Burnside) is a [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] SerialKiller who [[ChildEater preys on children]]. He modeled the ''modus operandi'' of his crimes [[JackTheRipoff after the historical serial killer Albert Fish]][[note]]who actually existed in RealLife[[/note]] to [[EvilerThanThou outdo him in evil]]. He rapes, kills, and eats at least three children in the town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He is eventually revealed to be a human agent of the [[Franchise/TheDarkTower Crimson King]]. The Fisherman travels through dimensions to seek out psychic children called "Breakers," personally murdering them if they fail to live up to their abilities. Once he has enlisted them in the Crimson King's army, they will then be used to break the remaining beams of [[CosmicKeystone the Dark Tower]] and [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt end all of existence]].

* ''Literature/{{Insomnia}}'': Atropos is one of the entities responsible for cutting the life threads of the mortals whose time has come. But unlike the other entities like him, Atropos absolutely despises humans for being such short-lived creatures, and takes great pleasure in ending their lives. So in addition to doing his job, Atropos goes after people whose fate isn’t decided and causes them to die horribly, which he has done enough times to fill a cave with trophies of his victims. When his boss, the Crimson King, wants him to kill a young boy before he grows up to oppose his plans, Atropos uses this opportunity to harm as many people as possible. He proceeds to corrupt a nice family man called Ed Deepneau into becoming a wife-beating extremist. Under Atropos' manipulation, Deepneau gets together with like-minded maniacs and assault a woman care center, where they murder dozens of people, as a distraction for his real plan: to have Deepneau crash with a plane full of explosives onto a pro-abortion rights rally that the kid will be attending with his mother, killing them along with the other two thousand people present. Along the way, Atropos has several of the protagonist’s friends killed just to piss him off, and taunts him about it. Finally, when his plans are foiled, Atropos tries to kill Deepneau’s six-year old daughter (who the hero befriended) just to get back at him for humiliating him in front of his boss.

* Randall Flagg is a demonic, quasi-immortal being who frequently appears throughout the works of StephenKing as an embodiment of evil. Living through different lives in different worlds, the one constant about Flagg is that he is always working to sow the seeds of chaos and despair wherever he goes. Flagg was part of the Vietnam War, Ku Klux Klan lynching, police murders, and race riots, and each time he was part of a violent experience it would ultimately serve to empower the evil within him.

* ''Literature/RoseMadder'': Rose's husband [[DomesticAbuser Norman]] in has been beating and sexually abusing Rosie for ''fourteen years'', including causing her to miscarry. After he finds out that she left him, he is determined to hunt her down and torture her to death. His methods for locating his ex-wife are tracking down, torturing, and murdering the people who helped her. His favourite method of killing is biting his victims to death. He is also a [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist, sexist, homophobic]] creep who thinks all feminists are lesbians and despises one of his victims as soon as he finds out he's Jewish. His feelings about women are summed up in the fact that when he is in disguise and has to come up with the name of a woman who's protected him, he uses the first and last names of his two favourite porn actresses.

* ''Literature/{{IT}}'': The title character, though an actual monster, is neither animalistic nor alien in its thought processes; the creature has full understanding of human morality, it just doesn't care. In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]], IT awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town, often using the avatar of a MonsterClown named Pennywise to lure children into its clutches. IT prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, preying on their phobias and acquired fears and likening the cultivation of their terror to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hoffstetter alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness, then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers; drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights; and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.

* ''Literature/NeedfulThings'': [[FauxAffablyEvil Leland Gaunt]] is a very different kind of a monster villain, a genial and well-spoken owner of a little novelty shop that just happens to have your heart's greatest desire in stock, which he's willing to sell it to you for a paltry sum and a little favor, a harmless prank to play on your neighbor. What you don't know is that your "needful thing" is in fact a malevolent charm that will make you paranoid and obsessed over it and drive you into murderous insanity, and all the harmless little pranks are designed to thrive on old grudges and insecurities, exploit all the dirty secrets your neighbors (and you) have and stir up all the incipient feuds, turning people against each other until your whole town tears itself apart with weapons that Mr. Gaunt helpfully supplies. Even if you're spared by the slaughter and general madness, it is only so you could [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realize that you're partially responsible for it]] and [[DrivenToSuicide kill yourself]]. Mr. Gaunt will just stand there at the window of his little shop, savouring chaos and death, like he'd done countless times before all across the world.

* ''Literature/NeedfulThings'': [[FauxAffablyEvil Leland Gaunt]] is a very different kind of a monster villain, a [[AffablyEvil genial and well-spoken owner]] of a little novelty shop that just happens to have your heart's greatest desire in stock, which he's willing to sell it to you for a paltry sum and a little favor, a harmless prank to play on your neighbor. What you don't know is that your "needful thing" is in fact a malevolent charm that will make you paranoid and obsessed over it and drive you into murderous insanity, and all the harmless little pranks are designed to thrive on old grudges and insecurities, exploit all the dirty secrets your neighbors (and you) have and stir up all the incipient feuds, turning people against each other until your whole town tears itself apart with weapons that Mr. Gaunt helpfully supplies. Even if you're spared by the slaughter and general madness, it is only so you could [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realize that you're partially responsible for it]] and [[DrivenToSuicide kill yourself]]. Mr. Gaunt will just stand there at the window of his little shop, savouring chaos and death, like he'd done countless times before all across the world.

* ''RoseMadder'': Rose's husband [[DomesticAbuser Norman]] in has been beating and sexually abusing Rosie for ''fourteen years'', including causing her to miscarry. After he finds out that she left him, he is determined to hunt her down and torture her to death. His methods for locating his ex-wife are tracking down, torturing, and murdering the people who helped her. His favourite method of killing is biting his victims to death. He is also a [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist, sexist, homophobic]] creep who thinks all feminists are lesbians and despises one of his victims as soon as he finds out he's Jewish. His feelings about women are summed up in the fact that when he is in disguise and has to come up with the name of a woman who's protected him, he uses the first and last names of his two favourite porn actresses.

Creator/StephenKing has written some pretty nasty villains in his day, but [[CompleteMonster these]] particularly stand out. With rare exception, the actual monsters of his works tend to pale in comparison to the more human villains.

* Randall Flagg is a demonic, quasi-immortal being who frequently appears throughout the works of StephenKing as an embodiment of evil. Living through different lives in different worlds, the one constant about Flagg is that he is always working to sow the seeds of chaos and despair wherever he goes. Flagg was part of the Vietnam War, Klu Klux Klan lynching, police murders, and race riots, and each time he was part of a violent experience it would ultimately serve to empower the evil within him.

** In ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series, it is revealed that Flagg has lived for so long and accumulated so much power that he has become the emissary for the [[{{Satan}} Crimson King]]. Flagg earns Roland Deschain's undying hatred for beating and sleeping with Roland’s mother, and for aiding the revolutionary, John Farson, in causing the destruction of the city of Gilead. Flagg also forces Roland to let his preteen companion, Jake Chambers, die, and drives a girl insane by telling her the trigger phrase which causes a formerly dead man to [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow recount the afterlife to her]]. Corruptive, treacherous and sadistic, Flagg's ultimate goal was to betray his master and climb to the top of the Dark Tower in order to become God of all.
* William "Wild Bill" Wharton, from ''Literature/TheGreenMile'', is a PsychopathicManchild awaiting execution at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary for murdering three people in an armed robbery, one of whom was a pregnant woman. When he first appears in the prison he manages to convince the guards he's in a drugged stupor, only to attempt to strangle Dean Stanton to death when his guard was down. Failing in that, Wild Bill contents himself with causing as much mischief as he can before his eventual execution. Eventually it comes to light that Wild Bill's worst known crime was the rape and murder of the two little girls that John Coffey is accused of killing. In order to stop the girls from calling for help, he told them that if one of them screams, it's her sister that he'd kill.
* Atropos from ''Literature/{{Insomnia}}'' is one of the entities responsible for cutting the life threads of the mortals whose time has come. But unlike the other entities like him, Atropos absolutely despises humans for being such short-lived creatures, and takes great pleasure in ending their lives. So in addition to doing his job, Atropos goes after people whose fate isn’t decided and causes them to die horribly, which he has done enough times to fill an entire cave with trophies of his victims. When his boss, the Crimson King, wants him to kill a young boy before he grows up to oppose his plans, Atropos uses this opportunity to harm as many people as possible. He proceeds to corrupt a nice family man called Ed Deepneau into becoming a wife-beating extremist. Under Atropos' manipulation, Deepneau gets together with like-minded maniacs and assault a woman care center, where they murder dozens of people, as a distraction for his real plan: to have Deepneau crash with a plane full of explosives onto a pro-abortion rights rally that the kid will be attending with his mother, killing them along with the other two thousand people present. Along the way, Atropos has several of the protagonist’s friends killed just to piss him off, and taunts him about it. Finally, when his plans are foiled, Atropos tries to kill Deepneau’s six-year old daughter (who the hero befriended) just to get back at him for humiliating him in front of his boss.
* In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', we have the monstrous entity IT. Though an actual monster, IT is neither animalistic nor alien in its thought processes; the creature has full understanding of human morality, it just doesn't care. In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]], IT awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town, often using the avatar of a MonsterClown named Pennywise to lure children into its clutches. IT prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, preying on their phobias and acquired fears and likening the cultivation of their terror to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hoffstetter alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness, then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers; drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights; and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.
* Leland Gaunt from ''NeedfulThings'' is a very different kind of a monster villain, a genial and well-spoken owner of a little novelty shop that just happens to have your heart's greatest desire in stock. He's willing to sell it to you for a paltry sum and a little favour. This is a harmless prank to play on your neighbour. What you don't know is that your "needful thing" is in fact a malevolent charm that will make you paranoid and obsessed over it and drive you into murderous insanity, and all the harmless little pranks are designed to thrive on old grudges and insecurities, exploit all the dirty secrets your neighbours (and you) have and stir up all the incipient feuds, turning people against each other until your whole town tears itself apart with weapons that Mr. Gaunt helpfully supplies. Even if you're spared by the slaughter and general madness, it is only so you could realise that you're partially responsible for it and kill yourself. Mr. Gaunt will just stand there at the window of his little shop, savouring chaos and death, like he'd done countless times before all across the world.
* Rose's husband Norman in ''RoseMadder'' has been beating and sexually abusing Rosie for ''fourteen years'', including causing her to miscarry. After he finds out that she left him, he is determined to hunt her down and torture her to death. His methods for locating his ex-wife are tracking down, torturing, and murdering the people who helped her. His favourite method of killing is biting his victims to death. He is also a racist, sexist, homophobic creep who thinks all feminists are lesbians and despises one of his victims as soon as he finds out he's Jewish. His feelings about women are summed up in the fact that when he is in disguise and has to come up with the name of a woman who's protected him, he uses the first and last names of his two favourite porn actresses.
* At best, Selectman James P. "Big Jim" Rennie from ''Literature/UnderTheDome'' is a cold-blooded, amoral, greedy, psychopathic bastard. Soon after the start of the novel, we learn that the man is the ringmaster of a massive drug ring, apparently one of the biggest suppliers of meth in the whole country. Then it gets worse. Not only do we learn that he killed his own wife by smothering her with a pillow (a woman already dying of cancer, no less), but over the course of the novel, to ensure that he remains absolute master of the town, he covers up the various murders and rapes committed by his son, Junior, and the gang of thugs he's commissioned as a police force. He kills three or four people (including a pastor, smashing his head in with a gold-covered baseball) who threatened to reveal to his subjects what kind of a monster he is, purposefully causes a riot over supplies just so he can claim need for greater control, and frames the main protagonist, Dale Barbara, for everything that he and his gang has gotten away with. Then, because he had his gang steal huge amounts of propane (the only fuel source in town) just so he could make more meth, he sets the stage for the massive explosion that consumes almost everything in the town, turning the atmosphere into little more than an assortment of poisonous gases, and then gets away with it, hiding away in a fallout shelter. Even worse, he refuses to accept fault for ''anything'' that either he did or happened because of his decisions, even so far as to excuse his multiple murders as "sending them into the arms of Jesus," his faith allowing him to dismiss any of the multiple atrocities he does.

* In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', we have the monstrous entity IT. Though an actual monster, IT is neither animalistic nor alien in its thought processes; the creature has full understanding of human morality, it just doesn't care. In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]], IT awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town, often using an avatar of a clown called Pennywise to lure children into its clutches. IT prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, preying on their phobias and acquired fears and likening the cultivation of their terror to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hoffstetter alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness, then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers; drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights; and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.

* Selectman Jim Rennie from ''Literature/UnderTheDome'', at best, is a cold-blooded, amoral, greedy, psychopathic bastard. Soon after the start of the novel, we learn that the man is the ringmaster of a massive drug ring, apparently one of the biggest suppliers of meth in the whole country. Then it gets worse. Not only do we learn that he killed his own wife by smothering her with a pillow (a woman already dying of cancer, no less), but over the course of the novel, to ensure that he remains absolute master of the town, he covers up the various murders and rapes committed by his son, Junior, and the gang of thugs he's commissioned as a police force. He kills three or four people (including a pastor, smashing his head in with a gold-covered baseball) who threatened to reveal to his subjects what kind of a monster he is, purposefully causes a riot over supplies just so he can claim need for greater control, and frames the main protagonist, Dale Barbara, for everything that he and his gang has gotten away with. Then, because he had his gang steal huge amounts of propane (the only fuel source in town) just so he could make more meth, he sets the stage for the massive explosion that consumes almost everything in the town, turning the atmosphere into little more than an assortment of poisonous gases, and then gets away with it, hiding away in a fallout shelter. Even worse, he refuses to accept fault for ''anything'' that either he did or happened because of his decisions, even so far as to excuse his multiple murders as "sending them into the arms of Jesus," his faith allowing him to dismiss any of the multiple atrocities he does.

* Atropos from ''Literature/{{Insomnia}}'' is one of the entities responsible for cutting the life threads of the mortals whose time has come. But unlike the other entities like him, Atropos absolutely despises humans for being such short-lived creatures, and takes great pleasure in ending their lives. So in addition to doing his job, Atropos goes after people whose fate isn’t decided and causes them to die horribly, which he has done enough times to fill an entire cave with trophies of his victims. When his boss, the Crimson King, wants him to kill a young boy before he grows up to oppose his plans, Atropos uses this opportunity to harm as many people as possible. He proceeds to corrupt a nice family man called Ed Deepneau into becoming a wife-beating extremist. Under Atropos' manipulation, Deepneau gets together with like-minded maniacs and assault a woman care center, where they murder dozens of people, as a distraction for his real plan: to have Deepneau crash with a plane full of explosives onto a pro-abortion rights rally that the kid will be attending with his mother, killing them along with the other two thousand people present. Along the way, Atropos has several of the protagonist’s friends killed just to piss him off, and taunts him about it. Finally, when his plans are foiled, Atropos tries to kill Deepneau’s six-year old daughter (who the hero befriended) just to get back at him for humiliating him in front of his boss.

* In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', we have the titular monstrous entity. Though an actual monster, IT is neither animalistic nor alien in its thought processes; the creature has full understanding of human morality, it just doesn't care. In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]], IT awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town. IT prides itself on using its shapeshifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, likening the cultivation of fear to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hoffstetter alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness, then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers; drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights; and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.

* In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', we have the eponymous monstrous entity. Though an actual monster, IT is neither animalistic nor alien in its thought processes; the creature has full understanding of human morality, it just doesn't care. In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]], IT awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town. IT prides itself on using its shape shifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, likening the cultivation of fear to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hoffstetter alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers, drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights, and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.

* Selectman Jim Rennie from ''Literature/UnderTheDome''. At best, he's a cold-blooded amoral, greedy, psychopathic bastard. Soon after the start of the novel, we learn that the man is the ringmaster of a massive drug ring, apparently one of the biggest suppliers of meth in the whole country. Then it gets worse. Not only do we learn that he killed his own wife by smothering her with a pillow (a woman already dying of cancer, no less), but over the course of the novel, to ensure that he remains absolute master of the town, he covers up the various murders and rapes committed by his son, Junior, and the gang of thugs he's commissioned as a police force. He kills three or four people (including a pastor, smashing his head in with a gold-covered baseball) who threatened to reveal to his subjects what kind of a monster he is, purposefully causes a riot over supplies just so he can claim need for greater control, and frames the main protagonist, Dale Barbara, for everything that he and his gang has gotten away with. Then, because he had his gang steal huge amounts of propane (the only fuel source in town) just so he could make more meth, he sets the stage for the massive explosion that consumes almost everything in the town, turning the atmosphere into little more than an assortment of poisonous gases, and then gets away with it, hiding away in a fallout shelter. Even worse, he refuses to accept fault for ''anything'' that either he did or happened because of his decisions, even so far as to excuse his multiple murders as "sending them into the arms of Jesus," his faith allowing him to dismiss any of the multiple atrocities he does.

** In ''Literature/TheStand'', Flagg appears as a DarkMessiah in a post-apocalyptic, plague ravaged United States. Here he builds a new civilization in Las Vegas, calling to him those with penchants for destruction, power and fascism. Flagg has people publicly crucified for opposing or failing him, murders his pregnant girlfriend for enraging him, and plans on destroying the peaceful "Free Zone" settlement just so his civilization can be the dominant one.

* In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', we have the eponymous monstrous entity. Though an actual monster, IT is neither animalistic nor alien in its thought processes; the creature has full understanding of human morality, it just doesn't care. In the town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]], IT awakens from its hibernation every three decades and proceeds to murder and devour the children of the town. IT prides itself on using its shape shifting and hallucinogenic powers to torment its victims, likening the cultivation of fear to "salting the meat." From 1740 to 1743, IT was responsible for the disappearance of three hundred Derry Township settlers. In 1957, IT killed Bill's six-year-old brother, George, and devoured Patrick Hoffsteker alive while in the form of his [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes greatest fear, leeches]]. IT also drove [[TheBully Henry Bowers]] to madness then killed Bowers' friends after they succeeded in luring the Losers' Club into the sewers. After waking up in 1984, IT kills a man named Adrian Mellon before resuming its violent killing spree of children. IT proceeds to manipulate Henry Bowers into trying to kill the Losers, drives Bill's wife, Audra, catatonic by exposing her to its deadlights, and manages to kill Eddie before its final defeat.
* Leland Gaunt from ''NeedfulThings'' is a very different kind of a monster villain, a genial and well spoken owner of a little novelty shop that just happens to have your heart's greatest desire in stock. He's willing to sell it to you for a paltry sum and a little favour. This is a harmless prank to play on your neighbour. What you don't know is that your "needful thing" is in fact a malevolent charm that will make you paranoid and obsessed over it and drive you into murderous insanity, and all the harmless little pranks are designed to thrive on old grudges and insecurities, exploit all the dirty secrets your neighbours (and you) have and stir up all the incipient feuds, turning people against each other until your whole town tears itself apart with weapons that Mr. Gaunt helpfully supplies. Even if you're spared by the slaughter and general madness, it is only so you could realise that you're partially responsible for it and kill yourself. Mr. Gaunt will just stand there at the window of his little shop, savouring chaos and death, like he'd done countless times before all across the world.

Creator/StephenKing has written some pretty nasty villains in his day, but these {{Complete Monster}}s particularly stand out. With rare exception, the actual monsters of his works tend to pale in comparison to the more human villains.

* Rose's husband Norman in Creator/StephenKing's ''RoseMadder''. Setting aside for a moment the fact that he's been beating and sexually abusing Rosie for ''fourteen years'', including causing her to miscarry, after he finds out that she left him, he is determined to hunt her down and torture her to death. His methods for locating his ex-wife are tracking down, torturing, and murdering the people who helped her. His favorite method of killing is biting his victims to death. He is also a racist, sexist, homophobic creep who thinks all feminists are lesbians and despises one of his victims as soon as he finds out he's Jewish. His feelings about women are summed up in the fact that when he is in disguise and has to come up with the name of a woman who's protected him, he uses the first and last names of his two favourite porn actresses. When he finally meets his admittedly gruesome fate, there is no chance that the reader feels any sympathy for him.
* Selectman Jim Rennie from ''UnderTheDome''. At best, he's a cold-blooded amoral, greedy, psychopathic bastard. Soon after the start of the novel, we learn that the man is the ringmaster of a MASSIVE drug ring, apparently one of the biggest suppliers of meth in the whole country. Then it gets worse. [[spoiler: Not only do we learn that he killed his own wife by smothering her with a pillow (a woman already dying of cancer, no less), but over the course of the novel, to ensure that he remains absolute master of the town, he covers up the various murders and rapes committed by his son, Junior, and the gang of thugs he's commissioned as a police force. He kills three or four people (including a pastor, smashing his head in with a gold-covered baseball) who threatened to reveal to his subjects what kind of a monster he is, purposefully causes a riot over supplies just so he can claim need for greater control, and frames the main protagonist, Dale Barbara, for everything that he and his gang has gotten away with. Then, because he had his gang steal huge amounts of propane (the only fuel source in town) just so he could make more meth, he sets the stage for the massive explosion that consumes almost everything in the town, turning the atmosphere into little more than an assortment of poisonous gases, and then gets away with it, hiding away in a fallout shelter. Even worse, he refuses to accept fault for ANYTHING that either he did or happened because of his decisions, even so far as to excuse his multiple murders as "sending them into the arms of Jesus," his faith allowing him to dismiss any of the multiple atrocities he does.]] Jim Rennie is easily one of Stephen King's worst villains.
* In ''{{IT}}'', we have the titular monstrous entity that actively hunts and eats people of all ages (most of which are children), gruesomely murders the main protagonist's brother by tearing his arm off, sadistically torments our heroes, and who also drives Henry Bowers on to murder the other characters during their adult years.
* Randall Flagg from ''TheStand'', of course. He has a history of inspiring some of the world's worst people, raping and murdering for generations before the events of the book even start.
** And he is strongly implied to be TheDevil!
* [[SinisterMinister Reverend Sunlight Gardener]] in ''Literature/TheTalisman''. Brainwashing children is probably the least despicable thing he does.
** "Can ya gimme Hallelujah?"
* Wild Bill from Stephen King's ''TheGreenMile''. He [[spoiler: actually murdered the two girls that John Coffey is being put to death over, as well as committing multiple murders that he eventually got caught for]]. Percy is almost saved from this trope when he [[spoiler: shoots Wild Bill to death, only staying in it when you realize that he's not really in control of his actions at this point]].
* From Franchise/TheDarkTower series:
** Jack Mort, a sadistic psychopath who's responsible for ruining Odetta Holmes' life twice (first by dropping a brick on her head, causing her multiple personality disorder, later shoving her on the railtrack, causing her to lose her legs, not knowing or caring it was the same woman) and killing Jake by shoving him under the bus. Roland gives back a fitting death by controlling his possessed body to jump before an oncoming train and leaving Jack's body, leaving Jack to die alone.
** Hitler Brothers, fascist scumbags who torture Father Callahan's friend, Lupe Delgado, and later assault Callahan for being a 'nigger-lover'.
* From the Different Seasons novellas:
** "RitaHayworthAndShawshankRedemption" -- The Sisters. Evil for the love of power.
** "AptPupil" -- Dussander and Todd, both of whom choose evil because it is evil.
* Leland Gaunt from ''NeedfulThings'' is a very different kind of a monster villain, a genial and well spoken owner of a little novelty shop that just happens to have your heart's greatest desire in stock. He's willing to sell it to you for a paltry sum and a little favor. This is a harmless prank to play on your neighbor. What you don't know is that your "needful thing" is in fact a malevolent charm that will make you paranoidly obsessed over it and drive you into murderous insanity, not to mention that all the harmless little pranks are designed to thrive on old grudges and insecurities, exploit all the dirty secrets your neighbors (and you) have and stir up all the incipient feuds, turning people against each other until your whole town tears itself apart with weapons that Mr. Gaunt helpfully supplies. Even if you're spared by the slaughter and general madness, it is only so you could realise that you're partially responsible for it and kill yourself. Mr. Gaunt will just stand there at the window of his little shop, savouring chaos and death, like he'd done countless times before all across the world.

* From TheDarkTower series:

* Selectman Jim Rennie from ''UnderTheDome''. At best, he's a cold-blooded amoral, greedy, psychopathic bastard. Soon after the start of the novel, [[spoiler:we learn that the man is the ringmaster of a MASSIVE drug ring, apparently one of the biggest suppliers of meth in the whole country.]] Then it gets worse. [[spoiler: Not only do we learn that he killed his own wife by smothering her with a pillow (a woman already dying of cancer, no less), but over the course of the novel, to ensure that he remains absolute master of the town, he covers up the various murders and rapes committed by his son, Junior, and the gang of thugs he's commissioned as a police force. He kills three or four people (including a pastor, smashing his head in with a gold-covered baseball) who threatened to reveal to his subjects what kind of a monster he is, purposefully causes a riot over supplies just so he can claim need for greater control, and frames the main protagonist, Dale Barbara, for everything that he and his gang has gotten away with. Then, because he had his gang steal huge amounts of propane (the only fuel source in town) just so he could make more meth, he sets the stage for the massive explosion that consumes almost everything in the town, turning the atmosphere into little more than an assortment of poisonous gases, and then gets away with it, hiding away in a fallout shelter. Even worse, he refuses to accept fault for ANYTHING that either he did or happened because of his decisions, even so far as to excuse his multiple murders as "sending them into the arms of Jesus," his faith allowing him to dismiss any of the multiple atrocities he does.]] Jim Rennie is easily one of Stephen King's worst villains.

* Selectman Jim Rennie from ''UnderTheDome''. At best, he's a cold-blooded amoral, greedy, psychopathic bastard. Soon after the start of the novel, [[spoiler:we learn that the man is the ringmaster of a MASSIVE drug ring, apparently one of the biggest suppliers of meth in the whole country.]] Then it gets worse. [[spoiler: Not only do we learn that he killed his own wife by smothering her with a pillow (a woman already dying of cancer, no less), but over the course of the novel, to ensure that he remains absolute master of the town, he covers up the various murders and rapes committed by his son, Junior, and the gang of thugs he's commissioned as a police force. He kills three or four people (including a pastor, smashing his head in with a gold-covered baseball) who threatened to reveal to his subjects what kind of a monster he is, purposefully causes a riot over supplies just so he can claim need for greater control, and frames the main protagonist, Dale Barbara, for everything that he and his gang has gotten away with. Then, because he had his gang steal huge amounts of propane (the only fuel source in town) just so he could make more meth, he sets the stage for the massive explosion that consumes almost everything in the town, turning the atmosphere into little more than an assortment of poisonous gases, and then gets away with it, hiding away in a fallout shelter. Even worse, he refuses to accept fault for ANYTHING that either he did or happened because of his decisions, even so far as to excuse his multiple murders as "sending them into the arms of Jesus," his faith allowing him to dismiss any of the multiple atrocities he does.]] Jim Rennie is easily one of Stephen King's worst villains. Happily, he gets one of the more horrifying deaths. [[spoiler:Either he suffocates when he tries to get out of the fallout shelter when the power fails, choking on the bad air while suffering a massive heart attack, or he does the same while pursued by all the various dead people who died because of him.]] Either way, he deserved it.

* In ''TheDarkHalf,'' George Stark is an utterly remorseless, brutal killer whose favored weapon is a [[KnifeNut straight razor]].

** "TheBody" -- Ace Merrill. Unlike the other teenage thugs, there's never a hint that Ace has a messed-up home life, or any other motivation for stomping kids, except pure narcissistic evil.

* Bobbi's sister Anne from ''TheTommyknockers'' might count she is a cruel heartless woman who takes a great enjoyment in verbally abusing others including her own parent's, its pretty much stated that she killed her father with all of her nagging, she is also a huge control freak and she goes to Haven the town Bobbi's living in just so she can bring her back home so she can control. Though probably the worst thing she did was when she was at the hospital after her father's death she tried to call Bobbi and after she didn't answer the phone told her family including her grieving mother that Bobbi had said that she was glad that there father was dead all out of spite.