Skeleton Crew

by Stephen King

In 1941, before Pearl Harbor paid off the Great Depression in blood,

He didn’t convince Norton, but he convinced some of the leaners and fence sitters—it wasn’t what he said so much as it was his eyes, his haunted eyes. I think Norton’s sanity hinged on not being convinced, or that he thought it did.

One of his followers murmured agreement, but another quietly slipped away. Now there was Norton and four others. Maybe that wasn’t so bad. Christ Himself could only find twelve.

“His eyes were wild enough to make me acutely uneasy. There was no light of sanity left in them, and he reminded me of nothing so much as the battle-fatigued psychotics I had seen carried away in carts from the front lines: husks of men with awful, blank eyes like potholes to hell, mumbling and gibbering.

This time she opened the door, and a cool whisper of October came in through the sheds.