Bonkers "Battleground" highlights the mid-section of Stephen King's Night Shift collection

Here I continue my re-read and review of Stephen King’s classic short-story collection Night Shift, which I ranked as my second-favorite King book.

“Gray Matter” is a great and wild premise wrapped in a simple story. Some old guys are sitting around drinking at the tavern when a boy comes in with a panicky story about his dad, who hasn’t moved from him chair in weeks and only sits in the dark drinking beer. Apparently there had been a bacteria-infected beer in a drinking contest recently and the man has begun to turn rotten. In fact, he’s turned into some sort of man-eating fungus that could end humanity. 4 out of 5 stars

“Battleground” is yet another display of King at his most masterful. (It was also the first episode of the eight-episode TNT series Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, which I did not see, but the whole series is on YouTube and watchable to all, so that is on my list.) A hit man named Renshaw has just finished offing a toy maker when a package arrives. He takes it to his 40th floor San Francisco apartment and when he opens it, an army of G.I. Joe soldiers comes out and begins to fire at him in hopes he’ll surrender. The plot is bonkers and wildly creative, but my favorite part is when he has to walk around the outside ledge of his building to aim for a sneak attack. That’s when my heart really started racing. Before he can Molotov bomb them and escape back out the front door, the army issues a suicidal nuclear blast. One of Renshaw’s bullet-riddled shirt floats down to the street, a couple see it and doesn’t want to deal with it, and they hurry into a taxi. 5 out of 5 stars

“Trucks” is much more brilliant as a short story than as the Maximum Overdrive movie it was adapted into. Six people are trapped inside a truck stop as semi trucks and other large vehicles like a bulldozer - with no drivers - take on a life of their own. The trucks are out for the blood of the humans and the story ends by painting a colorful picture of what it will be like in a truck-ruled future. 4.5 out of 5 stars

“Sometimes They Come Back” tells the story of Jim, who has suffered nightmares for years since his brother was brutally murdered in front of him when they were kids. Finally starting to find a better life, he gets married and becomes a school teacher, but then the three boys who killed his brother one by one enter his class as transfers, having oddly and creepily not aged. They have come back to kill Jim, but Jim performs a demon ritual that summons a beast in the form of his dead brother. I won’t spoil the rest. It’s a good idea for a story, has a bit of a Stand by Me tone, and is pulled off pretty well by King. 4 out of 5 stars