History Literature / NightShift1978

Not to be confused with the 1982 [[Film/NightShift comedy film]] directed by Creator/RonHoward and starring Creator/MichaelKeaton, or with the 1990 Creator/LucasArts videogame.

* TheBadGuyWins: "Children of the Corn" ends with [[spoiler:He Who Walks Behind The Rows continuing his control of the children and the heroes dying.]]

* "Literature/TheMangler": A folding/pressing machine in an industrial laundromat is possessed by a demon.

* NamelessNarrative: "The Man Who Loved Flowers" and "The Woman in the Room". In the last, we know that the protagonist's name is John, because other characters call him on his name, but the narrative never does.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/night_shift.jpg]]

[[spoiler: And oh dear God, I think so too.]]

** At the end of "Battleground", Renshaw [[spoiler: dies in a miniature nuclear explosion]]
** At the end of "Trucks", [[spoiler:the rigs are backed up for miles on the interstate and our narrator knows that he, the counterman and the girl will end up pumping gas until they simply drop dead. He sees two jet contrails in the sky and says, "I wish I could believe there are people in them".]]

* {{Jerkass}}: Lester Billings, the protagonist of "The Boogeyman", is this in spades. He cares very little for his wife, constantly slut shaming her like his mother did and [[spoiler: criticizing her for mourning their dead children because "when they're little, you don't get so attached to them."]] Even his children are no exception as he treats his first son like a sissy when he's scared of the dark (he was THREE). Nothing in his dialogue suggests any sort of warmth for his family except for his second son, the only one who looked like him, despite insisting that he loved his family. [[spoiler: But then he also sold out his "favorite" child to the Boogeyman to save his own skin.]] When his wife knows the truth and finally divorces him, it's hard to even ''try'' feeling sorry for him.

** And in December 2019, Creator/MGMPlus announced they would be creating a 10-episode "Jerusalem's Lot" miniseries starring Creator/AdrienBrody. So that wraps up the whole book.

* ChekhovsNews: "The Man who Loved Flowers" stars with a young man buying flowers for his girlfriend. The florist has a transistor radio that pours out bad news that nobody pays attention to; one of them is that a hammer murderer is still on the loose. [[spoiler:At the end of the story, it turns out that the young man is the hammer murderer.]]

** In "The Boogeyman", the protagonist tries for years to escape the boogeyman who killed his offspring and stalked him endlessly. [[spoiler:At the end of the story it turns out that the therapist he's been telling the tale to was the boogeyman in disguise, who evidently gets him.]]

* "Literature/JerusalemsLot": ScrapbookStory set in 1850. {{Pastiche}}[=/=]{{Homage}} to Creator/HPLovecraft. Basis for the Epix TV series ''Chapelwaite.''

** And in December 2019, Creator/{{ePix}} announced they would be creating a 10-episode "Jerusalem's Lot" miniseries starring Creator/AdrienBrody. So that wraps up the whole book.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: In "Sometimes They Come Back," Vinnie drops his coolness act momentarily when Jim asks him, "Where were you? Before?" (i.e., "before you came back to life after being dead") And his coolness [[BerserkButton completely shatters]] when Jim goes on to ask, "They dug ''you'' a hole, didn't they, Vinnie? Six feet deep. Right in the Milford Cemetery. Six feet of--" ''[[ShutUpHannibal "You shut up!"]]''

* "The Boogeyman": A man tells how his children were killed one by one by the [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight eponymous monster]].

-->'''Charles:''' Lord...
-->'''Calvin:''' There's no Lord here.

* NeverendingTerror: To become a member of "Quitters, Inc." is to become a member for life. Literally.

''Night Shift'' is Creator/StephenKing's first collection of short stories, published in 1978. It contains several "excursions into horror" that had first appeared in magazines, along with some previously unpublished ones.

[[AC:Stories in ''Night Shift'':]]

* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: From the perspective of the toy soldiers in "Battleground", Renshaw is essentially a {{Kaiju}}.

* "Strawberry Spring": A story about a serial killer with a TwistEnding.

* RealismInducedHorror: "The Woman in the Room" has no supernatural elements; it's about having to watch a parent die a slow and agonizing death. (The story was inspired by the death of Stephen King's mother).

* RodentsOfUnusualSize / SwarmOfRats: In "Graveyard Shift", the workers encounter swarms of rats that get bigger and bigger, until they meet the giant, maneating mutant rat queen.
** Even Squickier when you consider the RealitySubtext : The story was inspired partly by King's own experience working the night shift at a textile mill, and the stories a co-worker had once told him about RATS AS BIG AS DOGS!

* ArtifactOfDoom: In "Jerusalem's Lot", ''De Vermis Mysteriis'' is a TomeOfEldritchLore created in the short stories of Creator/RobertBloch, and mentioned in a few by Creator/HPLovecraft. [[spoiler:Reading from it temporarily possesses Charles with the spirit of his ancestor and summons an EldritchAbomination.]]

* AdultFear: "The Woman in the Room": having to watch a parent die a slow and agonizing death. (The story was inspired by the death of Stephen King's mother).
** "Quitters, Inc.": So, you'd like our organization to help you quit smoking, eh? Well, we're going to ''force'' you to quit. Cold turkey. You'd better not weaken, either, because if you take just one more puff, we'll see you. But it won't be ''you'' who has to take the consequences.
** "The Boogeyman": Losing a child to sudden infant death syndrome (because no one believes you when you say a monster did it) is bad enough. Losing ''all three of your children'', one by one, each in a different way? Yeah, being killed by the Boogeyman yourself is almost a relief after that.