The logic being, “I’ve already seen the movie how much scarier can the original story be?” I could have sworn that about midway into the story, I actually read the sentence “ This much scarier,” but upon recently re-reading the story I can’t seem to find that sentence anywhere. I decided to press on, choosing “Children of the Corn” next. This felt like leaving the state-of-the-art theme park that has thoroughly safety-tested thrill rides to go to a traveling carnival that’s only open at night and full of dilapidated deathtraps operated by part-time madmen. Reading “The Bogeyman” wasn’t like going from the kiddie-coaster to riding the latest, fastest steel roller coaster. Ah dammit… I shouldn’t have kept my gun in there. I’m a grown-ass-man, and I still have trouble sleeping if the closet door in my bedroom is even slightly open.
It simply wanted to frighten you because “screw you, you picked up the book yes you deserve to be afraid, and I hope you never sleep again.” It wasn’t the kind of story that wanted to frighten you because it could, or because it was showing off, or because it was trying to make some sort of commentary on society, or because it was reveling in its own shock value. The only story I can recall having a bigger impact on me at a younger age was Robert Bloch’s excellent “Sweets to the Sweet,” but while Bloch’s story–with its lovely, gruesome ending–felt clever and sinister, “The Boogeyman” felt earnestly brutal.
At that point in my life, I had read my share of “adult” horror stories, but I wasn’t one of these guys who had read the complete works of Lovecraft and Matheson by the time he was ten. Instead of starting at the beginning, I decided to read the story “The Boogeyman” first. It’s a lean, vicious tale that flattened me like a stampede. Given that I was already exceptionally susceptible to nightmares, it’s likely that I feared that reading stories coming straight from King’s brain–as opposed to stories delivered from page to screen by some other party–would be more harrowing than I was ready to endure. I’m not sure why I had avoided it until then.
I had never looked twice at that book until the summer before I entered Junior High. My folks had a copy of Night Shift sitting on the bookshelf. As a young horror fan I was, of course, already familiar with King’s work through film and television adaptations of his stories. I considered myself a fan of his, but at twelve-years-old I hadn’t actually read any of his books yet.
Then again, I might be a bit biased, since Night Shift is the first Stephen King book that I read. Stephen King’s first collection of short horror stories might still be his best.
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