Now that I've seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, I can't even take my opinions on the web seriously.

It's also an argument for anonymity.

What, you don't want the convenience of having belligerent assholes looking to be beat up delivered to your front door?

Y'know how I've been very cynical about Stephen King turning into a hack in his later years, churning out ream after ream of rambling, unscary pages? Well, I have to take some of it back.

I just bought his recent short story collection Everything's Eventual and the story "1408" scared me, to the point that I was jumping at rustling plastic bags in my back seat last night. And after decades of Barker, Lovecraft, and Chambers fandom I am Not Easily Spooked.

I don't know if it's my recent personal connection to the haunted hotel room trope (though mine wasn't scary), the fact that the short story form suits him better, or the possibility that a brush with death and months of misery and pain put him back in touch with what's scary, but King turns in some damn good work in that anthology.

but King turns in some damn good work in that anthology.

Really? I had despaired of him ever writing anything really worthwhile for the genre again.

It was a short story of his that was actually the first King thing I ever read. I remember it vividly, a magazine piece, I think in Esquire, like, 30 years ago. A scifi-horror piece called "I Am The Doorway".

Scared the tar out of me. I kept checking between my fingers for alien eyeballs.

King's short stories are the worst, in the way one likes to pay for.

I'm still freaked out by The Mist, and I last read it 20 years ago.

King's short stories are the worst, in the way one likes to pay for.

"You have been - deleted."

Jeepers. And that one? Had a happy ending.

I'm still freaked out by The Mist, and I last read it 20 years ago.

10 for me, but it was the previous contender for Scariest King Story before I read "1408." The man should have been a contemporary of Lovecraft to join in the formation of the Cthulhu Mythos—he and Ramsey Campbell are the only modern authors I can think of who can do work that's similar in both motif and quality (though until this week I thought King lost the touch long ago).

I agree that King's short works can be very, very good and very, very scary.

"Apt Pupil" is the scariest King Short story I've ever read. Eek. And way scarier than the movie, I suppose, goes without saying.

I seem to be more susceptible to unnatural horror than the reality-based sort. As awful as the progression of "Apt Pupil" was, it didn't tell me anything worse than what I'd already read in true life accounts of war crimes.

I can see that, and yes, obviously you're right. Real war crimes are much worse. Maybe it was just timing, when I read it.