History NightmareFuel / StephenKing

* ''Literature/{{Insomnia}}''. The main character can see people's "auras", which lets him see how healthy they are... so he can see how badly brain-damaged children in a hospital are, and he can see roughly how close people are to death. When people are about to die, their aura turns into a black "death bag", which is somewhat ''alive''. [[spoiler:[[LifeImitatesArt When someone is going to crash a plane into]] a convention center, the death bag is larger than the center and ''cursing at everyone'', even though they can't see it.]] The villain is an agent of chaos, who kills people because he wants to... ''and he's invisible and [[NighInvulnerable Made Of Air]].''

** Onward through the remaining four books, of which some of the more notable ideas and concepts include a procedure which ends up ''destroying little kids' minds'' because of what they extract. Bonus points for the fact a byproduct of the process is the accelerated growth of the kids to such a point you can ''hear their skulls expanding''. The pain is basically that of teething... for a solid year or so. Dandelo; [[spoiler: Randall Flagg]] being psychically compelled to tear his own eyes out and then tear his own tongue out; Mordred the half-human, half-spider from the time of his birth; long pork at the Dixie Pig; ruminating on the sound of the [[spoiler: Crimson King]] screaming as he is [[spoiler: erased from existence]]; the can-toi; and, at the Battle of the Algul Siento, a hydrocephalic kid banging his head on the ground and ''dying'' with a sound like a watermelon being split in half.

* ''Literature/GeraldsGame''. This one is psychological rather than monster-related. It has everything: paranoia, delusion, voices, and a dog eating Jessie's dead husband. She is handcuffed to the bed and as she gets more dehydrated she starts to hear more and more voices, coupled with someone she thinks is moving around the house while she is helpless, but for most of the story it seems this is another hallucination. She finally escapes by [[spoiler: slicing her wrists open on a shard of glass to provide lubricant to tear her hands out of the manacles. She ends up ripping a ton of skin off and almost dying from blood loss.]] Later she writes a letter to one of the people whose voice she heard, which involves [[InfoDump explaining what really happened and what her recovery process was]].
** [[spoiler: HE WAS IN THE BACK OF HER CAR]]!!!

* "Survivor Type": A surgeon gets stranded on an island with only some powdered heroin, a couple of knives and the clothes on his back. In order to stay alive, he kills and eats a few seagulls he managed to catch, but he breaks his foot eventually. So he needs to amputate, and realizes afterwards [[spoiler: [[ITasteDelicious that there's another way to keep himself alive.]] By the end of the story, he's cut off (''and eaten'') everything below the waist, along with his earlobes. The story ends with this last diary entry, with the implication being that he's desperate and hungry enough to ''eat his own hands'', which, as a surgeon, he has been taking excellent care of for the entire story.]]

* ''The Raft'': two college guys and their girlfriends go for a spur-of-the-moment swim at a remote lake. When they get to the raft in the middle of the lake, they see what looks like a dark patch of oil in the water. Needless to say, it isn't oil [[spoiler: but rather, a strange creature that dissolves and absorbs people.]] The tone makes it horribly creepy to begin with, but the idea of waiting alone, trapped, and without hope of escape from an alien death... . The way he describes the deaths is absolutely horrific.

* ''Literature/{{Desperation}}''. How about the fact that [[spoiler: the whole FREAKIN TOWN has been killed in various gruesome and disgusting ways.]] Or the fact that [[spoiler: all the animals left alive in the town are under Tak's control]] including the spiders and snakes, which are everybody's favorite animals in the world. Or how about the way that [[spoiler: Tak possesses people, with their bodies eventually just sloughing off until all that's left is a bloody mess.]]
** The insertion of the words "I'm going to kill you" into the MirandaWarning near the beginning of the book, and [[spoiler:the Tak-possessed cop doing just that to the husband of the family at the end of the chapter]].
* ''Dolores Claiborne'' isn't exactly a horror novel, but the old woman deteriorate into madness from age and ''realizing she can't stop it''. Only Stephen King could turn dust bunnies into a terrifying representation of a decaying mind.

* ''The Library Policeman'', that is, Sam Peebles' very own library policeman. [[spoiler: Prepubescent Sam is graphically raped.]] It is a pretty painful scene.
** Ardelia Lortz. [[spoiler: A beetle-like thing that will remind you strongly of ''IT'', who possesses people and feeds off the misery of little children.]] [[OhCrap Fu]][[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes ck]].
** The description of the Library Policeman. Its revealed that its actually a combination of the man who raped Sam as a child, and a picture hanging in the library of a man in a trenchcoat called the Library Police. He is always accompanied by the smell of red licorice, which Sam subconsciously associates with his childhood trauma, and that trenchcoat? It isnt actually clothes at all, its ''skin''.

** How about when the main character leaves the psychiatrists office after telling his story, then notices that the receptionist is away so he cant schedule his next appointment. So he goes back into the office... and the closet door is open.

* The description of the eponymous character in ''Rose Madder'', specifically how she looks right before she deals with Norman. The mental image of the 'rot' that seems to move ''beneath her skin'' is equal parts NightmareFuel and {{Squick}}. Then again, King seems to love hopping over the line between the two. What happens with Norman and the mask could count, too; [[spoiler:It ''fuses to his face''. Fortunately for him, he doesn't live much longer than that.]] Rose and Norman's marriage itself is a more reality-based example.
* The scene in ''The Dark Half'' when they operate on Thad, only to find [[spoiler: what they assumed to be a brain tumor was actually the living remains of his twin brother, absorbed/digested while in utero. Nothing but a pulsing pile of flesh, teeth, and one blinking eyeball.]]
** Also [[spoiler: George Stark's slow and painstakingly described decomposition, followed shortly thereafter by his being pecked to death by sparrows.]] In TheMovie, his skin is pecked down to his bones, his jaw is moving in a ''silent scream.''

** ''The Dark Half'', though not a Bachman book, takes the idea of Richard Bachman being not just a pseudonym but an alternate identity to its furthest extreme. And he doesn't like having been "killed". That alone is rather creepy, but it also has a rather disturbing moment in the prologue where the main character has surgery to remove a brain tumor, and it turns out its not a tumor at all, its a ''parasitic twin'', just a clump of flesh, teeth, hair and a single eyeball that had been nestled in his brain all this time. It's hinted that the twin might be the main characters EvilTwin rather than it just being a psycholigical problem, but its left ambigious.
* ''Literature/DumaKey'' is creepy even before bad stuff starts happening. Imagine being in an accident and waking up with no right arm. Also, you can't remember a good portion of your vocabulary. There's a page describing the protagonist getting frustrated while asking his wife to come over and sit on the ''friend'', on the ''pal'', on the ''chum'' because it's as close as his fractured mind can come to the word "chair", and it doesn't end there. [[spoiler:He ends up stabbing his wife with a plastic knife and ''choking her'' and can't remember either incident, and when she breaks the news to him that she's divorcing him, he calls her a "birch". Instead of getting angry, she corrects him and leaves without another word.]]

* The short story "Gray Matter" has [[spoiler:a man turn into a giant fungus or bacteria after drinking spoiled beer and begins to eat children]].

** To expand on Uncle Otto's Truck: The narrator Quentin's uncle Otto one day becomes incredibly paranoid of a truck he and a partner had used for logging... [[spoiler: and that he'd likely used as a murder weapon to kill said partner.]] He inexplicably builds a one-room house across from it in spite of being very wealthy, and slowly loses his mind as he perceives the truck getting closer and closer, as he attempts to convince the narrator it's getting closer. The narrator can see it... sometimes... [[spoiler: and when he finds Uncle Otto dead, saturated in oil, a sparkplug shoved down his throat ([[NothingIsScarier no explanation for how it happened is ever given]]) he sees the truck right at the damn window.]]

* The ending of ''Literature/{{Revival}}''. Many have called it the most disturbing ending King has ever written, and considering his track record, [[UpToEleven that's saying a lot.]] In short, [[spoiler: the hero and villain of the story find out that once you die, there's no heaven to go to. There is only the Null--upon death, your soul is captured by giant ant-like beings and you are used as slave labor for a giant EldritchAbomination known as "Mother" and a host of other horrors. ''For all eternity.'' Oh, and Mother lashes out through the psychic connection they've been observing the Null through, killing the villain, and forcing the hero to kill the patient they were using as a gateway to close it. Its implied that Mother then drives everyone the villain had been "healing" insane and makes them commit suicide.]] The hero is left alive, but has to constantly numb himself with a coctail of anti-depressants, knowing that no matter what, sooner or later he [[spoiler: will also die and join the rest of mankind in the Null]].
* ''Literature/TheTommyknockers'' features some prime BodyHorror as the townspeople of Haven [[spoiler:[[TransformationHorror slowly transform]]. First, they all lose their teeth, and later, those in a more advanced stage of transformation have their genitals replaced by tentacles, and their skin turns transparent, revealing their organs. By the end of the book, they don't even look human anymore, with their faces bulging out into snouts.]]
** Also, the horrifying fate of [[spoiler: those [[FateWorseThanDeath trapped in]] [[AndIMustScream Bobbi's shed]], including ''her dog.'']]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/HighOctaneNightmareFuel-StephenKing_6202.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: {{WesternAnimation/Futurama}} sums the whole thing up.]]

* ''Full Dark, No Stars''. First off, the first story has a man being bitten to death by rats (in first person). Plus, Beadie... Just, Beadie, ok?

* In his nonfiction book ''Danse Macabre'', there is a footnote that particularly fits this trope, and [[YouHaveBeenWarned good luck getting the image out of your head after you read it:]]

** For the uninitiated, the whole concept of ''Full Dark, No Stars'' is that not one of the stories has a single proven supernatural element to it. Every story is about the darkness, the evil, the madness within an apparently normal human being.

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Christine}}]]

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Creepshow}}

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Thinner}}

* ''NightmareFuel/Thinner

* ''[[NightmareFuel/FourteenOhEight 1408]]''

** Onward through the remaining four books, of which some of the more notable ideas and concepts include a procedure which ends up ''destroying little kids' minds'' because of what they extract. Bonus points for the fact a byproduct of the process is the accelerated growth of the kids to such a point you can ''hear their skulls expanding''. The pain is basically that of teething ... for a solid year or so. Dandelo; [[spoiler: Randall Flagg]] being psychically compelled to tear his own eyes out and then tear his own tongue out; Mordred the half-human, half-spider from the time of his birth; long pork at the Dixie Pig; ruminating on the sound of the [[spoiler: Crimson King]] screaming as he is [[spoiler: erased from existence]]; the can-toi; and, at the Battle of the Algul Siento, a hydrocephalic kid banging his head on the ground and ''dying'' with a sound like a watermelon being split in half.
* "The Jaunt," another short story. ''[[AndIMustScream "It's eternity in there..."]]'' Contains what is quite possibly the most gruesome and memorable ending to any of King's stories.
** Using the Jaunt device (with no exit) as a murder weapon. Technically, the victim never dies. Ever. She is cut off from all external stimuli, alone, with no way of ever escaping. (But the court convicted him anyway.) The defense attorney made that exact argument (that it wasn't really murder since the wife wasn't dead), but when the jury thought of [[AndIMustScream a human being stuck in that state forever]] it cemented the husband's conviction. Although to be fair, it's possible that using that way DOES just kill the person, and that it's only the sensation of journeying to an actual point B that feels like "an eternity".

** ''The Dark Half'' has a rather disturbing part where the main character has surgery to remove a brain tumor, and it turns out its not a tumor at all, its a ''parasitic twin'', just a clump of flesh, teeth, hair and a single eyeball that had been nestled in his brain all this time. It's hinted that the twin might be the main characters EvilTwin rather than it just being a psycholigical problem, but its left ambigious.

* ''NightmareFuel/{{DifferentSeasons}}''

* ''Literature/{{Cujo}}'' and ''{{Literature/Misery}}'' are prime examples. Made all the scarier because they could actually happen.

* ''Literature/SalemsLot''. The paranoia that permeates the whole story (a reflection of the real-life time period he was writing about, it turned out), the shortcut the Glick boys foolishly take home, seeing the ways all the townspeople are slowly turned - and the biggest shudder comes at the end, where Ben is looking at his old snow globe, [[spoiler: and seeing/imagining himself as a pale, bloodless, nearly brainless vampire, looking up at the real Ben from a window inside the house in the globe.]]

* On the subject of ''{{Literature/Misery}}'', the thought of being held prisoner to someone ''that'' delusional and ''that'' fixated with you for a time span of nearly half a year is horrifying. [[spoiler: And made worse by the revelation that Annie is not afraid to mutilate Paul in order to keep him under control and is ''completely'' deaf to his pleas and begging. She even cuts off his thumb and serves it on a birthday cake as the candle.]] What's really about the [[spoiler: "special candle"]] wasn't just Annie's not-so-subtle threat to [[spoiler:make him eat it]], but when the text suddenly went off for an entire page with no pauses, sounding almost sing-song at points. It shows how ''absolutely terrified'' Paul is.
** Annie [[spoiler: killing the young cop]]. Especially when she [[spoiler: ''mowes'' '''his head''']].
** She [[spoiler: MADE HIM DRINK ''MOP WATER!!!'']]She also made him [[spoiler: burn the only copy of his manuscript of]] [[spoiler:''Fast Cars''.]] It's a little harder to connect to that since typewriters aren't used that much anymore, but [[spoiler: to lose every last page of work]] is a writer's worst fucking nightmare.

** ''The Running Man'' - The origin of the Arnold movie, a desperate man tries to win the money needed to keep his wife and daughter alive. Now put yourself in his shoes and see how long you'd last.

* ''NightmareFuel/AptPupil''

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Christine}}''

* ''NightmareFuel/TheDarkHalf''
* ''NightmareFuel/TheDarkTower''
* ''NightmareFuel/{{Desperation}}''

* ''NightmareFuel/DoloresClaiborne''
* ''NightmareFuel/{{Dreamcatcher}}''
* ''NightmareFuel/DumaKey''

* ''NightmareFuel/GeraldsGame''

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Insomnia}}''

* ''NightmareFuel/TheLongWalk''

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Rage}}''

* ''NightmareFuel/{{Roadwork}}''
* ''NightmareFuel/RoseMadder''

* ''Literature/{{Cujo}}'' and ''{{Literature/Misery}}'' are prime examples. Made all the scarier because they could actually happen. REEEEEE!

* Possibly some of the scariest parts of King's works are the point in his career where he published "The Bachman Books". To wit:

** Also, the horrifying fate of [[spoilers: those [[FateWorseThanDeath trapped in]] [[AndIMustScream Bobbi's shed]], including ''her dog.'']]

* The ending of ''Literature/{{Revival}}''. Many have called it the most disturbing ending King has ever written, and considering his track record, [[UpToEleven that's saying a lot.]] In short, [[spoiler: the hero and villain of the story find out that once you die, there's no heaven to go to. There is only the Null--upon death, your soul is captured by giant ant-like beings and you are used as slave labor for a giant EldritchAbomination known as "Mother" and a host of other horrors. ''For all eternity.'' Oh, and Mother lashes out through the psychic connection they've been observing the Null through, killing the villain, and forcing the hero to kill the patient they were using as a gateway to close it. Its implied that Mother then drives everyone the villain had been "healing" insane and makes them commit suicide.]] The hero is left alive, but has to constantly numb himself with a coctail of anti-depressants, knowing that no matter what, sooner or later he [[spoiler: will also die and join the rest of mankind in the Null]].

* The ending of ''Literature/{{Revival}}''. Many have called it the most disturbing ending King has ever written, and considering his track record, [[UpToEleven that's saying a lot.]] In short, [[spoiler: the hero and villain of the story find out that once you die, there's no heaven to go to. There is only the Null--upon death, your soul is captured by giant ant-like beings and you are used as slave labor for a giant EldritchAbomination known as "Mother" and a host of other horrors. ''For all eternity.'']]

-->When I saw the puddle of blood after he was taken away in handcuffs - oh my God, such a pool of it there was - all I could think of was those forty thousand people screaming ''KILL THE UMP'' the way they'd been screaming ''Bloh-KADE''. No one really knows it, but the kid didn't know that, either.

** ''Rage'' - A high school loser finally snaps and guns down two teachers and holds his class hostage, forcing them all to work through his issues (and some of their own). Eventually, they all get a case of StockholmSyndrome and beat the living shit out of the one poor bastard who didn't fall for it, and who winds up catatonic for his troubles. Add to the fact that it was found in the possession of multiple school shooters, and you see why King had it pulled.