10. Skeleton Crew

Skeleton Crew is s a collection of 21 short stories heralded by a terrifying novella, The Mist. The novella finds patrons trapped in a supermarket after a mist brewing with prehistoric creatures rolls into Bridgton, Maine.

Other notable tales in this collection include “Gramma,” a story about a young boy left alone with his supposedly deceased grandmother, “Word Processor of the Gods”—first published in a 1983 Playboy issue—about a depressed writer who uses a magic word processor to rewrite his reality through the deletion of his wife and son, and “Survivor Type,” which details a heroin smuggler’s desperate attempt to survive on a remote island by systematically eating parts of his body.

The most disturbing story in Skeleton Crew is undeniably “The Jaunt.” In the distant future, a revolutionary technology called “jaunting” allows for instant teleportation, but only if the participants are asleep. Being awake when the jaunt process is initiated results in participants being lost to the unknown terrors of the jaunt for eternity.

9. Doctor Sleep

“Whatever happened to that little boy from The Shining?” Stephen King’s faithful frequently asked the author. In 2013, he gave us the long-awaited answer with Doctor Sleep, published 36 years after its predecessor.

The novel follows the struggles of Danny “Dan” Torrance after his harrowing escape from the ravenous Overlook Hotel in the winter of 1975. He’s inherited his father’s alcoholism, and he can’t seem to stay in one place for too long. Danny manages to gets sober and find work as an orderly at a hospice facility, using his psychic abilities, or “shine,” to help patients pass peacefully. Just as Danny’s life seems to be reaching some sense of normalcy, he receives psychic pleas from Abra Stone, a young girl who also possesses “the shining.” She’s become aware of a nefarious group of nomads known as the True Knot. The Knot, led by Rose the Hat, maintain eternal life by killing and absorbing people’s shine, which they call “steam.” Naturally, Dan and Abra are prime targets, and they must work together to stop these life-force vampires.

Doctor Sleep is not as frightening as The Shining, but it is still a hellish plunge into the depths of America’s hidden crevices, where evil groups like the True Knot can walk among us, unnoticed. The novel makes you question if the man you smiled at in the grocery store is returning home to a dank basement filled with faces you’ve seen on missing persons flyers.

8. 11/22/63

Another entry from the 2010s, 11/22/63 is not only one of the best King books I’ve ever read, but one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s a complete, beautifully crafted story where everything is earned and no short cuts are taken.

The book follows Jake Epping, an English teacher from Maine, who learns of a portal to the year 1958 from Al Templeton, who discovered the rabbit hole in his diner. Jake decides to create a life for himself in the past for five years in order to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, hoping to shift the trajectory of America in a more favorable direction. No U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. No RFK assassination. No poverty explosion. Apparently, Jake Epping never heard the phrase: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Though the book is regularly categorized as “historical fiction” or “thriller,” it still has the master of horror’s fingerprints all over it. Many who’ve only heard the book’s premise may assume the antagonist to be Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, but that’s not the case. The book’s primary antagonist is something far more sinister and unpredictable—time. The phrase “time is obdurate” is repeated throughout the book, meaning that time is unwilling to change and will fight back by any means necessary. The more significant the event being changed, the greater resistance Jim encounters.

7. The Stand

I read The Stand in February of 2020, so when a mutating super flu reared its head the following month, the fear that usually lives only within the front and back covers of a King book bled into everyday life. Captain Trips, the virus in the novel, is far worse than Covid-19 with a communicability rate of 99.4% and a death rate of 100%. The symptoms are chilling: delirium, physical agony, bruised, bulging necks resembling the vocal sac of a frog. Perhaps even scarier are the chapters describing the rapid spread of the flu, wiping out entire age groups, communities, and families like the angel of death.

The superflu is only the beginning of The Stand’s horror. The survivors receive dreams from Mother Abigail, a prophetic old Black woman, or the dark man, Randall Flagg, a denim-clad demon walking the earth in human form. Flagg’s followers congregate in Las Vegas, while Mother Abigail’s followers meet in Boulder, Colorado. The remainder of the novel is a battle of biblical proportions between good and evil. Will the meek inherit the earth, or will wickedness reign?

Flagg is a cunning villain, frightening in his nonchalance. Nicknamed “The Walkin’ Dude,” he’s a master manipulator, turning some of the “good” survivors against Mother Abigail. King instills Flagg with such charisma that even us, the readers, are nearly tricked into liking him. The 1,100 page opus is an elaborate tapestry of humanity, from the righteous to the unspeakably evil, and King leaves no stone unturned. Also, don’t drop the book on your foot. That’d be really scary.

6. ’Salem’s Lot

Jerusalem’s Lot, ’Salem’s Lot for short, an unsuspecting idyllic town in Maine, is infested with vampires.

There’s a scene in the film Rosemary’s Baby in which Minnie, the elderly next door neighbor and (spoiler alert) devil worshipper, is covertly speaking on the phone. The director framed the shot so that only her back is visible, and the rest of her body is hidden behind a wall in the foreground. In the theater, whenever this particular shot came on screen, the audience collectively tilted their heads to the right, momentarily forgetting that they can’t peer around a two-dimensional image, anxious to catch a glimpse of this secret conversation.

A long-winded analogy to say: That’s how it feels reading ’Salem’s Lot. King lets the action build and build and build, but always cuts away right before the big reveal, leaving the reader desperately trying to peer behind an immovable curtain. When Mike Ryerson feels Danny Glick’s dead eyes watching him through his sealed coffin and takes it upon himself to open it, King ends the scene just as we see Danny Glick’s wide, glittering eyes. When Mark Petrie invites a vampire into his room, we don’t see it. We hear it from Father Callahan’s perspective downstairs, and that simple whispered invitation, coming from the second floor, no less, is chilling.

5. Night Shift

Stephen King’s first short story collection is also his best. Many of the 20 tales were originally published in men’s magazines such as Cavalier and Penthouse in the early 70s.

A group of mill workers encounter a horde of mutated rats the size of terriers while cleaning a derelict basement in “Graveyard Shift.” A shady organization will help you quit your addiction by any means necessary in “Quitters, Inc.” A man rapidly turns into a repugnant, grey blob with a craving for human flesh in “Gray Matter.” An astronaut begins sprouting eye balls on his body after being exposed to a space mutagen in “I Am the Doorway.”

These early works are simple but effective. Pure, unleaded horror. Creatures that squirm and squelch and titter. Things that lurk in the darkness. Released the same year as The Stand, King proves he can conquer both long, expansive horror and short-form, poignant scares.

4. Pet Sematary

Many Constant Readers, and King himself, consider Pet Sematary his most gruesome work. So gruesome, in fact, that King never intended it to hit shelves. The book was published out of necessity in 1983 to settle a contract dispute with Doubleday.

The book is based on two real-life inspirations. The first was a spit of land labeled “Pet Sematary” near his house in Orrington, Maine, where he had to bury his daughter’s cat, Smucky, after it was hit by a truck. The second inspiration was King’s 2-year-old son running toward the same road outside their home while a large truck was barreling through, the boy tripping just short of the pavement.

In the novel, the boy (Gage Creed) is struck by the Orono truck, and Louis, his father, takes it upon himself to bury his son beyond the Pet Sematary in a Native American burial ground capable of resurrection, but the Gage that returns is a shell of his former self, physically gnarled and violent.

The book is one of King’s most well-paced, cohesive reads. The sense of emptiness he’s able to convey in both the re-animated Church (the family cat) and the re-animated Gage creates a sense of unpredictability. The scenes walking through the forest are some of the best descriptions in any work published by the master of horror. You’re not simply reading about Louis Creed’s trek, you’re stepping across damp leaves with him, you’re smelling the dank must of the forest, you’re hearing unknown creatures stirring all around you.

For anyone seeking more goosebumps, be sure to listen to the audiobook of Pet Sematary narrated by Michael C. Hall, the titular character of Dexter.

3. The Shining

I’ve read The Shining three times, and each time I check into the Overlook Hotel, I’m more scared than the last. Jack Torrance, a struggling alcoholic, is at his wit’s end after being fired from his teaching position at Stovington Prep and is hungry for a fresh start as the winter caretaker of a secluded resort. Unfortunately, the sentient hotel — with a rich history of murder, mafia dealings, and debauchery — is just as hungry for Jack. During the winter of ’75, the only guests are Jack, his wife Wendy and his son Danny. The five-year-old Danny Torrance possesses a psychic ability referred to as “shining” that allows him to communicate telepathically and achieve glimpses into the rustic hotel’s storied past. The Overlook will stop at nothing to acquire Danny’s gift, using Jack as a conduit for their wicked agenda.

The iconography of The Shining has become famous in popular culture, though fans who’ve only seen the 1980 Stanley Kubrick adaptation may be surprised to learn that many of the recognizable motifs, such as the twins, the hedge maze, and “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy” do not appear in the novel. King famously didn’t care for the Jack Nicholson-led film, citing the actor’s eccentric portrayal of Jack Torrance from his first appearance on screen. King saw Torrance as a reflection of himself, a genuinely good man desperately attempting to ward off his personal demons for the sake of his family.

Anyone brave enough to open this genre-defining 1977 work will understand why Joey Tribbiani of Friends had to put it in the freezer.

2. Misery

Published in 1987, a decade after The Shining, Misery saw a triumphant return to King’s brand of snowbound isolation horror. Author Paul Sheldon falls victim to debilitating leg injuries following a car accident, but rest assured, his self-proclaimed #1 fan, Annie Wilkes, is there to mend him back to health. After Annie reads Paul’s latest installment of his Misery series and discovers the main character, Misery Chastain, has been killed off, she becomes irate, and Paul receives a glimpse of the malignant evil lurking beneath the matronly facade of Annie Wilkes.

As mentioned earlier, King excels when crafting human monsters, and the seemingly docile Annie Wilkes is without a doubt his most formidable. The dread Annie inspires lies in her truculent temper and incongruous attitudes toward wrongdoing, adamantly against the use of profanity, only venturing as far as “dirty bird” and “cockadoodie brat,” but willing to inflict diabolical pain with complete stoicism.

The novel is a masterclass in percolating tension, and the whole time, you’ll want to read it at arm’s length. When the action explodes, it delivers in the form of King’s most violent, creative scenes ever put to page.

1. IT

A sprawling, 1,153 page masterpiece, IT is undeniably King’s scariest story. In the mid-80s, King had been deemed the “master of modern horror.” Though he didn’t seek out the title, claiming he never intended to be a genre author and only wrote whatever he found interesting, he leaned into the public’s perception and set out to create a horror magnum opus.

How could IT not be #1 on the list when It, whose preferred appearance is Pennywise the Dancing Clown, can take the form of our worst fears? The Creature from the Black Lagoon, a mummy, a leper, a bird of prey, the werewolf from I Was a Teenage Werewolf, the shark from Jaws, and a giant oleaginous spider, to name a few.

In the town of Derry, Maine, Pennywise plagues the Loser’s Club in 1958 and again in 1985, 27 years later. The seven members of the Loser’s Club are the most well-written and relatable characters King has ever conceived, exploring our childhood fears like mummies and werewolves, and adult fears like love and loss. King forces you to see yourself in the characters and then thrusts us into the dark subterranean underworld of It.

Yes, the book is over 1,100 pages, but the benefit of such a long journey is that no matter how many times you read IT, scares you forgot about will creep up on you.

Stephen King’s Most Spine-Chilling Reads