Let’s take a moment to explore a trio of stories from a seminal collection by America’s (and arguably the world’s) most-revered living horror writer. Although this year marks Skeleton Crew’s fortieth anniversary, it remains a storytelling model that exemplifies Stephen King’s talent for injecting menace into the mundane, writing concisely with a minimal number of characters (though he can certainly handle a huge cast), and making the most of a looming threat.
A fall swim with young adults just entering the prime of their lives. A toy monkey. A grandmother. These things are all supposed to bring joy, but not in the master’s hands.
In “The Raft”, four young adults get trapped on a raft in the middle of a remote lake. The terror floating around them is neither human nor animal, neither ghost nor monster. It is, rather, an amorphous blob of… stuff, toxic stuff with some kind of awareness. And King repeatedly reminds the reader that something bad is going to happen.
The story explores the chummy dynamic – they call each other Pancho and Cisco – between the brainy Randy and the more athletic Deke. Randy, whose perspective the story is told from, is not all that impressed with his girlfriend LaVerne. She has the hots for Deke, who is all but done with his girl Rachel.
The blob, with its mesmerising colours, becomes an embodiment of the lust and jealousy that jeopardises these relationships as it crawls across the water. Interesting, too, that King names the story not after the threat but rather after the characters’ one means of support.
“The Monkey” takes the nontraditional monster concept one step further by infusing dread into not only an object but also an object intended to be the opposite of scary: a toy monkey. That’s a bold move.
Protagonist Hal, now an adult, is surprised that the cursed toy, with its clanging cymbals and creepy smile, has resurfaced after he threw it into a well as a child.
King weaves in backstory about Hal and his brother discovering the monkey in their vanished father’s closet. The toy, with its portentous chiming, becomes a representation of that father, the mystery surrounding his disappearance, and what he left behind.
Georgie, the boy protagonist of “Gramma”, keeps watch over his ailing grandmother while his mom takes his brother to the hospital after a baseball game injury. On first read, the story might seem uneventful to a modern reader. But give it another go around, and you will discover a slow burner that grows more terrifying with each page.
As Georgie repeatedly peeks into Gramma’s room, King releases more details about the obese and apparently senile woman: her smell, her flesh, her long fingernails and the sounds they make on the coverlet. Georgie, who has always been afraid of her, suspects something malignant at work.
Backstory filtered through Georgie’s perspective reveals how Gramma is different and aligns the reader with the boy. She gets kicked out of church, for instance, for something to do with books.
He recollects family members expressing apprehension about her through their conversations.
The story’s ending, both shocking and convincing, comments on the hold that our ancestors have on us.
While these are just a few of the gems in Skeleton Crew, they reveal the ingenuity of a master at work, and four decades after their initial publication, they continue to offer lessons in strong writing. ***** Douglas J. Ogurek
You've probably already seen it, Douglas, but in case not 'The Monkey' was released as an independent feature film (directed by Osgood Perkins) in February. I think it's currently on Netflix...
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